After an especially horrible rainy winter season (mild as well so no snow fun!), this March has come as an exceedingly welcome surprise with the numerous sunny days we have had. This has surely put many of us caravan owners and campers in the holiday mood, getting us all excited about the up and coming holiday season. Perhaps it is just you and your partner who will be off on a relaxing, quiet journey or maybe you are preparing for a much more energetic family expedition that needs tonnes of games and activities………we will come to this later as it’s the main reason for this blog! Will you be very adventurous this year and go abroad? Or maybe there is still much of the UK you haven’t visited and you are wondering which county you shall explore next? Campsitechatter has a great campsite finder,
Camping UK, that will help you plan a truly super adventure. Perhaps you want to visit an attraction……..a fun place like Legoland, a historic attraction like Stonehenge, or a place of outstanding beauty like Becky Falls on Dartmoor. Campsitechatter has a unique way of finding all the campsites around your chosen venue and you will find a click-through on the page link above. Most of us have a hobby and would love to plan visits around campsites where we can do this favourite hobby to the max! Be it golf, surfing, horse riding, bird watching, canoeing, scuba diving or fishing, you will find all the campsites you dream off on Campsitechatter’s
Camping Specialisms section. You could even plan your holiday around Brewey Tours or Naturist sites if that takes your fancy. There is something for everyone in this section!
So to the main point of this blog! Family Camping…….many adults are put off camping with their children as they are unsure of the unique challenges family camping poses. What family tent will suit us best? What special things do we need to bring? Which campsites are child-friendly and have the best facilities for the young ones? What extra cooking equipment do we need to make the very limited menu the children will eat? But perhaps the most daunting prospect for some parents is what activities can we do to occupy the children without all the toys, gadgets and technology we have around us today???? The following are just a few games and activities that many avid campers and caravan owners have shared with us. These have brightened up their holidays and brought them closer together as a family, inviting much laughter, love and fun! Simple games, involving the campsite around you and your camping equipment, along with a few extras will definitely get you back to basics, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and have a truly bonding experience. All it takes is a little planning!
All children love playing with torches. A very simple game is ‘torch tag’. It uses a beam of light to make someone ‘it’. One camper has a torch and tries to find someone around them in the dusk/dark. As soon as they have ‘hit’ someone with the torch beam they call out that person’s name and they must freeze until they are handed the torch and then they are ‘it’. You will obviously need a torch or two and some re-charged back-up batteries! Another fabulous idea is a flashlight hunt, where one member of your party hides an object, the rest look for it using torches. If you use a timer or countdown on your phone the children will get really excited……..maybe best not to do this just before bedtime!
Museum After Dark is a great fun game that tends to get everyone laughing! One camper becomes the "museum guide” and they need a torch, preferably with a wide beam. The rest of the campers make a large circle around the guide and strike an interesting pose, as if they are art exhibits in a museum. The museum guide goes to each of the exhibits, scanning it from head to toe with the beam of light, trying to describe the exhibit in the funniest way possible. The museum guide must not touch any of the exhibits and their aim is to make the exhibits laugh or move - then they become the guide. Great fun! Another one to cause excitement is the night pirate game which is definitely a game requiring stealth. One camper is the “pirate” and they need a torch and some “treasure”, which can be any object you choose. The ”pirate” finds a comfy place in the dark with the ”treasure” right in front of them and the other campers all line up 20 paces away. They must try to steal the treasure, by sneaking up secretly and as quietly as possible. If the pirate hears a noise they must shine the torch in that direction and if a camper is caught in the beam, they must go back to the starting line. The first camper to grab the treasure without being caught in the beam of light becomes the new pirate.
It is ever so simple to shine a torch on the inside of the tent and create a shadow puppet show. Also take some glow sticks with you and the children will love some glow in the dark dancing or writing glow messages in the night sky. A really exciting thing to do is to mix the contents of the glow sticks with bubble mixture and make glow in the dark bubbles. This obviously should only be done by an adult, with the children watching and be warned it is messy, but truly magical! Bubble kits are always a great toy to pack for young children.
‘Squeak piggy squeak’ is an old favourite. One happy camper is blindfolded and another camper turns them around three times so that they are just disorientated enough not to know who is where. They reach out to touch someone close by - they can touch their face or a part of their body. No one must make a sound until they are touched by the blindfolded camper and then they say 'squeak piggy squeak' in any voice they like. Can the blindfolded camper guess which member of the family they have laid hands on and heard? Don’t play this game near a bonfire, camping stove or BBQ.
A campfire really has a magical way of bringing people together…….the bright golden hues in the dark night, the warm glow on each other’s face, toasting yummy marshmallows and listening to the pops and crackles as the wood burns. Sitting relaxing cosily around the bonfire is definitely a great time to play family games. A real old favourite is Chinese whispers where one camper whispers a short message to the next person and then they pass it onto the next and so on, until it reaches the last camper. They then say it out loud to the whole family, which usually results in a lot of laughter at the errors and changes that have occurred. ‘Try to make me laugh’ is a good fun game that involves getting campers to laugh whilst not laughing yourself. One camper is on the ‘hot seat’ and the rest have to try and make them laugh. Time how long the hot seated camper can last without laughing. The camper that can last the longest without laughing is the winner.
A great deception game is ‘wink murder’ and there is not a better place to play it then around the campfire on a crisp dark night. One camper is chosen as the ‘Godfather’ and then all other campers have to close their eyes, whilst the Godfather silently taps one camper on their back as they make a full circle of the group. This camper is then the “assassin.” She or he must try to kill off other campers one at a time by winking at them. They must try to do it secretly without the others noticing. As soon as a camper is winked at, they must slump over (in dramatic a style as they wish) and play dead. If a camper sees the assassin winking and they must shout out their discovery, pointing at the assassin. The game is then up! The campers must be sure though because if they guess wrong then they must complete a forfeit at the end of the game.
A very clever game that encourages children to take notice of what’s going on around them is ‘tap that stick’. Basically you need a stick or something similar (in the past we have used an umbrella, a cooking spatula and a pencil) and the camper who knows the game will do something like rub the end of their nose or clear their throat or place their other hand on their knee. They do this just before tapping the stick on the ground, a cool box or anything you like, whilst saying “I will tap this stick just like you”. They then pass on the stick to the next camper to try to perform it right and the original camper acts as judge to see if it is being done properly. Obviously the trick is the rubbing the nose or clearing the throat or doing another signal at the right time as well as tapping the stick in the same way. Most campers will focus on how hard the stick is being tapped or where fingers are placed on the stick. The game continues until all campers have noticed the subtle action and are copying it correctly…….you may need to make the action less subtle if some find it difficult to catch on!
Be brave and take your family camping this coming holiday season! Get away from the hectic, tiring duties and routines of everyday life and get back to basics. Don’t forget to take photos of your family fun and upload them onto Campsitechatter’s pinboards,
Community Pinboards. You can also write about your adventures in
Caravan and Camping stories to share your exploits and amusing ideas with other campers and caravan owners.
