Family Friendly Backyard Camping Adventure Ideas

You do not have to travel far or spend a ton of money to have fun and bond with your kids. You can create special memories and engage in fun activities in your backyard. Here are a few ideas for making backyard camping a wonderful experience for the whole family.

Cooking

Camping is not complete without a fire. A backyard fire pit is a great place for the family to congregate around in the evening to keep warm and even do some cooking. You can roast some s’mores, grill some burgers, and even make popcorn over the fire. Outdoor cooking is an essential part of the camping experience and an excellent opportunity to share some life skills with your kids, including how to build a fire, fire safety, and cooking.

A bonfire also creates a lovely setting for other fun activities like sharing campfire stories and teaching the kids popular campfire songs. The songs are even better if you know how to play an instrument to accompany the music. Come up with good ghost stories to keep kids entertained and thrilled. A good horror story told amid darkness and sounds of nighttime creatures feels all the scarier.

Fun Activities

A big goal of camping is to show kids how they can have fun outdoors, away from computers and cellphones. Planning fun activities that will keep them engaged, excited, and laughing is a great way to make this a positive experience. You can arrange many activities, including a scavenger hunt and backyard games like Frisbee and washer toss. On hot days you can opt to bring out water guns for some thrilling battles or teach your kids how to make and launch water balloons at each other.

Arts and crafts activities are also great fun, with the bonus of less cleanup to deal with while enjoying the outdoors. Let your child explore their creative side by giving them cardboard, drawing paper, paints, and markers to create whatever artwork they want, be it cartoon characters or landscapes. You can save these as keepsakes of the fun times had by your kids.

Sleeping Arrangements 

You can easily pitch a tent in the backyard with your regular camping gear. You can also create a teepee or fort using bedsheets. If you lack a suitable open ground to do this but have a gazebo or solarium, you can easily have your kids put down their sleeping bags and set up the rest of the interior in this space. These structures can also be good places to set up play tents and fill them with toys, books, and games to which the kids can retreat for some fun without adult supervision.

If you have kids who fear being outdoors, even if it is right by their house, using such shelter can help make them more comfortable. You can even make it look more magical by stringing up some lights. You can easily put the sleeping bags on top of a mattress or cot on the patio or gazebo floor for added comfort.