If you are looking for camping items that will make your family’s trip excellent, check out this blog. We went camping with multiple families for the first time, and it was really interesting to see others’ setups and their must-haves. Tommy Guns and I do a ton of research before buying items, and we have our absolute non-negotiables when it comes to setting up our camper. This blog will describe all of our favorite items and will include links for each to make finding them as simple as using them.
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Set Up
The most important part to setting up your camper is making sure it’s level. TG backs up the camper with my help, but using the Level Mate Pro has allowed us to have a perfectly level setup every time. This gizmo syncs with your phone and tells you how far off you are by inches. When we need to add some height, we use the Anderson Leveling Blocks. You simply put them under the wheel, back over them, and stop as soon as you hit the most level spot. You place the block underneath, and your camper is not going anywhere. After using the leveling blocks, we put in the X-Chock Wheel Stabilizers (which are only meant for campers with two axles). This eliminates any motion caused from the tire area. Once our camper is level side to side and front to back, we use this drill adapter on our scissor jacks stabilizers to get a rock solid fit on top of the Lego Blocks. Using the drill makes set up so much quicker, too.
Food Prep & Meals
There is no other way to grill your food at the campsite than on a Black Stone. We make breakfast, toast, paninis, fajitas, potatoes, burgers, hotdogs, fries, and the list goes on. It’s super easy to clean up because we just throw ice on it and the steam burns everything off. Tommy G says there are no better tools than these Black Stone tools. Before we pack up to go home, TG throws them in the sink, and I wash them while I’m finishing up all the rest of the dishes. As we prepare the food, we have this table next to the Black Stone. It’s super easy to set up, fits in our outdoor storage compartment, and is the perfect size for all of the food we need to set out while cooking. Once the food is done, we use these foil containers for serving. These are a must have. There is no better way to keep your food hot while you’re finishing the rest of the meal, and then when everything is ready, you put the containers out like a buffet style.
We use this cleaning caddy for our silverware, cups, plates, and napkins. We store this in our outdoor storage area each night and pull it out each morning so the kids have easy access to whatever utensils or plates they need. The other necessity is this tablecloth and the clips. It took us forever to find a tablecloth that actually fits the picnic tables at campsites, and this one is awesome. It covers the whole length and is really durable. We just wipe it down after each meal, and the clean up is super simple. The clips keep it in place to prevent any gusts of wind from blowing it off the table. At the end of our picnic table, we always have a 5-gallon Igloo cooler. We pack four gallons of water and add the ice to the cooler before we leave. When the water gets low, we just pour another gallon of water in it. The ice lasts the whole weekend. This prevents us from using a ton of plastic water bottles, and any guests who come over can help themselves to the water by using a cup out of our caddy we keep out. We use the Hydro Flask water bottles to save on cup use. This size also fits in our bike racks. Each family member has a different color so we can tell whose is whose.
Campfire Necessities
The best part of camping is sitting around the fire at night. Our firepit is extremely homey with these items. We set up lights all around the campsite, and this brand allows us to change the color or set them to go along with our music. They are weatherproof and also give off a lot of light when it’s dark. We always play music at the site, too, with our Bose SoundLink Mini. This is an older version, so if you’re looking for a more updated one, you can check out the Bose SoundLink Color II. While we’re relaxing by the fire, we love our Ever Advanced Chairs. They recline and are extremely comfortable. TG has a ton of back issues, and these make the evenings extremely comfortable for him. We also love our GCI Roadtrip Rockers. These are the chairs we use at our kids’ ball games, but they are also perfect for the campsite.
Once you have the atmosphere set up for your fire, we recommend starting your fire with these wax fire starters. We can’t figure out how they work, but they start a fire in seconds! No hassle, and the kids can even help with this task. A fire is not complete without roasting marshmallows or hot dogs and making mountain pies. We use these collapsible roasting sticks for our marshmallows. They’re really nice because we can collapse them after washing them and put them in our drawer by the sink in the camper. They are super easy to store, and the kids can access them for the next trip because they’re not hidden away in our outside storage. We also love these mountain pie irons because the bread fits inside, and you don’t have a mess with your ingredients dripping out while you’re burning the crusts. Once we are finished using the fire for cooking, we throw these magical flame packets in the fire to make colorful flames. The kids get such a kick out of them, and it’s fun to watch the fire change colors.
