45 Best Camping Activities That Make the Most of the Great Outdoors
Put down the devices and get ready for these fun games that are sure to entertain.
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With COVID-19 numbers that rise and fall like the stock market, it's hard to plan your next family trip. But one thing that's been consistent these past couple years is that outdoor activities are lower risk than indoor ones, so maybe it's time to break out the tent, pack up the fishing gear, and go on a family camping trip. Once you're settled into your campsite, you'll have nothing but beautiful scenery, fresh air and lots of bonding time ahead of you.
But how do you fill those hours, especially if your kids are used to having nonstop wi-fi to keep them connected and entertained? It's time to think back to your days at sleepaway camp, and break out the analog camping activities and camping games. During the day, you can spend your hours doing lawn games, or find ways to explore the wilderness through scavenger hunts, treasure searches and orienteering activities. Then, when it gets dark, you'll probably have to stick close to the campfire, so be sure to bring plenty of outdoor-appropriate card and family board games, along with party activities like charades and storytelling activities. And, of course, anything that glows in the dark is fair game for nighttime competitions! When you're done, they're not going to miss the wi-fi.
Discover Letterboxing
Across the country, people hide "letterboxes" in public places, like parks, and leave clues as to where to find them. If you decipher the clues, you'll find a box with a logbook where you can leave your personal stamp to prove you've been there. You can check to see if there's a letterbox stashed near your campsite, and check out the basics of how to get started.
Go Bird-Watching
Like knitting before it, bird-watching is one of those grandma-and-grandpa hobbies that's experiencing a resurgence in coolness. Grab some binoculars and see how many different species you can spot.
Have a Cornhole Competition
The best thing about cornhole is that anyone can grab a challenger and wander over to start a game. If you have room enough to bring a set with you, can keep a running tally of wins and losses for the duration of your trip to crown an ultimate winner in the end.
RELATED: 15 Fun Lawn Games for Some Serious Backyard Competition
Tell Campfire Stories
Gather around the blaze and spin out your best yarns. Stumped? This deck of story starters, with prompts like, "tell a story about a time when you were in danger but didn't know it," will get things rolling. There's also a deck for kids.
Play Capture the Flag
You'll need brains, speed and stamina to win at this one. In case you don't remember the rules: Split up into two teams and designate an area for each. Each team hides a flag in their own area, and the object is to find the other team's flag and bring it back to your team's territory. Any player in the opposing team's territory can be tagged and put in "jail," and a teammate has to come tag them to rescue them. Get ready to sharpen those teamwork skills!
Go Stand-Up Paddleboarding
See if there is a place near your campsite where you can rent stand-up paddleboarding equipment. You'll work on your balance and core strength while getting to soak in some views.
Pass the Pigs
This game won a Good Housekeeping 2020 Toy Award for its ability to delight kids and adults alike. Players roll two dice in the shape of pigs, and points are awarded based on the position they're in when they land. It doesn't require much — just the pigs, a pencil and a scorecard — so it easily slips into a backpack.
Play Flashlight Tag
It's like hide-and-seek — in the dark! Whoever is "It" has to shine their flashlight on the hider once they've been found. (Just be sure kids are old enough so they don't get lost too far away from your campsite.)
Make Friendship Bracelets
Go back to the camp days of your youth and break out the embroidery string to make your own creations. When you're done, you'll have a memento of the trip.
Skip Stones
Whether you call it "skipping stones" or "skimming rocks," it's a little thrill when you find the perfect flat rock and watch it hop across the water. See who in your party can get a stone to skip the most number of times.
Play Ring Toss
This ring toss game has more than 4,100 5-star reviews on Amazon for its fun factor and its ability to be packed away easily into a carrying case. To up the challenge, you can try a glow-in-the-dark ring-toss game, or DIY your own with glow sticks and water bottles.
Go on a Hike
Find a trail, chart a course and go! Hiking gets your body moving and puts you out in nature, and basically embodies all the reasons to go camping in the first place.
Play Charades or Celebrity
Charades is simple: People write down clues on a piece of paper, and players have to act them out and get their teammates to guess their clue without saying a word. Once you've mastered Charades, you can move on to Celebrity, where all the clues have to be a famous person (real, fictional, alive or dead). The game is then played in three rounds.
Round 1: Players can urge their teammates to guess their clue using words as hints, so long as the words are not written on the paper (like Taboo).
Round 2: Once all the clues from Round 1 are guessed, the same papers go back in the bowl for Round 2. This time, players can only use a single word as a hint for their teammates.
Round 3: The same papers go back in the bowl again, and the last round is a wordless charades round. No talking!
Try Fishing
Bait your hook, cast your line and see if you have any luck. In the end, it doesn't even matter if you catch a big one — you'll remember the conversations and the bonding time.
Arrange a Scavenger Hunt
Get kids to really notice nature by challenging them to spot different animals, trees, leaves and plants. If you want, you can distribute paper bags and get the kids to collect some of the items, and then make an art project with their findings.
RELATED: 22 Fun Scavenger Hunt Ideas to Keep Your Kids Guessing
Do Mad Libs
Mad Libs have been around forever, and yet they never get old. Young and old alike find themselves giggling over the silly fill-in-the-blank stories that result from naming random nouns, verbs or adjectives.
Go Tubing
Pick out a fun float, paddle yourself out into a sunny spot and just relax — isn't that why you went camping to begin with?
Spot Constellations
You don't even need a telescope to try out some stargazing. If you're not practiced at identifying different planets and constellations, there are plenty of apps that can tell you what you're looking at — and many of them are even free.
Play Cards
Hold 'em, Spit or even Solitaire, what's your game? No matter what you choose, stick a pack of waterproof playing cards into your backpack and you'll never be stuck for something to do.
Sketch What You See
There's a long, artistic tradition of creating masterpieces en plein air, out in the open of nature. Pack some sketchbooks and art supplies, find a picturesque spot and see if inspiration strikes.
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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