Some of our favorite activities include relaxing around the fire, playing games at camp, cooking tasty food outdoors, and sleeping under the stars after a day of adventures. We’ve spent much of our summers camping over the years, so we thought we’d provide a list of what we pack for car camping – both the essentials and extra stuff we bring to make spending the night outdoors even more enjoyable. We don’t pack all of this on every single camping trip – it just depends on where we are and our plans.
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Tent
While we occasionally sleep in an igloo in the winter or the car if we’re just stopping somewhere quickly for a night, we spend most camp nights in our tent. We have a couple tents and prefer our Marmot 4-person tent for car camping. It’s much more roomy for us, our sleeping area, and our bags. We can also pretty much stand up in it, which makes getting dressed easier.
For backpacking, colder nights, or times when we don’t have as much space in the car, we’ll bring our 2-person tent.
Tarp
Many tents, including our 4-person tent, come with a footprint to set up underneath it to help keep the tent dry and more protected. But we bring along a durable tarp to place under the tent to add an extra layer of protection on rocky or thorny surfaces and help keep it away from mud or moisture that may be present.
Sleeping Pad or Air Mattress
We each have a sleeping pad that is easy to inflate, packs down super small, and is fairly comfy. However, when car camping, we usually just bring a full-sized air mattress for that extra comfort. We’d say it definitely makes a difference in the quality of sleep we get and that we might as well bring it when we have space in the car! When using the air mattress, we also make sure to have the pump to inflate it.
Sleeping Bags, Pillows, & Blankets
For most of our summer camping trips, we bring our old, trusty two-person Coleman sleeping bag that we open up fully to lay over the air mattress. Then we just add a few layers of blankets to lay on and under. We like blankets over just using sleeping bags when we car camp because they’re easier to wash, you’re less confined than in a sleeping bag, and sometimes a sleeping bag is just too hot on a summer night.
On those chillier nights, we have another two-person sleeping bag to open up and put over us. And when it’s pretty dang cold, we’ll actually sleep zipped in those sleeping bags or bring along our smaller bags that are rated to below freezing.
To complete our comfy camping nest, we’ll throw our pillows in the tent too. For car camping we use a couple full-size pillows, but when we’re low on space, we’ll bring a couple smaller camp pillows that fit in a little stuff sack.
Lights & Batteries
We have collected quite a few lights and lanterns for camping over the years. Our most frequently-used ones on pretty much every camping trip include our Petzl headlamps, a basic lantern for hanging around the campsite, and a small hanging light for inside the tent (similar to this one).
Others we sometimes bring include a standing rechargeable work light when we need extra brightness, flashlights, and similar options/extras of our most-used lights.
Some of our lights are rechargeable, so we make sure they’re all charged up before we head out. For the ones that require batteries, we keep some extra batteries in the pocket of the bag where we keep the lights.
Camp Chairs
Camp chairs are definitely one of our essential items as we spend quite a bit of time around the fire and also rarely camp at campgrounds where picnic tables are set up.
There are so many great brands of camp chairs and chairs with different features, such as a side table, a foot rest, rocking capability, etc. We have a basic Kijaro folding chair with cup holders that we usually use. You can find them at Scheels, Cabela’s, Amazon, the Kijaro site, and more. Matt’s grandpa also gave us a couple other simple collapsible chairs that we bring when we need extra seating for others or when we don’t want to bring our other larger ones.
Hammock
Our Eno DoubleNest hammock was a gift that we have gotten a lot of use out of over many years. It packs down small and we love relaxing in it when we’re camping in a wooded area.
Canopy
We camped for many years without using a canopy. We finally caved and got a Coleman canopy with a sunwall when we lived in Arizona and found ourselves often camping in the 100°F weather without much shade around. Since moving to Montana, we also bought a bug screen to attach to it.
We don’t bring it on every camping trip since it’s pretty big and definitely takes some time to set up and take down. But, we’ve found it so nice to have in buggy areas, on rainy days, to shade us hot days, for chilly mornings where the sunwall blocks the breeze, and even just on nights where we want to play cards and can hang a lantern up overhead to see better.
Folding Table
Since we tend to mostly camp at primitive sites, having a folding table is one of our essentials for cooking and food prep. We also use it for games and to set the cooler under to shade it when shade is lacking.
Our tables are just the basic white plastic folding tables you can get at a bunch of different stores and online. We have a 48″x24″ table that we mostly use, but more recently got a 70″x30″ table that’s nice to have when camping with bigger groups. There are also various other packable picnic tables and tables made specifically for camping available if you’d like other functionalities, such as built-in seating, storage compartments, better packability, etc.
