Who doesn’t love camping with same-age cousins or friends? Being outdoors, sleep together under the stars, and the best part is you get the chance to spend bonding time with them. However, how do you fill those hours? It would be fun to fill them with awesome camping activities for adults to enjoy. Our team researched this week on the activities, and we enjoyed it even more, when we tried some of the games out.
Here we listed down our favorite activities for adults to enjoy camping away from home with your favorite buddies!
This article has been subdivided into three sections:
- Summer Camp Games
- Water Activities
- Explore Nature
Table of Contents
Summer Camp Games
1. Lawn Twister
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $1 – $20
Time to complete: 1 hour
Pax: two or more
This is the best game to play while camping for adults. It is fun and ideal for playing with at least 3 people. You will need a large box (pizza box also works), a dinner plate, 4 washable spray paints with different colors (red, blue, yellow, green), a long tent rope, a knife, and an ample and flat space to play. Start with tracing the dinner plate to the bottom of your box and cut the circle. Use the tent rope to mark a straight line for your first row. Then you can start spraying the first row of red circles, blue for the next row, and yellow for the last row. You can make as many circles as you can fit in your space, but each circle should be 1 foot away from each circle on all sides and not less than 3 circles per row.
Note: we recommend making your own DIY paint using cornstarch and food coloring to reduce the impact and simpler clean-up. It is so vital when we are out in nature that we leave it as we found it, or it won’t be delightful for others to pass by our camp in the future. Wait until the paint totally dried up before play.
2. Family Olympics
Difficulty: Easy to difficult
Cost: less than $10
Time to complete: 2 hours
Pax: four or more
There are endless lists of games or activities to play for the family Olympics. The game choice will still depend on the players’ physical fitness and the size of the space. You can have running races, egg on a spoon, water balloon toss, 3-legged races, darts, pie-eating contests, and many more. Try to include various levels of activities, from easy to difficult. Hold a medal ceremony to end your Olympics; adults are going to love them, followed by lots of laughs!
3. Tug of War
Difficulty: Intermediate
Cost: $26
Time to complete: 15 minutes
Pax: two or more
All you need to have is a sturdy rope and some tape to mark the center. Divide equally the willing players into two groups; it could be boys versus girls, young versus old group, or anything else as part of the fun. That being said, adding a small stream or mud puddle across the middle of the rope can make the game a lot messier and a lot more fun!
4. Who Am I?
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free
Time to complete: 30 minutes
Pax: three or more
This simple guessing game is super fun when played with a larger group size. And yes, it’s even better as a drinking game. There are several ways to play this game, but we created the best way to play when you are at the campsite. This game uses very few materials and almost no time for preparation.
Simply write one name on a piece of paper; a famous person, your buddies. Drop them in a cap. Then, everyone will take out one name from the hat and paste it onto their forehead without looking at it. Each player with the sticky note or card takes a turn asking yes or no questions to everyone in the group until the player with the sticky note or card can guess the right name.
The player can ask anything like, “Am I a male (female)? Do I have kids? Am I taller than you?” but the answer is only yes or no. You may also create a category for each round, such as Disney and Marvel characters or football players. Fun is guaranteed!
5. Glow-in-the-dark Bottle Bowling
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $1 – $10
Time to complete: 30 minutes
Pax: two or more
This DIY bowling game is great and fun to play outdoors as a camping game for adults at night. If you a flat space such as a paved parking lot or camping site, you can try this. You will need 10 large, clear water bottles, at least 10 glowsticks in various colors, and a very sturdy ball.
Fill the bottle with water to ¾ full. Line up the bottle on the floor precisely like bowling pins. You should have 1 bottle on the front row, 2 and 3 bottles on the next row, and 4 bottles on the last row.
Crack the glow sticks to glow them and place them into every bottle and close tight. Set a fixed distance between the bowling pins and the starting point using a long rope/branch of wood. Now, you have a DIY glow in the dark bowling in the middle of the wilderness!
