Car Camping Packing Guide

Happy Thursday, guys! I wanted to do a post on car camping, because I knew so little about it before I started doing it. I went on my first car camping trip to the Smokies a couple years ago, and we were definitely a little underprepared. After a couple trips, I feel like I've definitely gotten the hang of it a little bit more, and wanted to share the stuff that we bring with us when we go!

I bring this blanket everywhere with us! When we have the dogs, I use it to protect my seats from all their fur while we're driving. I got mine at a random gas station, but you can find them here on Amazon!

We knew we were going to be staying right next to other campers, and our dogs just love to bark at strangers, so we have these incredibly helpful shock collars for them. I know a lot of people are against them, but I definitely didn't want our pups barking at 6am and waking people up (and trust me, the dogs don't care about the collars at all)! There's a setting where the collar only beeps, and another where it only vibrates if you think the shock is too strong for your dog (Champ uses the vibration setting).

Liam also had the CUTEST track suit on from Amazon! He's a little dude with almost no body fat so he gets super cold sometimes, and this little track suit is perfect!

We also brought our lawn chairs (mine are SUPER old, but I found similar ones here), roasting sticks (again, ours are old, but we used these last week at the Inn at The Gray Dove and they were so cool), a lighter, fire starters, firewood, my Eno (I have the navy/royal color, and the atlas straps are the best!), and our slack line. 

We slept on an air mattress at night, because it was easy to fold up and put away in the morning! I swear by this one. It's a double, which is the perfect size for my Jeep. It also isn't raised, so we weren't too claustrophobic in the car. You won't have any room if you get a raised one! Ours also has a battery-powered pump, so we could blow it up without electricity. The best part is that we paid $30 for it about two and a half years ago, and we're just replacing it. You'll get a LOT of use out of it! I would definitely recommend getting it soon, because it's on sale right now!

These SUV window screens were also a necessity so we could get some ventilation at night. The lows at night were in the 50's, but we were still incredibly warm snuggled up in the car, so I would 10/10 recommend them! 

Another great thing to pack are portable phone chargers! My car doesn't charge phones at night, so we definitely needed them for charging our phones at night.

We also brought a fair amount of food with us! Since we were going to be camping, I knew I wanted enough for us to be good for three days. A lot of the food was cold, and we have this exact ice chest, which is a less expensive version of a Yeti! Some food items I really loved having with us were: SToK cold brew coffee, vegan hot dogs, veggies and hummus, Dandies Vegan Marshmallows, two gallons of water, and stuff to make sandwiches!

I loved having this camping stove for cooking our meals. We also used a cast iron griddle, depending on what we were making! I also love using collapsible bowls to save a bit of space. These are the ones we have, and they're actually made for dogs, haha, but we just cleaned them out and ate out of them as well! Another thing I would definitely recommend bringing are wipes. We wiped down our dishes when we were done, the dog's paws before we got in the car, our faces at night, and anything else we needed to clean (hint: there are no showers at the campgrounds in the Smokies, hahaha!)

Guys that's pretty much everything! I hope you enjoyed this post, and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below. Have a great week!

Much Love,
Vikka