Car Camping Checklist

I’ve been researching the essentials we’ll need for car camping. Here’s the list I’ve come up with for my family so far. This year, we’re going to do our camping as a bit of a hybrid. Instead of taking a bunch of food with us we’ll take just our sleeping gear and we’ll find local places to dine out like we would if we were staying in a hotel. As such, I’ve left food and cooking gear off the list.

#1 Tent

There are four of us in our family. Sometimes two of us go, sometimes all four of us, and sometimes we bring a couple friends. Fortinutely, Coleman makes the Coleman Instant Cabin which is available in 4, 6, and 8 person models.

#2 Tarp

A tarp is great for a lot of things. Set one under your tent to make your tent last longer. Hang one in the tree’s for shade or rain cover. The Stansport 10x12 Tarp fits under the most 6-man tents with a little room to spare.

#3 Sleeping Bags

Of course, you’ll need some sleeping bags. I found that I prefer a 20 degree bag and the Coleman Cool-Weather Sleeping Bag is affordable and gets great reviews.

#4 Air Mattress

We’ve tried a lot of different sleeping arangements and we keep coming back to the inflatable air bed. They have their problems with leaks and such but they are nearly as comfortable as your mattress at home and they are cheap. The Intex Queen Air Mattress is a popular choice and you can fit two of them in the Coleman tent mentioned above.

#5 Air Pump

If you go with inflatable air beds, you’ll need an air pump to fill them up with. Because we’re car camping we’ll have easy access to a 12v accessory plug. I like the Intex 12v Electric Air Pump.

#6 Camp Chairs

When we are camping we spend a lot of time in chairs around the camp site and around the camp fire. Coleman makes a good quality and affordable Coleman Camp Chair.

The Costs

Here’s a breakdown of the items above and an example of how much the entire setup might cost.

I also picked up a couple storage boxes and duffel bags in order to keep everything organized and make grabbing our camping gear quick and easy.