How to Plan a Successful Camping Trip

Weather you're planning for just you and your significant other or for a camping group of 15... putting a camping trip together can be stressful. Making sure that all the camping equipment is up to par and all the food is taken care of can take a huge amount of time and build up even more stress! But don't let it.

Below are the tips to ensure that your camping trip is successful, no matter how big or how small of a group you have with you.

1. Campsites... if you're staying at a registered campsite park call plenty of time in advanced (at least 4 weeks) and request to have your campsites placed closely together. If you have 3 families going, then request three sites side by side. This isn't a problem for most places.

2. The food... This is probably the biggest stress of all camping trips. Have all of your parties be responsible for brining along their own coolers of ice. For meals, I would recommend each family being in charge of a different day or different meal. So, taking the above example of 3 families going camping for a 3 day trip, put one family in charge of breakfast and dinner on day one... the second on day 2 and so forth. For more ease, I left out lunch because let everyone be in charge of their own lunches.

3. Camping gear... the big pieces of camping equipment you will need like a grill, table, sun shelters, radio, etc can be divided up, see who in your group has what to bring to the table. Of course each group should be in charge of their own camping gear that includes tents, sleeping bags. But all the other stuff can be shared. I recommend meeting 1-2 weeks with everyone with list in hand and go over who can bring what.

4. Entertainment... you are going camping to have fun, right? So have a few planned activities in mind. If you're going with kids scavenger hunts work well and if you're going with adults, scavenger hunts were great too! Bocci Ball is a great sport, hiking trips, etc.

These are just 4 tips, but extremely helpful for decreasing your stress. Making a list is key, when you see what needs to be done and you start crossing things off you realize it's really not that bad and before you know you can sit back and just enjoy the trip!