Clean Up
After you’ve had a wonderful camping trip, it’s inevitably cleanup time. We have a system that is pretty solid at this point. It may not work for everyone, but I’ll give you our tips in case you’re struggling with finding a system for yourselves. In our master bedroom closet, we have these broom holders that hold our Swiffer and our broom (the dust pan connects to the broom). I sweep the floor first with the broom. I then use our handheld vacuum to vacuum the dinette seating, the carpet underneath, and the transition line from the carpet to linoleum. After that, I use our Swiffer with the Swiffer Wet Pads. This works throughout the whole camping season, but I do hand scrub the floors before and after the camping season for a better deep clean.
Tanks
After we have our camper all packed up and ready to go, it’s time to empty our tanks. These are the products we love, and our camper doesn’t stink, which is super important! Scott toilet paper for RVs is key because it breaks down really well and doesn’t clog the tubes. We pour Aquakem down the toilet before we empty our black tank because it really gets the remaining particles off the sensors and out of the tubes. This is key for maintaining a fresh smell.
When it’s time to dump your tanks, you always dump the black tank first so you can use the gray tank water to clean out the hoses. We use the Rhino dumping tube because of the clear fitting at the end. You can see when your tanks are empty, which is a necessity. A side note about your gray tank. If you are staying for an extended time and need to empty the gray water, we use this gray tank trailer. You empty your gray water into it, hook it up to the hitch on your vehicle, and drive it to the dumping station. This allows you to keep your tanks from filling up. If you need more water throughout your trip, we suggest this 5 Gallon Jerry Can. You simply hook it up to the water stations near your campsite and then pour it into your fresh water tank. This prevents you from having to hook up your entire rig and take it to the fill up station. These two items are absolute must-haves if you’re staying for a longer period of time. My last tip to conserve your fresh water is to use foaming hand soap. I LOVE foaming hand soap because it comes off your hands so much quicker, which conserves your water. If you aren’t using this, you need to switch right away!
Other Favorites
We have a few other items we absolutely love for camping. They don’t really fall under any special category, but I wanted to share what they are and why we love them. I’m going to admit that I absolutely detested Crocs because they are the ugliest shoes in the world. My husband and kids were diehard believers, and when Covid happened, they bought me a pair for gardening. I still think they are super ugly, but they are the best camping shoe you will find. Going in and out of the camper is super easy because they slip on and off with ease. They clean up with a squirt of water from the hose. You can wear them in the shower at the bathhouse as shower shoes. The function definitely supersedes the fashion!
We love Yetis for our coffee and adult beverages. In the morning, we use our Bunn single cup coffee maker and enjoy our coffee from our Yeti coffee cups. They keep our coffee piping hot, so we can enjoy our beverage slowly in the morning. That’s one of my favorite things about camping. We are early risers, so we like to wake up and sit quietly listening to the rustling of birds in the trees. It’s so peaceful. When we’re ready to enjoy an adult beverage in the evening, we use the Yeti 30 oz. tumbler because they perfectly fit a can or bottle of beer. Tommy Guns installed the Yeti bottle opener on the camper by attaching a piece of Trex decking behind the skirt of our camper and screwed the opener into that. It’s super sturdy, and we never have to try to find a bottle opener.
Another amazing product we found are these Gear Ties. We have found so many uses for these, such as hanging our rechargeable lantern from our pop up canopy at night while we play cards to tying our lights up on trees around the campsite. They are extremely durable and twist into many shapes to work however you need them to.
Our final tip is to use bins for everything you do. They keep water out, they make carrying items easier, and they keep everything you need in one place. We utilize these bins for all of our outdoor storage items. They fit perfectly in the outdoor storage compartment. When we are packing up food for the week, we put all of our items in these bins and carry them from the house to the camper. They fit perfectly in our pantry, you can see everything we have to eat, and they are really durable. We make our own first-aid kit by filling this bin with Calamine lotion, Tums, Tylenol, allergy medicine, band-aids, itch cream, Neosporin, tweezers, nail clippers, and aloe. It’s a lot cheaper to create your own kit than to buy one that has a lot of things you wouldn’t need.
Our set up may not be for everyone, but with a lot of trial and error and research, these are the items we have found we absolutely need to make our camping trip successful. If you have any other items you have found to be a must-have, drop a comment and let us know!
