Camping With Teenage Kids… The Easy Way

Camping with family is one of the greatest past times you can create. It’s a chance to bond with one another in a completely new environment, get to know each other a little better, laugh with each other and enjoy the great outdoors. Saying that camping with teenage children is a whole other ball game. In fact, doing anything with teenage kids can be wholly unpredictable, but camping, wow.

However, if you get it right, this could become a family tradition, an event that happens four times a summer, weekends that the whole family looks forward to and gets stuck in, a chance for them to escape the humdrum existence of staring at screens.

So, here is a few tips on how to get it right the first time:

Location, location, location

Know your kid’s interests and go from there. Seriously, if you can get this bit right you are in for a treat. If they’re into the idea of a relaxed weekend where you immerse yourself in all things nature and feed off the land, then look for sites where you can go fishing, a lake or a river. If it’s the beach life and paddling in the water, then that’s where you should be heading. If it’s getting on the bikes and hitting some trails, then research where you can pitch up and ride.

Go The Whole Hog

Whether you are going old school and camping in tents or taking out the campervan, try and bring along a spare tent that you can designate as the sort of community space. This will be handy for any day trips out, acting as a little rain shelter or sun protector. But don’t stop there. Pack a couple of hammocks that you can string in between trees, a place to stare at the stars or read a book. Take a selection of balls to play with outside your campervan – footballs, tennis balls, volleyballs, basketballs, cricket balls – although it may be handy if you have the number for a 24h glass repair service, you know, just in case someone gets a little too enthusiastic with their shot toward ‘goal’. Hang up some gorgeous little fairy lights and reading lamps, and don’t forget to take a decent speaker with a full battery.

It’s All About The Food

This is it, your chance to have fun with food. It doesn’t matter if you’ve brought a huge barbecue grill with you or if you’re going with one-pot meals. And try something new, get creative, like barbecuing bananas, making weird alternative cheese toasties, that sort of thing. Camping is all about fun cooking, so the more fun you have with your recipes the better. However, don’t neglect the campfire classics, namely marshmallows.

The Must-Have

Yes, it’s a campfire. Without a campfire, camping is pointless. This is the hub, the place you hang out when the sun goes down, share stories, enjoy a drink, cook, joke and try to play the guitar; all of those wonderfully cliched things that will make you bond as a family.