Car Camping Basics

Car camping is great fun! Driving off to a convenient campsite is a brilliant way to get away from the stresses of everyday life. Setting up a cool place to hang out for a day or two heightens your anticipation of the relaxation. Breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the beautiful scenery are fantastic ways to create times of rest in life.

For some people, the camping experience is brand new. Knowing where to start isn’t easy. There are hundreds of websites and blog posts to look at it. How do you get from deciding to go camping to walking out the door?

Start here. These top four tips for car camping beginners will help you get out the door and on your first camping trip.

Tip #1 – Choose the Right Place for You

Deciding to go camping is a great thing to do. Loading the car and leaving the house is a bit harder. One of the first choices you need to make is where to go.

For car campers, the choices are nearly endless. You can camp almost anywhere. Just park your car, get your stuff out, and get your camping groove on. Of course, this isn’t ideal for most people. There are important things to think about when you choose your site. These will help you decide on the best place to pitch your tent.

Who’s Camping?

How many people are in your party? What are their ages? What is their activity and ability level?

Camping with kids is vastly different to camping without them. More mature people who want to sit around a campfire overlooking a lake will camp there. Young, active people who want to climb mountains should camp near mountains. When you choose a campsite, try to choose one suitable for what you want to do. It’s perfectly fine to pick a place with a playground and set the kids free. Watch them from a distance while you pop open a cold one. The kids will love it.

In the same way, if you want to camp with only adults then go ahead. Choose a site without a lot of kid-friendly stuff or choose somewhere far away from other campers.

What Will You Do for Fun?

Time outdoors goes by super fast. One axiom to remember is this:

Everything takes longer outdoors.

Cooking takes longer. Washing takes longer. Sleeping can take longer. You will want to plan for normal activities to take longer than you might think.

In your time around the campsite, what will you do to entertain yourself? If you have kids, what will they do while you’re cooking the food or washing the dishes?

Choosing the right campsite means picking a place you can enjoy all day long. A great view with a relaxing outdoor vibe is exactly what many adults need to relax. A busy playground seventy yards away with kids from other families all mixing together is like a little paradise for most kids.

Once you’re ready to leave the campsite, you’re not going to want to travel for ages to get where you want to go. If fishing is your preferred playtime, then camp near a lake or river. If hiking is your hobby, then camp near the trailhead. The idea is to already be at your destination. Nobody wants to travel somewhere to camp only to have to travel somewhere else to have fun.

What Can’t You Do Without?

Campsites have a huge range of available amenities. Try to picture yourself out in the woods or in the country. Does your picture include a shower room? Is there a kitchen in your picture? Can you trade a toilet for trees and holes for a few days?

Don’t choose a campsite guaranteed to make you suffer! If you must have coffee in the morning, then choose a place where you can get your coffee fix or boil your own water. If you want to stay out for a week with the kids, you might want to choose somewhere with laundry facilities or bring a portable washing machine.

Plan for the comforts you need. Even if you’re content with trees and holes, don’t forget the toilet paper and shovel. Camping with coffee a method for boiling water. Bring it with you or make sure it’s already there on the site.

Where Can You Look for Suggestions?

Many people want to help you find a great place to camp. Of course, some of these people also want your money. Here are a few mostly neutral places you can look for ideas.

The US National Park Service (USNPS) offers some helpful information for car campers who want a nice campground. You can read their Frontcountry Camping guide. Camping at a US NPS site is simple. You book a place, drive into the park, go around the camping loop to your spot, park the car, and pitch up.

The sites are going to be well-maintained. There will probably be Park Rangers available or even on patrol. Other features such as playgrounds and on-site amenities may be present.

For those who want to get farther out, you can park your car and go into the backcountry. The USNPS has a great guide for this as well. The short story is you can usually camp just about anywhere but you should plan your trip carefully.

Places To Camp?

Our website offers a number of “Best Camping” locations. Check out our tent camping locations page by clicking here. If your location is not found just find local campsites online and give them a call. They will provide you with the best possible information for camping nearby.

