201 Camping Tips and Tricks For Beginners! (Easy Hacks)

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1. I cook anything that I would make at home. The big difference is, I do all the prep work ahead of time and store in plastic bags. So say I want burritos one night. I make a double batch at home of beans and whatever meat. We eat them that night and I store the rest in the freezer until it’s time to go camping (chop extras of any veggies you use the day before camping and refrigerate). When you get to dinner time at the campsite, layout everything and some foil. Everyone can make their own burrito, wrap it in foil and place on the grate above the fire. Pack long tongs so they can turn their burritos. Think of as many meals like this that you can. Not having a bunch of cooking or dishes cuts down on stress and lets everyone, even Mom and Dad enjoy the camping trip. Boboli pizza crusts and build your own pizzas are great too. Build one and place outside of the direct flames, loosely cover with foil and in a few minutes you have pizza while you camp. Have fun!

2. Make sure you take foods you like and can make easily at a campsite. First time camping is not the place to try fancy foods. Make sure you keep your foods locked up – put them back in the trunk of your car when not in use, never keep them in your tent. Same goes for the dishes – do them right away.

   Easiest camping we’ve ever done was to make sure we had an unbreakable set of dishes, just enough for the number of people to have one of each, a few old pans, a large camping coffee pot for making hot water, a dishpan, some biodegradeable dish soap and a good water supply – take it with you just in case – one towel for dishes, one dishcloth. I take a camping stove and fuel as well; for very little money, you can get a camping oven that goes on top of your stove to make baked goods while camping as well.

   Enjoy your trip!

3. I’m a forester by trade, a SAHM right now, and my husband and I used to own a rustic cabin- no ammenities in the middle of nowhere. One thing I highly recommend is to not be afraid to tell everyone you are going and ask for borrowed or hand me down supplies. MANY MANY of my friends have fabulous ideas about camping and figure out an hour into the trip, its not for them after spending hundreds on gear. We actually have collected duplicate gear and I’ve gotten pretty curvy in my Momma years, I have several fitted beautiful down sleeping bags. You have to realise that camping is not about pretty pink or matching outfits, but its about practical and warm or cool or preparing for the unexpected. And last, always always remember to go with the flow. A freak lightening storm that keeps the kids up all night long is no reason for Mom and Dad to be grumpy the next day for kids that freaked out, clothes that got wet, stuff that actually blew away, its all the reason for an extended naptime and cuddle time watching nature’s beautiful show. Nature will fill every camping trip with unlimited treasures, you just need to find them in ways other than we are used to. Also, I know many rec departments, colleges, and sporting programs loan and rent equipment. The best thing I ever did was rent this ugly, heavy foam sleeping pad before backpacking up a mountain for four days in college!

4. My husband loves backpacking, so we go for freeze dried foods to minimize cooking, but I’ve been saving his MRE’s that he brings home from work to take with us in case we HAVE to eat them. I’m currently trying to plan a trip now so keep the tips coming!

5. Having started camping in a tent, then moved up to a fifth wheel, planning is where it’s at.
   Prep as much as you can at home. Kitchen space is at a premium, and you want to have fun and not spend all your time working!
   A crock pot is a campers best friend. Chopping veggies, etc and putting food in recloseable ziplock bags works great. They will lay flat and take up very little space in a cooler, unlike hard plastic/glass containers.

   1. LOVE the crockpot idea! 🙂

   2. We have used a crock pot from the first trip in our pop up. We now have a pull behind with the same crock pot! Totally necessity in my opinion! 🙂 Something else to consider…get a crock pot with a plastic lid instead of the glass. The glass one shifts too easily going down the road and will break everywhere!

      1. invest in crockpot liners they make clean up a breeze!

      2. Most new crockpots come with clips on the side that lock the lid in place so you can take food with you if you’re camrging close to home. Also we use an electric skillet for a lot of our cooking, really handier than the stove, just set up a table for all your appliances. And cook outdoors in style!

      3. Use oven bags for crockpot and deep fryer liners. As long as your appliance temp doesn’t exceed the oven tip it will work perfectly! You can even lift the bag after it cools to store the leftovers in and reheat.

         1. Love this! Thanks for the tip!

      4. Here’s how to stop that crockpot lid from slips. . I put a dishcloth over the top of the crock, then lay the lid upside-down where it should be, but now it’s on the dishcloth upside-down. I go all over and on some bumpy roads in the camp grounds. Mine hasn’t jumped off yet. Good luck

6. We have an RV and we try to bring as much as possible from the house…example,mayo, mustard, pickles. I raid the freezer and get what I can from there also. Most cases, we know we are going to go camping several months in advance, so I will begin making lists..catching items I want when they are on sale and setting them aside to use in the RV. Depending on your family’s taste, we go from eating hamburgers, to grilling chicken, to steamed fish. We use the microwave and electric skillet a lot (note..this is not dry camping). I also prepare in advance tortillas that have sausage, scrambled eggs and cheese in them. Wrap up in non stick foil, put in freezer..take out as many as you want for trip…stick in microwave. Great breakfast. Don’t have to be camping to use this trick.

