Family Camping – Our Essential Kit

Going camping as a family for the first time is quite daunting.  It can be worrying trying to figure out how your new routine will pan out and whether the kids will turn feral!  How will you all fit into the tent?  Will the kids sleep at all?  Or simply will there be room in the tent for you at all when the children’s ‘stuff’ is in there.  One thing I have learned in two years of motherhood is that kids DO NOT travel light.  Fact.

We are off camping at the end of the month and have been busy collecting together our essential kit.  I do not like roughing it and so it is important for me to include as many home comforts as I can.  If we had the finances I could be tempted to stay in a hotel but, having been to festivals when I was younger, I do believe that camping gives you a much better experience.

We haven’t done the festival scene for many years and so we had no equipment at all.  The fabulous people at Cotswold Outdoor sent us a tent, sleeping bags and an airbed to get us started.

We chose quite a large tent, as I can’t imagine anything worse than all being crammed into a tiny space with lots of stuff and no room for anything.  Our tent has one bedroom compartment, which is fine as Baby will be in with us, and a large living area, which I think will double as a storage space.  It also looks to have a good amount of headroom, which is important as I am not short and hubby is 6′ 2″.

Mr Hubby’s sister is loaning us a cool box for Baby’s milk (and milk for my tea!), camping chairs and a gas stove, which is so kind of her.

As we are venturing to a festival, Fairy Lights round the tent are a necessity.  They will make the tent pretty and will also help us to find it in the dark.

We picked up a kettle and some torches last weekend, but we are not bothering with pans, as we don’t plan on cooking anything!  There is so much fabulous food on offer at the festival, so we plan to make the most of it.

What are your camping essentials?  Does your family go camping?

Disclosure: We were provided with the highlights products in return for an honest review.