Tip #2 – Bring the Right Shelter

All camping trips require a choice about a shelter. You can camp in an RV. You can camp in a tent or under a tarp. You can camp in a shelter you build yourself. You can even camp without a shelter in the right places.

Which shelter is the best for you?

Since you already know who is camping with you and where you are going, settling on a shelter is easier. For many groups, a tent is going to be the obvious choice. Here are a few ideas about the right tent for your group.

How much space do you need?

At a minimum, you need space for everyone to sleep. You can stow your gear in the car since you brought it with you. Unless you’re also sleeping in the car, you need room to lie down in your tent.

Plan for at least twelve square feet per person. This is the equivalent of a six-foot-tall person lying down in a space that is twenty-four inches wide. It’s not a huge space but you can get a sleeping bag and mat down. Beyond sleeping space, you will probably want space for your kitchen area, your seating area, and your gear area. One great solution is to bring a separate shelter to accommodate your gear and cooking needs.

Weight isn’t really an issue because your car will carry your gear most of the way to your campsite. Plan for more space under shelter than you think you will need. Taking a simple tarpaulin and extra rope is enough to get some extra shelter in case of rain.

What Do You Want to Set Up?

There are some marvellous camping palaces on the market. These gargantuan, portable, outdoor chalets hold loads of people and gear. They might also take half an hour to set up and another hour to organize.

Campers who want the total glamping experience will love a complicated campsite setup. Fussing over the best place to put the extra cushions and wine rack is going to be part of their relaxation process. If you’re not even sure what glamping is, you can read the our “What is Glamping? Step by Step Guide” article here.

Other campers, especially those with kids, may want a simple setup. The kids will want to jump out of the car and start having fun right away. An hour and a half of work to get the campsite ready might be the opposite of relaxing for everyone. Plan for your set up. Practice it at home. Think of the time you will spend getting your camp ready as the beginning of your camping trip. Make it enjoyable.

What Will You Do When It Rains?

At some point, it will rain while you are camping. If it doesn’t rain, then it is going to snow. Coping with the weather is why you bring a shelter in the first place.

10 of the Best Family Tents for Bad Weather

Before you buy a tent, have a look at our buying guides. Your shelter is going to be your most critical purchase for staying healthy and happy in all kinds of weather. Some great features to include are:

A high hydrostatic head rating to keep the water out (here’s an explanation of waterproofing and testing)
Extra space around the sleeping area for lounging during foul weather
A vestibule or extra room for chairs and games for everyone
Separate rain covers can be removed once the rain stops to dry faster

Bring along some activities for everyone. Board games can be good if they don’t have too many tiny pieces to lose. Card games are even better. Books are a classic go-to camping activity. Choose something to keep people engaged and entertained.

Tip #3 – Happiness Is A Good Night’s Sleep

One of the most common complaints about camping is about terrible sleep. Poor sleep happens for a few reasons. To help you sleep beautifully, here are the three major sleep disruptors and strategies for beating them.

Why Are You So Cold?

The biggest cause of camping-induced sleep deprivation is probably the cold. C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has a great guide on why people get cold. You can read it for general safety. One piece of advice from the hospital concerns conduction.

Conduction happens when you’re sleeping on a cold surface. If you sleep on the ground, then the ground will make you cold. Your sleeping bag might be fluffy on top of you, but your body’s weight will crush the fluffiness beneath you.

To stay warm, always think bottom first. Pack a thick sleeping pad or an inflatable mattress. Bring along an extra quilt or blanket just to put beneath you. If you use a camp bed, then you still need a layer of insulation beneath you to prevent convection (air stealing your body heat).

Where Did All the Rocks Come From?

The second serious cause of a bad night of sleep is the discomfort of sleeping on rocks, sticks, tree roots and humps in the ground. These cause pressure points which, in turn, cause you to toss and turn all night.

To fix this, you can do two things.

First, prepare your sleeping site carefully. Take five or ten minutes with a broom or brush to sweep the area where you will sleep. If the ground is bumpy, then look around for a natural material such as pine needles, boughs or something else to help fill in the low spots. This extra time will be richly rewarded when you wake up refreshed the next morning.

