How to organize yourself in a tent with children
Camping with kids can easily turn into chaos if there is no good system. Everything has to have its place, otherwise we quickly lose track of where everything is. Although many people think that the problem is not enough space, in our experience the biggest problem is too much stuff in the tent. After many camping trips, we have developed our own system that works on weekend trips and multi-day trips.
Basic rule: tent = for sleeping and night only
We don't look at the tent as a living room or storage space, and everything that isn't needed for the night doesn't go in the tent – and that's a rule we always stick to. The rest has its place in the car and can be taken out of the car or into the tent and put back in when needed. The advantage of this rule is that we no longer have to look for things in the dark. Nothing is pinching us under the sleeping bag, and we always have enough space to stretch our legs without a pile of toys around us. We learned this during the first few nights when we took everything we thought we would need into the tent, and in the end most of it just got in the way. We realized that when we have less stuff, we have more space and less stress – if only we could apply this at home, and not just on the camping trip!
What do we actually keep in the tent?
Over time, the list of things we keep in the tent has been reduced to the bare minimum. Everyone has their own sleeping bag and, if desired, a pillow. Children have one or two stuffed animals for comfort, and sometimes they use them instead of pillows. Since reading bedtime stories is mandatory for us, and when camping, we parents often fall asleep early with our children, so we always take one or two childrens books to read that evening. We have one bottle of water for adults and one for children so we don't need to get climb out of our tent in the middle of the night for two sips of water, right? There is always a pack of regular and wet wipes and a diaper just in case. Although we put a clean diaper on the youngest before going to bed and there is no need to change it later until the morning, it is up to us to find it. This list is easily adapted to what an individual or family needs, and we were guided by the question "what do we need immediately at hand if we wake up in the night?"
Car as main storage
Everything we brought stays in the car or we unpack part of it in the annex if we have set it up as well. Clothes, food, kitchen utensils, toys and everything we have is located on the "ground floor" where we use it the most. Organization helps a lot when preparing for the trip (we still have to work on this part because it is usually at the last minute) and things should be divided thematically. The children have clothing combinations arranged by day in their bag or suitcase. They usually don't wear pajamas but sleep in clothes that they will wear the next day or stay only in their underwear, depending on the temperature during the night. In addition to a few toys that are always in the car, they have one box in which they can put as many toys as they can take with them. Of course, some larger pieces like a ball or chess set that don't fit in the box find their place somewhere nearby. We have divided the food into the one that has to be in the fridge and the one that can stay in the bag/box. This system helps us keep the tent clean, walkable, quiet and ready for quick folding and changing locations. Plus, we have quick access to things because we know where everything is. The tent remains the sleeping area, and the car is for everything else.
How to keep things tidy in such a small setup
The rule of not keeping anything in the tent that we don't need for the night means that before going to bed we leaving everything we don't need in the car or annex. Sometimes the kids want to play and take a whole box of toys into the tent, sometimes we have a little movie night and the laptop needs to be returned. The morning is different depending on whether we change location or stay another night. If we change location, we simply pack our sleeping bags and grab any eventual items from the tent before folding it up. If we stay in the same location, we tidy up our sleeping bags just like we would make our beds at home, we take bottles and picture books downstairs so we can prepare them again for the evening. Routine helps us keep this system working and the tent tidy.
Why this minimalist approach works with children
Children do not need a lot of things, not even at home, and especially not in nature. More important to them is the availability of what they really need and maintaining a routine. The routine in the tent will not be 100% the same as the routine at home, but the tent routine will always be the same when camping. Fewer things lead to less stress and encourage more exploration of the environment, which is our goal when we go camping. They get tired faster, we are all less nervous and fall asleep more easily.
We found the best combination for family camping to be a minimal setup in the tent and everything else in the car (plus the annex). I'm not talking about perfect order, but a system that works for us. Of course, after a few days the car can start looking chaotic but we still have peace in the tent.
In the end, we realized that it's not important to have a perfectly organized car or the most expensive equipment. It's enough to have a system that suits your family. For us, this meant less stress, more peaceful evenings and more time to explore nature together.
