Organizing Camping Gear

Ready, Set...

Our first camping trip of the year is coming up this weekend, I'm so excited to be outside and to get out of the city (ok, they're really the country suburbs, but it feels like a city to me).

I've been working on organizing my camping gear and my garage over the past few weeks - getting everything ready for the camping season, so I thought I'd share how I organize and store my camping stuff.

I have 3 bins that fit perfectly in to the back of our vehicle. It's a game of Tetris to get everything in, but these bins have been a huge help to me.

The first bin has outdoor toys, life jackets and other kid's stuff for the beach. Everything in here is specifically for camping, we don't bring their regular toys along - only special things just for camping. They stay in the bin in the garage because they get really dirty and gross! It's super handy to have a bin that I just put outside the tent and the kids can choose the activity they want to do or pack the whole bin down to the beach when it's time to swim. 

The second bin has camping essentials: the clean campers kit, string for the clothes line, hammer & pegs, lighters, axe, newspaper, flash lights, extra batteries, and all of those little things that you need when you go camping. I keep this bin stocked so we have the ability to just pull it off the shelf & go rather than looking around for things we need. 

The third bin is the kitchen stuff. All the dishes, pots & pans, table cloths, and anything else I need to get people fed. We usually make it to a camp site right before dinner time, so this bin is very handy to just pull out quickly and have everything I need to prepare dinner without looking through everything. If I add anything to this bin it gets my signature drop of green nail polish.

Besides this, I have a cooler, water jug, camp stove, tarp (which you can see folded on top of the bins), tent, chairs, sleeping bags, & mattresses all stored on the shelf above. It's as easy as backing the vehicle up to the garage, loading, and we're off. The only work I have is to make sure we have our clothes & toiletries packed and the food. It takes a little organization and some space to make this happen, but it saves so many headaches when you're packing to go. 

These are the basics in the bins, I still need to consult my camping with kids packing list! I add in the other things we need depending on our destination, who we are camping with (why bring doubles??), and what the weather will be like.

We always re-stock if anything has run out or needs to be replaced at the end of each trip so that it's ready to go for the next one. Each Spring, I take a careful look through each bin to see if anything needs to be added, replaced, or removed.

Now we're ready!

 ~Adel~

If you want to see more of my ideas for camping with kids - check out my Camping Page.