Fun Activities to Keep Your Kids From Saying “I’m Bored!” On Your Next Trip

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Those two dreaded words: I’m. Bored. No parent wants to hear them, so here are some activities you can have in your back pocket for your next camping trip.

Bubble Fun

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If you have little ones, bringing along bubbles for them is sure to buy you an hour or two of contented playtime while you make dinner or assemble the tent. The best part is, they need little help with this activity and a bottle of bubbles doesn’t take much space up at all. If you want to give older kids something to do, have them make a giant bubble activity using a large tray, dish soap, and water along with a hula hoop and challenge the younger ones to make the biggest bubble. See instructions here. If it’s getting dark out, you can crack open glow sticks to add to your bubble mixture for bubbles that glow—which brings us to…

Glow Stick Mania

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Glow sticks are cheap but have so many uses beyond just being convenient on camping trips. You can use loop glow sticks for a game of glow-in-the-dark ring toss, or place them inside wiffle balls for nighttime catch! For older kids, glow sticks are perfect for putting in bottles for a game of glow-in-the-dark bowling (see instructions here) or for an impromptu game of nighttime hide and seek!

Egg Box Scavenger Hunt

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Scavenger hunts are not only fun, but can be used as competition between kids for fun, or as a way for them to work together if you have argumentative little ones. With this activity, you write items on slips of paper, and then place each one inside of an egg carton slot. The campers then have to find the items and put them in one of the openings until they have a full carton. While this will require a bit of set up, it’s sure to keep your kids occupied for at least an hour, maybe even two depending on how challenging it is.

Campfire Games

The campfire is a relaxing space before bed, so activities should require no preparation, focus on family quality time, and be relatively low energy both for safety reasons and because you don’t want the kids too wound up before bedtime. Why not enjoy a game of two truths and a lie? Or, play a game of “Tell me a secret,” in which one person whispers a secret into the next person’s ear and then once the secret is at the last person, they say it aloud. The comparison between the original and the new “secret” is sure to give your kids a laugh. If you make sure starting secrets are very detailed, you’re more likely to have the end result be more different. Or maybe have everyone tell a ghost story— that is, if your kids don’t scare too easily!