Second, plan for the bumps. Bring along a super thick yoga mat as an extra insulator and cushion from the ground. Simple folding camp beds are great for completely eliminating this problem. Air mattresses are also good, but they can be unreliable.

What Are All Those Noises?

Being outdoors can be spooky for beginners. Noises fill the night from all directions. Squeaks, cries, squawks and even shrieks are all made by innocent animals who mean you no harm. The wind causes branches to rub against each other, leaves to rustle and even makes dead branches fall out of trees with a crash.

To sleep more securely, and to help your little ones do the same, you can do a few things.

Have torches or lanterns ready. Light beats darkness. A creepy noise in the middle of the night becomes far less scary when the flashlight shows it’s just a squirrel in the leaves.

Play some night noise at home for your kids. Snuggle up in bed one night at home and put on some forest sounds. Talk with your kids about what makes those noises. This short guide to nocturnal atlasing will give you some ideas. Freetone.org also has many free animal sounds you can download.

If noise is a massive problem for you, then just bring along some headphones or ear muffs. Camping purists might be horrified by this idea. Unless they’re sharing a tent with you, then who cares? Do what you need to do in order to sleep well.

Tip #4 – Fuel Your Adventures

You are probably going to have to eat at some point. After a full day of hiking, fishing, playing or just lounging, you will want to put delicious fuel into your belly. Camping, even with a car, makes this slightly more challenging than a quick trip to McDonald’s.

As a general rule, remember:

Everything takes longer outdoors.

Cooking and eating are included. For example, enjoying a nice cup of soup at homes requires less than five minutes to open and pour the soup, nuke it in the microwave, and then eat it. At a campsite, this might mean setting up a pot to cook the soup, lighting a stove to heat the soup, and then eating it afterward.

Food safety is important outdoors. An upset tummy can ruin a kid’s weekend. Food poisoning can curtail anyone’s camping trip. The USDA offers some great guidelines for camping food safety.

With that in mind, you can follow use these ideas to make food prep easier.

What Can You Take with You?

One of the best tips ever for food prep while car camping is also super simple. Take your first meal with you. Cook it at home, put it in something to keep it warm and then get on the road.

Use a large Thermos or two to keep some soup hot during your journey. Slice up a baguette and enjoy soup and bread. Add in some cheese and crackers and you’ve got a nice meal without any prep time.

Look for a small cooler to keep food hot as well. Strange as it sounds, hot spaghetti will stay hot enough to eat in your Thermos or small cooler as well. Handy hot soup camping containers can be filled at home with anything and they’ll be ready when you get there.

How Will You Cook Everything Else?

There are at least two different methods for cooking outdoors. You can bring a fire, or you can build a fire. Unless you’re keen on fire building, you should probably bring a stove of some kind.

Cooking on a camp stove is simple and very similar to cooking at home. You need one or two extra things, though. Bring along a table or camp kitchen to elevate your burner. This is safer around children and more comfortable for adults. Pack a wind screen of some kind. Small breezes reduce the efficiency of gas stoves.

Of course, if you’re using a gas camp stove, bring along extra gas bottles. Store them safely when you’re not using them.

Why Are You Cooking?

This looks like such a basic question. Everyone needs to eat! However, what you eat is affected by a few things such as your available time, your nutrition needs and your taste.

Try to plan all your meals in advance. Budget enough time for cooking everything. Including one or two fancy meals can really lift everyone’s spirits.

Some foodies want to fuss over their camp cooking. There are some great resources for brilliant meals while outdoors. You could start with this great podcast from NPR. Take some time to be creative if that’s your thing.

Whatever you enjoy, being outdoors means you might need more of it. An advisory article by Princeton University suggests you might need as much as double your normal caloric intake. Active kids who are climbing trees, running through the fields, or exploring the river, are going to need more snacks.

Final Thoughts

These top four tips for car camping beginners will help you enjoy your first few forays into the wild. To set yourself up for success, plan what you will do. Use your imagination to think through your trip. Ask other campers questions to help build up your knowledge.

Most importantly, just get out there! Camping is a great way to relax, refresh yourself, and let the kids burn off some steam.

How To Go Car Camping For The First Time | 4 Huge Tips