   1. i really like the idea of the foil wrapped tortillas how do the eggs hold up after being frozen?

   2. Kay, we do much the same thing…we have camped for years & sometimes we get once a month all summer long!
      We do a lot of foil grilling…quick, easy clean up & it tastes great! We have a small camper, but still do as much as poss. outside.

7. Oh I love to go camping with my family!!

   I asked my kids (ages 16, 14 & 11) what to post and here are their answers…

   Make sure you pack a tooth brush
   Make sure you pack clothes and not just toys (yes, one of them learned from experience)
   Make sure you don’t wear cheap jewelry that will turn your neck green after playing in the water.

   Ok, so their tips are what THEY say…here are mine:

   Use Ziplock bags to store food in. You need to keep your food in a cooler so if you put your stuff in the bags, it won’t get water logged when the ice melts…I dislike using mustard that has water in the spout!

   Keep a bottle of dish soap in your camping supplies so you can wash your cooking supplies.

   Have a flashlight for each person. Place it under your pillow while sleeping so you know where it is for those middle of the night potty calls.

   Flip flops – camp ground showers

   Card games and board games are great! Keep a basket of games in camp supplies to always have handy.

   Have fun!!

   1. Don’t forget extra rolls of toilet paper!

   2. I’ve learned instead of putting ice in your food cooler freeze 12oz plastic bottles & put them all around your food & then I have a seperate cooler for drinks theirs nothing worse than having water logged food. Also I use my big marinating tupperware lid & bottom to store my meats, cheese, butter & in the other one I put my vegetables in it makes it a lot easier when you have to get the food out you just pull out the whole lid

      1. Wow Joanne! The marinating tupperware lid & bottom is a great tip! I’ll certainly be doing that this summer!

      2. We recycle lots of bottles that we freeze and use in the food cooler. They say blocked ice keeps things cold better than cubes. I freeze all our proteins and then we eat whatever order the thaw in.

         1. Great idea! Be flexible and enjoy!

         2. I use the frozen drink bottles for fishing trips too. I keep the fish cold, but also have a drink of water when I’m thirsty.

      3. Wonderful ideas guys! We sometimes go camping where there is NOTHING, no running water, no bathroom, no electricity, no decent roads!Just sand and sea. Its 4×4 country! Very far to the next town. Normally we go during summer. The only means of power in this case is gas and battery power.Here in South Africa you will not find campers using ready-made meals! You have wood, matches, a braai-grid and a dutch-oven or a potjie! The food you pack mutton chops, sausage,chicken,steak,stewing meat. You bake your own bread in you dutch-oven. Veggies would be potatoes, onions,some carrots and cabbage. At first you use the salad-stuff like tomatoes,cucumbers,leaf-salad, but it goes off very fast! The dutch-oven is a must for stews.The lid doubles for a pan for eggs and beacon (You will need a clove to remove from the fire!)Drinking water is very important, a first-aid kit, don’t use inflatable mattresses,they deflate during the night leaving you on the hard ground! Invest in decent stretchers! Remember the sunscreen creams,hats, baby wipes and baby powder.You dont always have water to wash and the wipes comes very handy! Kids with sandy feet in the sleeping bag? Little baby powder and the sea-sand just fall of when applied!Keep meat-tenderizer close by when camping at a swimming beach. It takes the sting out of the blue-bottle burn.
         I LOVE CAMPING!

      4. My family and I have been camping for years and thought we knew most tricks but using the large tupperware for meats, cheeses, etc.,. is the best tip! I do not know why I hadn’t thought of it yet. So much easier than digging through everything trying to find butter or cheese. Thanks!

   3. We save an old mayonnaise jar & crack our eggs into that jar. No matter what you do…the eggs stay whole. We use boxed hasbrown potatoes. It takes about 5 min. to re-hydrate them & they taste wonderful!
      For the ice in the cooler…we leave it in the bag. When it melts, the water doesn’t get every where & the water is still cold enough to keep the food safe. Food in zip lock bags is a must.