6. Flipper Fill-Up
Difficulty: Intermediate
Cost: $10
Time to complete: 10 minutes
Pax: four or more
For 10 minutes, the players need to put on flippers, fill up the small bucket on their head with water and walk towards their team’s big pail on the opposite side. Once they pour the water into the big pail, they need to go back to their starting point and pass their flipper to their teammate. It is a repeating process until 10 minutes are up. The team with more water in their big pail or whose that filled up the big pail fastest is the winner!
7. Lead and Guide
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $5 – $10
Time to complete: 10 minutes
Pax: six or more
Before starting the game, prep the nylons by cutting them shorter to tie around the legs in loops later on. Make sure the space is large enough to play this game. Set a squared 4X4 section in the center of the area using tape and mask off a line around the space to indicate the out zone using bottles.
This is a timed game. To start, divide into two teams, and each team will select a director among their members. Then, the rest of the teammates will partner up and tie together one of their legs using the nylon string. Everyone except the director will wear a blindfold.
Ten random objects are scattered outside the designated 4X4 section. The time starts when the director begins guiding the teammates to the items. They will pick them up and be directed back to the 4X4 area and place the items. Once they have set all of ten objects in the 4X4 area, stop the timer and record the time. The team that has the shortest completed time is the winner!
8. Bon Appetit
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: $10 -$20
Time to complete: 30 minutes
Pax: 7 to 10 people
Items required for this activity are sandwich bread, all your favorite fillings for your sandwich, dining knives, plastic gloves, and bowls for the fillings if needed. Place all of the sandwich’s fillings in a straight line in the middle of the picnic table. Everyone will sit together in a line facing the fillings. The first person will add one filling to the sandwich and pass it to the next person to add another filling. Take turns until done. Everyone will get to eat the sandwich one bite at a time! So much fun while sharing with each other.
9. Awards Ceremony
As a closing ceremony of the day, create awards to play a trick such as “the best sunburn” and “the loudest snorer of all time,” and prepare various funny gifts for them. It will get everyone laughing, and the good memories will stay with them for a long time when they go back home. This is one of the great cabin activities for adults.
Water activities
10. Fishing
Fishing is also the best camping activity to relax and spend some quality time with your squad while on a camping trip. Luckily in North America, there are thousands of great fishing spots near the campgrounds waiting to be experienced by adventure-seekers. There is a very high chance you will be camping next to the water. Why not take advantage and go fishing on your next camping trip?
11. Local watersports – Canoeing, rafting, tubing, kayaking, paddleboarding, surfing, swimming
No camping activity list would be complete without mentioning the local watersports. Swimming and float in the water are the common ones. Still, your campground may also offer rental for paddleboard, tube, canoe, and jetski. Put on your swimsuit and hit the shores of your favorite swimming hole, lake, or ocean. You also can have an all-out kayak race with your buddies to the other side.
12. Skip Rocks
You’re never too old to skip rocks! It can even be a fun competition to see who can get the most skips or the furthest distance. This has become one of our favorite things to do while camping for adults.
13. Water Balloon Fight
If there are no bodies of water near your campsite, water balloon fights are a great way to get you wet. This is a perfect activity to escape the summer heat and provides an option for those who may not have good swimming skills. This thrilling and straightforward game helps develop teamwork skills and creates unforgettable memories of a summer well spent.
Explore Nature
You and your friends can party and play as many games as you can. But, sometimes, even the best of us need a way to go exploring. Not sure that your group will be into hiking games or trail activities? Rest assured, if you present this scavenger hunt in a fun and playful way, all will be able to enjoy your next tromp in the great outdoors.
Below you will find a list of scavenger hunt items that you can tweak to your hiking destination. Break it down into a couple of different plans and take them on a multi-day backpack.
14. Berry Picking
The best part of hiking a few miles into the woods during late summer is that you might come across ripe berries that you can eat along the way. You can find edible huckleberries, blueberries, thimbleberries, and salmonberries across the Pacific Northwest. If you are concerned about picking the poisonous one, bring a plant identification guidebook or invite a wildberry expert to hike with you!