Kitchen Box
We have a large plastic storage box that contains all of our camp kitchen stuff, such as plates, utensils, a coffee press, dish soap, paper towels, matches, pots and pans, and more. Our camp kitchen post covers everything we pack for cooking when car camping in more detail.
We usually put spices and any food that doesn’t go in the cooler in here when we camp as well.
Camp Stove & Fuel
For car camping, we have a simple Stansport two-burner stove similar to this one. There are many nicer and more highly-rated stoves on the market, but we got this one almost 10 years ago back in college and it has been going strong ever since!
Our stove uses propane. We usually bring a full-size tank because they are more cost effective than the small canisters, and we camp often. But we keep smaller canisters on hand just in case we need a backup or if we don’t feel like throwing the big tank in the car.
If you plan to use a big tank, you may need an additional hose and adaptor to use it with your camp stove.
Water Tank
As we mentioned, we don’t usually stay in developed campgrounds where there is potable water, so we bring along our 6-gallon water tank, which is the older version of this one.
Nowadays, there are more options out there, including large bladders that are a bit easier to pack and will not take up as much space as you empty them.
Cooler & Ice
For most camping trips, we bring our large Coleman rolling cooler, which is sufficient to keep all of our food, drinks, and ice cold for a few days. There are definitely more efficient options out there from brands like Yeti and Igloo and other nicer Coleman coolers, but you’ll for sure be investing a bit more. To keep everything cold, we use both ice packs and bags of ice to fill in gaps and also have to make cocktails with.
We additionally have a few other random soft-sided cooler bags that are a bit smaller if we aren’t camping as long and don’t have as much food, need an extra cooler for drinks, etc.
Games
We love playing games at the campsite! Whether it’s just Matt and I, or we’re with friends or family, we’ll likely have some sort of game to play in the evenings.
We bring various card games; other packable games like Farkle and cribbage; solo cups, die, and ping pong balls for beer die and beer pong; a frisbee and football; and lawn games like TerraDarts and ring toss.
Lighter
A lighter comes in handy to get the fire started and is also a good thing to have in case the ignitor on your stove happens to not work.
Wood
If we plan to have a campfire, we’ll bring a bundle or two of wood. Always make sure to check fire restrictions for the area where you plan to camp!
Axe
Pretty self-explanatory, but an axe is useful to cut wood or split any logs for your fire.
Knives
Our knives have come in handy for a lot of different things, from helping to open food packaging to carving a roasting stick or cutting fishing line. Generally, our bag contains just a couple pocket (folding) knives.
Shovel
A shovel is useful to dig out your fire pit, dig a toilet pit in the woods, etc. We just use a little metal one that folds down pretty small to fit in the backpack with our lights, knives, and other items.
Toilet Paper
Even if you’re in a campground with a toilet, the TP might not always be stocked. We bring a bag with a roll of TP on every camping excursion. Please do your part to keep camp areas clean by burying your waste properly and not leaving toilet paper everywhere.
Trash Bag
Pack out all of your trash! Not all campgrounds have a dumpster or trash can, so bring an extra bag or two.
Toiletries
Just because we’re out in the wild, doesn’t mean self-care goes out the window! We bring along a toiletry bag with essential items like sunscreen, lotion, chapstick, skin care, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, hand sanitizer, etc. Wet wipes are another item we find useful to wipe your body down if you’re in a dusty area, you’re hot and sweaty, you’re camping for a few days and just want to clean up, you don’t have access to a shower or body of water, etc.
Bug Spray
Our bug spray gets a lot of use on summer evenings, especially when we camp in wooded areas or near bodies of water.
Battery Jumper
Since we frequently camp at primitive sites and adventure in remote areas where we sometimes don’t see any other people around, we keep a portable jumper in the car and make sure it’s charged up before we venture out. These are nice because you don’t need another car to help jump you if your battery dies.
Speaker
Sometimes we enjoy some tunes when playing games or hanging out at camp. We bring along a small waterproof Bluetooth speaker.
Battery Pack
We always bring along a portable battery pack to charge our phones, speaker, rechargeable lights, and other devices if needed.
Misc. Gear
There’s a bunch of other gear we may throw in the car depending on our plans for the trip and where we’re camping. For example, camping in Montana, we always make sure to bring the bear spray. Or if we’re camping on a lake we’ll bring some floats or the kayaks. Cameras and backpacks for day hikes are also something we usually bring along.
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