Things I forgot to take Camping

The-small-Travelbetter-tent — The small Travelbetter Tent

I don’t want to encourage the “typical man” comments…but on my recent camping trip with Travelbetter Boy I did forget to pack a few key items.

Still, it gave me a chance to think creatively and find some some novel solutions and this is always a good skill to practice when travelling. After all, you never know when you might forget or lose something, or something might get broken – especially with kids involved.

So what did I forget…

I forgot our pillows

Yep, probably the most annoying thing to forget. It is hard to get any decent sleep while camping and now I had just made it harder.

I looked around to see what we had. Our sleeping bags had hoods which was a good start and Travelbetter Boy felt this was enough for him.

Then at bed time it seemed to be. He curled himself up in his sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep comfortably. I was quite jealous.

It wasn’t that easy for me, especially as I was taller than my sleeping bag so could only gain a bit of comfort from the hood.

In my search for a solution I gathered together our dry towels and a few of my clothes and made a make shift pillow. Not brilliant, but it did the job.

I forgot a tea towel

washing-up-room-watercress-lodges — The washing up room at the Watercress Lodges

One of the chores of camping is washing up. Now, while I had remembered the washing up liquid, sponge and camping washing up bowl. I had nothing to dry the dishes with.

The temperature was luckily still hot so they could drip dry a little and then I finished them off with a cloth napkin from our picnic set.

Not ideal but it worked.

I forgot the beans and something to keep them in

beans-in-a-bottle — Baked beans stored in a coke bottle

Travelbetter Boy loves baked beans and not surprisingly wanted them with his chips. But, I had forgotten to bring any and he was more annoyed about this then the pillow!

Easily remedied and we picked a tin up at the local shop. Unfortunately, the only tins we could get there were full sized and despite his love of beans he couldn’t finish it, and I wouldn’t let him for the obvious reason.

Then the problem became finding something to keep them in. I hadn’t bought anything with us to keep food in. Do I just throw them away? It felt like a waste. Especially as I knew he or I might want them for breakfast.

I had a coke bottle left over from dinner and while it was tricky work feeding the beans into the bottle it worked, they were in a container with a lid and then put on our cool bag for the night.

I forgot a rubbish bag

Normally when camping we have a couple of bin bags to collect any rubbish as we go. But I had managed to forget these.

Still, we didn’t really have a lot of mess or waste on this trip and a simple spare carrier bag did the job.

In conclusion

Sometimes we forget stuff, but it doesn’t have to be he end of the world. Most items can have duel uses to solve your problems and all it takes is a bit of creative thinking.

Plus, it didn’t distract from the fun time we had one bit.

Let us know in the comments what you’ve forgotten on trips before and how you overcame any problems as a result.

Family Camping Tips

For more interesting tails of our family camping adventures and useful tips to help you have great family camping adventures checkout out our family camping guide.