15. Foraging
Wild berries are not the only edibles in the forest. You can find a lot more real foods along the trail, from seeds to flowers and fruits. However, you need to have the knowledge to tell the safe from the unsafe wild fruits. Get yourself started by joining local foraging walks led by the local experts to learn from them.
16. Orienteering
Orienteering is an activity that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from one checkpoint to another in unfamiliar terrain while moving at speed. To make it more competitive, the team that arrives at the assigned checkpoint first is the winner. On top of all that, it adds excitement to your camping trip, and it is a great way to practice your navigation skills.
17. Photography
Photography is common among campers and nature hikers, especially when there is just so much out there to see and keep in our memories. Photography and hiking can come along together and have become one of our favorite activities.
18. Rock Climbing
Most of the hikers enjoy scrambling and climbing as well. Rock climbing is a fun-loving and exceptionally social outdoor activity simply because climbers need to help and take turns to keep everyone safe. If you are a beginner, make sure to bring experts that possess the right climbing skill. But with that being said, a good scramble or climb when tackled knowingly is a lot of fun!
19. Sit And Watch
Most people go camping to get away from the stress of everyday life, so take it easy. Relax and let the rest of the world fade away with these ideas for chilling out. Instead of hiking to a specific place, try to just sit in a hammock, watch the trees blowing in the breeze, and chill out while listening to the sound of nature. You might be amazed by how much nature can go silent, being one with yourself and taking in the wilderness.
20. Learning
Books can provide so many pieces of information. However, we believe that no better school offers a real hands-on learning experience more than the outdoors. Try to multitask your hiking with hands-on learning new techniques to identify birds and trees, navigation, and foraging skills. Keep observing and take notes whenever you encounter exciting findings along the way.
We listed down fun things to observe with your friends during trail hiking.
- Find a weird-shaped rock.
- Find a possible animal’s home.
- Find 3 different shapes of leaves.
- Find 3 different shades of green.
- Find a flower that smells good.
- Pick up 3 pieces of litter.
- Find the tiniest plant you can see.
- Look for insects on the tree bark.
- Wade into the creek/lake/stream. Do you see any fish or insects?
- What is the tallest thing around you?
As always, this list is meant as a guide to get your imagination rolling.
The overall goal is to have fun and enjoy your time away, you won’t have time to fit in all these great activities, but you can try. The most important thing is to relax and enjoy your time away with your friends and family!
More camping ideas
Check out our article → Easy Food to Make for Camping Trips to know our favorite easy recipe ideas when camping!
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are fun things to do while camping?
There are tons of exciting things you can do when you are camping. We listed down activities that are fun to do with your buddies in this article. However, suppose you are stuck inside the tent. In that case, other things you can do are reading books, having a truth-or-dare conversation with your tentmates, crafting, and playing board games.
- Can I bring alcoholic drinks to the campground?
Yes, you can. If you are unsure, please refer to the campground’s website before your arrival. And also, some campgrounds have strict light off and quiet hours. Please be sure to check their campground regulations and rules.
- How do I make my camping trip romantic?
There is no easier way to get to know a person than sitting around a campfire with them. Make sure to keep your date fun and cozy by bringing blankets, camp chairs, warm drinks, and s’mores, of course! Also, pack a double sleeping bag. We recommend Big Agnes King Solomon 15 Double Sleeping Bag.
- What should you not do while camping?
- Arrive after dark or in the hottest time of the day
- Choose the campsite closest to the water bodies
- Pack too much unnecessary stuff
- Drink too much water before sleep
- Be loud
- How do I camp if I hate camping?
- Choose a large pop-up tent – easy to pitch
- Make good meals
- Stay at the campsite rather than off-grid wilderness
- Plan the activities that you love
- Bring your pillow and air mattress for extra comfort
- Bring a portable heater or make a DIY heat pad