      1. We also bring un scented baby wipes. They are great for washing up at night, before bed… we don’t have kids with us, but the baby wipes are still great for us ‘oldsters’…lol

      2. I do what my father always did, reuse old milk containers… Whether they be cardboard or plastic bottles, clean them thoroughly and then fill mostly with water to leave room for freezing.you could leave a couple of frozen ones as they are- and put them in the bottom of the ice chest to help keep things cold and it will help the ice not melt so fast. Otherwise take your frozen container out to the cement in the driveway or something and crash it on the ground there. The cardboard containers or the plastic ones, you just open it up and dump out the crushed ice into your ice chest. And don’t forget to recycle those containers when you’re done.the cardboard ones would usually split open while trying to Crack them, and the plastic ones he usually sliced with a box cutter to open them up.

8. Definitely precook what you can before you go. You can also put food in baggies to help with space. Great idea for cooking eggs ( no clean up)is to put them in a ziploc bag and boil them. Then add cheese or whatever else you need to them!

   1. what kind of foods do you recommend apart from the usual hamburgers and hotdogs

      1. dice potatoes, season and lightly butter and then wrap in foil and place on grill or in fire. grill broccoli. we grill chicken alot.

         1. Hobo packs… from a few years of camping with boyscouts.. just about anykind of meat, veggie potatoe can be wrapped tight in foil pack sprayed with cooking spray and cooked in hot coals…
            We have done taco mixes, sausage and peppers …
            so check out scouting books if your library has them, they will have all kinds of hints and tips in them

      2. When we used to go camping with our children we made foil dinners. They were great and we still do them on our grill. Use heavy duty foil. Use frozen Hamburger, mushrooms, green peppers.thin sliced potatoes, onion, carrots. Whatever you can think of. Put it in your camp fire for about 45 mins. Flip once when cooking fold back the sides of foil and eat.

         Also when its dark buy those glow in the dark necklaces and put them around the kids necks and you will always see them

         1. We love to foil cook. We even bring frozen shrimp and toss that in with pre cut red peppers, white wine, garlic and butter. Couscous is a quick camp stove dish as well. Camping in Michigan during the summer we take advantage of road side veggie stands.

            1. we make boiled omletes take quart freezer bags and put two or three eggs in it and put what ever fixins you want (ham, onion peppers) have a pot of boiling water ready with lid we use turkey fryer works great and about 10 min dump on plate easy omlet everyone loves them

      3. We always pre make our breakfast burritos, cooked scrambled eggs, some shredded cheese, diced bacon, sausage, ham (what ever you like) and some small tater tots. wrap them up in aluminum foil and throw over a fire or in a pan, (we go jeeping 4×4 and put them on the exhaust manifold, and there warm in an hr).
         We also pre make our ground beef, chop up all our essentials ahead and put them in plastic containers or baggies for tacos, burritos, or nachos for a dinner, then just warm up the meat in a pan, rest is done yum! My husband loves to make the wrapped veggie, potatoes and meat in foil its awesomely good while camping!

   2. We do a group camping trip for Father’s Day every year. So getting ready now :). We are making the first night easy on ourselves and picking up pizza in town (the boys say its great there!). We’ll have pre-made at home breakfast burritos. Then sandwiches for the boys while they hike and tacos in chip bags for the kids and moms that stay behind. Brats and pre-marinaded shrimp put on skewers at camp for dinner. Sharing the responsibility for food makes it easier on everyone. Love our trips,

9. My family and I recently stayed at the Disney campground and we loved it. It was off season, so it was only $40/night and we got all the same perks as staying at a Disney resort for probably have the price: free transportation to the various parks, Extra Magic hours and fun activities. Plus, we cooked breakfast and dinner in camp every night, so we saved money there.

   1. We did this also. It was nice to return to the campground in the afternoon and rest. The trailers were nice because you had separate rooms so the kids would sleep while you could stay up.

   2. We’ve been camping at the Fort Wilderness Resort (WDW) my whole life. Even if you don’t want to go to the theme parks, consider a trip to go camping. It’s a lot of fun!!

      1. We have stayed in the campsites the last two visits to WDW. Before that we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. It was beautiful but we never seem to “meet” anyone, they either were on thier way to the parks or to eat or to thier room. However we have made some wonderful friends at Fort Wilderness, it is a different atmosphere and people are always out walking dogs, riding bikes, driving thru on golfcarts and they stop and talk and get to know you. I will ALWAYS stay at Fort Wilderness !!!!

10. We use everything plastic except for serving silverware, like for the dishes and stuff on the grill. We pre-make our food for how ever long we will be gone, like have the hamburgers ready to just put right on the grill. If using a tent, you may find it useful to have a airmattress to sleep on. If using a camper, keep stuff in totes, in case a mouse gets in. Paper towels work better than napkins, and don’t blow away as easy, I live in SD. 🙂 For games, you can bring balls along for kickball or baseball in the park. It’s just so fun and relaxing, I can’t really think of anything else.