Packing for a camping trip? Make a list, check it twice

Packing for a camping trip often feels like a no-win situation.

Half the time it feels like you’re hauling along everything you own – it seems as though it would make more sense to watch a video of a fire on the TV and save the gas money, because at least then you could reach into the fridge and all the beers would always be cold. And then there are those trips where you wonder what you were thinking about when you loaded up, because every ten minutes you remember something you forgot.

What to do? Well, the best thing is to make a pack list.

I know, it sounds so…organized. But think about it: Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you went on a camping trip, all you had to do was print out a tidy little list of all the things you needed to take, so that you could check them off as you pack?

There are several websites that offer pre-assembled pack lists, and those are great starting points (Go Camping America has a printable PDF that works nicely). You will probably find, as I did, that these lists require a bit of customizing for your own situation. Over the years, I’ve also found that we need pack lists for different types of trips – we have separate rosters for RV trips, car camping trips, back-country trips, trips where we’ll be mountain biking, river rafting, etc.

The easiest thing to do is start the lists on a computer, naming them according to the type of trip – which  for us means we can then cut-and-paste lists for larger trips, such as when we’ll be mountain biking on a car camping trip.  

We put two lines next to each item, so that we can make a check mark if it’s an item that we’ll need to take, and then mark it off when it’s been packed. It looks something like this:

Cooking

___ ___ propane stove

___ ___ coffee pot

___ ___ Dutch oven

___ ___ utensils

What’s also helpful about the pack list system is that you can print out separate lists for every member of the family, so that kids can pack their own clothes, games and other items. For younger kids, you can always check up on them, but older kids will appreciate some autonomy – they know the basic types of items they need to bring, but they can make decisions about the exact ones. Don’t forget the things you’ll need for the pets, vehicle maintenance and first aid.

At the end of each trip, maybe on the drive home, you can make notes about things you wish you had brought – one of the kids can have a notebook out to jot them down – and then you can add those items to the lists later.

The roadtripster is the handle of a longtime Coloradan who travels the country by any means possible, sometimes in an RV, sometimes car camping or in the backcountry, with kids and without.