These Eight Outdoor Gear Items Make Family Camping With Teenagers Hassle-Free

I love family camping. Even when my teenage boys are fighting over dumb things and throwing rocks way too close to where I’m sitting, I just lean back in my camp chair and take a giant whiff of pine trees and smile at the chipmunks.

My family car camps, and—even as an Outside writer—I feel absolutely no shame in that. Sure, backpacking deep into the wild would be great. It’s physically demanding and pure. But car camping is a much easier way to get our family of four on board. It requires fewer logistics, so we’re far more likely to do it, and it’s immediately fun for all, maximizing the limited time we have available.

Life is busy with two teenagers and all of our individual pursuits—sports, social lives, work. But for the 24 hours or so that the four of us spend car camping, we’re together. Outside. In the dirt, under the open sky. My sons know we have at least two mandatory family camping trips every summer, and while they may gripe a little, I know they secretly look forward to fresh air, and s’mores, and listening to their parents play hippie songs on the guitar.

We started car camping with our boys when they were toddlers. With my sons now 18 and 14, I love few things more than waking up in a tent with all of us together, including the dog, snug and cozy under one nylon roof.

Here’s the gear that makes our family car camping low on hassle and high on reward. Some are evergreen standbys while others we’ve added as our boys became teenagers and their gear needs changed.

The post These Eight Outdoor Gear Items Make Family Camping With Teenagers Hassle-Free appeared first on Outside Online.

---

Source: Outside Online — Read original