Fun Camping Games the Kids Will Love

If camping is on your family’s activity list this season, check out this list of games from us at Pottery Barn Kids. These exciting camping activities are fun for all ages. You can easily adapt them to create new games, too!

Obstacle Course    

Set up an obstacle course for the kids with things around the camp site or brought from home. Obstacles don’t have to be super-complicated to be fun. Jumping over or crawling under a picnic table, walking three times around the fire pit or carrying logs to the campfire could all be “obstacles.”

Nature Scavenger Hunt 

Perhaps the most classic of the outdoor camping games is the nature scavenger hunt. Start with a list of items to find in nature or in and around the campground. Each child receives a list and sets off around the grounds to find the items. The child or team of children who are the first to return with all of the items on the list is the winner. Alternatively, you and your family might be camping in an area that discourages removing anything that’s there naturally – or you simply would prefer not to. Another option is to do the scavenger hunt with digital cameras. Everything is the same as a traditional scavenger hunt except for one rule. Rather than collecting the items on the list, the kids take pictures of them. In this version of the game, the first child or team to arrive back with pictures of all of the items is the winner.

Keep a Field Journal  

A field journal is a great way to get kids to engage with the world around them while on a camping trip. You can also modify this to suit younger kids. Start with a blank journal, which you can either buy or make with paper and twine. Let the ages and stages of the children on the camping trip guide your approach with this.

Younger children can use the journal to draw what they see in and around camp or to draw their favorite activities. Older children can add their thoughts and ideas about what they’ve seen, the sounds they’ve heard or things they’ve discovered. The journal can combine drawing and writing. If your child will be using the journal for drawing or sketching, gather the needed materials like pencil crayons or watercolor paints. Get a small pail for each child and add the journals, art supplies and some small binoculars.

A nature journal can serve as a wonderful prompt for continued learning after the camping trip. Once home, older kids can visit the library or do research online to learn more about what they’ve seen and discovered.

Rainy Day Explorers    

Just because it’s raining outside doesn’t mean you need to stay in the tent all day! Assuming you’ve brought rain gear and extra clothing for everyone to change into later, have fun splashing in puddles and mucking through the woods in the rain. There’s much to discover on a rainy day in the woods. The colors are brighter. The textures and smells are different. You could also make a rainy-day-themed scavenger hunt to include things that might only be possible to find on a wet day.

Campfire Story Games    

At the end of a long day of fun camping games, gather around the campfire for some cozy story time. Kids tend to be natural storytellers, so let them take the lead. Or if you want to make a game of it, have one person start the story with one sentence. The next person has to pick up from there, the third person does the same and so on.

Hide and Seek    

Don’t forget to think of some of the games you play at home. The only thing that could be more fun than playing hide and seek at home is playing hide and seek out in nature. Kids can use the whole campsite to explore and find small spaces to hide. This is a great game to play early in your camping trip to help everyone get to know the surroundings. Be sure to let everyone know the boundaries to stay within ahead of time. That way, no one gets lost or too difficult to find.