1) Eggscellent! Plan to cook eggs for breakfast? Save yourself time and the mess by cracking all the eggs you need into a large bottle, use a permanent marker to mark the bottle each time you add 2 eggs. 2) Salt & pepper. Instead of taking larger bottles of salt, pepper and spices, simply use old tic tac boxes. They will stay fresh, save you lots of space and help you to portion them out over the trip. 3) Keep your matches safe. Boxes of matches can easily get damp or squashed and broken when camping, empty your matches into a small tupperware, old baby food jar or a tic tac box to avoid this. You can cut a square or sandpaper and stick to your chosen container. 4) Shoe organizers are your friend. You can buy a soft material shoe organizer that rolls up for very cheap. Hang it from the tent and use it to store all the essentials like tissue, rubbish bags, cutlery and everything else to avoid them getting sandy or little hands grabbing them. 5) Squeaky clean. Instead of taking along a bar of soap that could get sandy and grubby, take some soap leaves in a small jar or tupperware. Simply use a potato peeler on a bar of soap and gather up the peeling. Each one should be good for a hand wash. 6) Sage it. No one wants those dreaded blood sucking mosquitos to join them when camping. As well as taking some bug repellant, make sure to take along some sage sticks! You just need to add one to the campfire to keep away mosquitos. 7) Premake what you can.
To keep things quick and easy (an essential when camping with kids), try to premake everything you possibly can before you leave the house. Pancakes for breakfast? Make them beforehand and simply heat over the grill, or, premix the dry ingredients in a bottle and then you just simply add the wet ingredients and shake when ready. Smores on the menu? Pre-make the smores and wrap in tin foil, then simply put on top of the fire or coals when it’s time. Another delicious alternative is adding mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, cookies and strawberries into waffle cones and wrap in tin foil. These can be cooked the same way as smores and help keep the mess to a minimum. For an easy snack or lunch, premake quesadillas and wrap in tin foil. Throw on top of the fire to simply toast them and voila!
Keep it simple for a stress free camping experience with children, and remember to enjoy! x