Summer Essentials for Camping with Kids

As you know, we think that camping with kids is one of the best ways to enjoy the summer and create amazing memories. Here are our must-have summer essentials to pack for your next family camping trip, things that are compact (campervan friendly!) that we don’t travel without:

Tesalate towels

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that we absolutely love our Tesalate towels and they are so perfect for the van. We have both the beach towels and a beach blanket and we always bring both. 

Honestly, the Tesalate beach towels are an awesome investment! No more heavy, wet towels that are stinky and full of sand after a day at the beach. 

They dry really quickly which means they don’t get that horrible wet-towel smell, and the best thing is they fold up so small. I reckon they take up less than a quarter of the space of a regular beach towel of the same dimensions. 

These towels are sand free, which means that even when they are wet you just give them a big shake and the sand comes off. This is so important when you are in a tiny space like the van, where fighting sand is a never ending battle!

The beach blanket is another cracker of a product. It is big enough for all of us to sit on for a picnic, for 2 of us to lie on at the beach, and if it’s raining we spread it out on the bed in the van, so that we don’t make a mess on the doona while we eat. 

It folds up so small and, like the beach towels, is sand-free and quick drying if we spill something on it. 

Kelly Kettle

We’ve had our Kelly Kettle for years now and we never camp without it. Instead of using a gas canister, this kettle uses any naturally occurring solid fuel (sticks, pine cones, even dry cow poo!). It boils water so quickly and you can even cook on it.

We have the Basecamp kit, which is great for the van as it can boil 1.6L of water, but I now have my eyes on the Trekker version (now that we are doing overnight hikes!), as the aluminium version weighs only 0.64kg and boils 2 mugs of water at a time - perfect for 2 minute noodles and morning coffees!

First Aid Kit

You should never camp, or even go on a bush walk, without the proper first aid kit and I love this Outdoor Bundle from Survival First Aid Kits as it has everything you need in a big set as well as a portable one for hikes.

It contains their family first aid kit, which is full of all your first aid essentials for everything from minor scrapes to major emergencies. Everything is well sorted and clearly labeled, making it super easy to use. 

The outdoor bundle also includes the snake bite kit, which you can take on bushwalks with you for not only snake bites, but any kind of bite, sting, sprain, fracture or major bleed that you might have while hiking. 

We have only just got our snake bite kit and honestly, I think we are incredibly lucky that we haven’t needed it before! 

When you have been bitten by a snake the best thing to do is to stay completely still and have someone wrap wherever you have been bitten in a bandage to try to stop the venom spreading through your lymphatic system. This bandage is amazing as it shows you the optimum tension, taking the guesswork out of using it.

Inflatable body board

We gave our kids these inflatable body boards for Christmas a few years ago and they have been such a great idea when we are in the van!

We all love boogie boarding, but those boards take up so much space and just aren’t practical for vanlife. 

These ones are a great size and very sturdy but when they are deflated they tuck away in our van cupboard and take up hardly any room. They come in both kids and adults sizes and are great for the ocean, pools, rivers or lakes.

Collapsible bucket with lid

We bought a collapsible bucket from a camping shop when we first got the van and it wasn’t that cheap and broke pretty quickly. We bought this one as a replacement from Kmart a few years ago and the best thing about it is that it has a lid!

No more collecting water and then losing half of it on the walk back to the campsite! 

It also means that overnight we can cover it so that dirt, leaves, bugs and other critters don’t make their way into it. 

I love that it folds down so small and slides in under our kitchen, taking up hardly any space. It is lasting surprisingly well, especially considering the price, so we definitely recommend getting one! 

Stainless Steel Coffee Plunger

While I am talking about Kmart, I have to mention this awesome Stainless Steel Coffee Plunger!

Most coffee plungers on the market are made of glass, which when you are bumping over corrugated roads is not ideal - we don’t have any glass at all in our van kitchen.

We have had ours since we got the van in 2019 and it’s still going strong. The only negative is that it is only big enough for 2 or 3 cups of coffee, which is never enough for us! It is easy to clean and make a second pot though, but if we are travelling with friends, it would be nice to make more at a time. Honestly though, for $20, you can’t go wrong!

Magnetic LED Light 

I can’t find the exact one that we have (it was an impulse buy at a camping shop a few years ago), this one from Living in a Bubble is on my Christmas wish list! 

These are great for attaching to the outside of the van in the evening, but for me the main thing is that you can attach them to the wall of bush dunnies at night (I hate wearing head torches and obviously you want your hands free), which has been such a game changer for me. They are also perfect for using inside a tent. 

I love that the Living in a Bubble ones are dimmable, so that you can have them on bright while you are cooking, and then turn them down to relax. I also love that they are USB chargeable.

Living in a Bubble have an amazing range of other gear for vanlife too - we have their window covers and fly screens, both made for the exact measurements of our van. 

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I hope that you have found this list useful! Camping really is the perfect way to unplug, slow down, and make amazing memories with your kids, and with a little preparation and the right essentials, you will have an amazing time!

Happy camping!