After a few evenings in your backyard campground, kids will be ready and excited to camp.

Please note: due to local and state guidelines surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, some information below may not be accurate. Before you travel and plan your next adventure, make sure to check each business/park/campsite for any closures or guidelines and for the most up to date information. Enjoy your next Alabama Fall camping adventure!

For many of us, some of our fondest memories of growing up come from camping with our families. You just have to smile when you recall the fun of jumping into a cool lake on a hot summer day, chasing fireflies under a starry night sky, or making S’mores around an open campfire.

Even if you’re not a hardcore outdoors person, you can make those same memories for your family. The key is to put some effort into planning your camping trip so that it will be memorable, fun for everyone, as stress-free as possible, and safe. Here are 10 tips for taking a successful family camping trip.

1. Make a Dry Run…or Two

It can be a little frightening for children to sleep outside of the cozy confines of their bedroom, especially if they’re really young. If your kids have never been camping, it’s not a good idea to suddenly pack them up, grab a tent, and head out for an overnighter. Instead, do a dry run first.

Pitch a tent in your backyard and spend a night there. Teach your children about the sounds of the night and point out stars and planets in the night sky. After the kids spend a few evenings in your backyard campground, they’ll be excited and ready for the next step—a real car campout.

That’s right, a car campout where you drive your car to a campground and set up your tent and gear. Before you involve the kids in a rugged backwoods experience you should allow them to get accustomed to camping in a more controlled setting where there’s a bit of civilization and some facilities. Remember, small steps.

2. Planning is Key for a Successful Outing

Plan carefully to ensure your camping trip is fun and safe for the entire family. Michael Guite

Planning is one of the key ingredients to ensure that your family will enjoy a fun and successful camping trip. Before your first campout, consider the following things:

• When you choose a campground for car camping, determine what activities are available there. You want to ensure that the kids will be entertained, and not just the adults.
• Check the campground rules and regulations. You’ll have fewer headaches if you know important details, such as whether pets are allowed.
• Put together a gear list (see Packing for Success below), and give yourself ample time to acquire things. If you wait until the last minute, you’ll be stressed and forget things.
• Plan every meal you’ll prepare during the campout.
• Determine whether water will be available at the campsite, or whether you’ll need to bring your own.
• Review emergency and safety concerns (see Keep Them Safe below).

When you’re researching campgrounds, check to see if the campground offers ranger talks about nature, or if there are special events going on during your planned visit that would interest your family. For example, it’s great to camp at Moundville Archaeological Park in Moundville, Ala., during the weekend of the Native American Festival in early October.

When it comes to food, you should plan each meal well in advance. Keep the meals simple but delicious. It’s best to prepare something you can make quickly that everyone will like. Also, opt for meals that require minimal cleanup. Wherever possible, pack the ingredients for each meal into separate containers or zip lock bags to keep them organized. And don’t forget plenty of the family’s favorite snacks!

As you gather your gear, carefully consider the type of tent you’ll use. With a small family, you may be fine with a three- or four-person dome tent. Larger families, or those that might want a little more space, might be better off with a seven- or eight-person cabin tent. If you have older kids who would prefer to have their own sleeping space, you could take separate small tents for them.

3. Packing for Success

What should you pack on a family camping trip? Well, that is a very subjective topic that depends on you and your family’s needs. A good list is available from the Boy Scouts of America.

As you’re prepping for your trip, you’ll probably pick up some new gear. Before you depart for the campground, become familiar with new things and test them to ensure they function properly. It’s especially helpful to pitch the tent in your backyard a few times. There is nothing more frustrating—and embarrassing—than flailing around with aluminum poles and canvas in the middle of the night.

4. Packing for Fun

Bring toys, games, and equipment such as a telescope to entertain the kids. The Digital Marketing Collaboration

Don’t forget to bring along the fun! Pack fun games and toys based on the ages of your children to help them pass the time. A few examples include:

• Glow in the dark or lighted flying discs
• Paddleball
• Marshmallow shooters
• Ice Cream Maker Ball (toss it around and make homemade ice cream)
• Water Pistols and Super-Shooters
• Playing Cards
• Bicycles
• Telescope and star chart

5. Little Helpers

No matter how old or young your children are, make sure they have a job to do around camp. Whether it’s gathering firewood or helping erect the tent, any job big or small will make kids feel like they’re an important part of the adventure.

6. Shut Off the Tech

You’re doing your family and yourself a disservice if you let electronics distract you from the natural surroundings of your campsite. Because adults and kids spend so much time connected to devices, a campout will seem much more special when everyone powers down and devotes time to each other. Plus, the outing will be more interesting if you pay more attention to the surrounding animals and bugs, the trees, the water, the sky—everything that makes the outdoors unique and different. While you should leave most of your electronic devices at home, keep at least one cell phone handy in your car in case of an emergency. Just keep it turned off so that you and your family will have each other’s full attention.

7. Try A Geocaching Treasure Hunt

Geocaching is becoming more popular because it challenges you mentally and gets you out and about in nature. Geocaching is a treasure hunt where you use GPS coordinates to find hidden caches, which can be large or small containers that hold trinkets as well as a log book where you record that you found the cache. When you’re planning your campout, make sure to look for campgrounds that have geocaches either in the campground or nearby, and don’t forget the GPS. (You can also use a geocaching.com mobile app.) At CacheGeek.Com you’ll find a list of online websites that identify geocaches throughout the country.

9. Keep Them Safe

It’s crucial to teach children campfire safety and other important aspects of staying safe outdoors. Daiga Ellaby?

Needless to say, safety is your prime concern when camping with your family. The adults in your family should all know the basics of outdoor safety, and you should pass along the knowledge to children. Keep in mind the following:

• When children aren’t with an adult they should keep away from lakes, rivers, ponds, and streams.
• Learn how to spot poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, and stay away from them.
• Don’t eat anything you find in the woods. The berries might look good, but they can make you sick.
• Never touch or feed any animals, big or small.
• Have children carry a loud whistle, and teach them how to use it if they become lost or in trouble.
• Teach children campfire safety.

10. Begin and End With a Positive Attitude

Your camping trip will be more fun and memorable if you keep a positive attitude. If you’ve been camping before, you know that even the best-laid plans can go awry. People can get frustrated by something as simple as failing to start a campfire. Or, the weather could take a turn and force you to deal with rain all day. A million things that can go wrong on a campout, but if you always keep a positive attitude and brush it off, your family will pick up on your vibe and it will still be a fun trip.

Written by Joe Cuhaj for Blue Cross Blue Shield of AL and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.

Autumn is a season of bonfires and warm thermos drinks. It is also the perfect time to explore central Alabama, set up camp, and sleep outside. And Birmingham residents are lucky enough to have plenty of places to do so within a 20-minute drive in any direction. Getting off the beaten path, camping underneath the stars, or simply building a fire for the evening is an excellent way to welcome the fall, and in the Birmingham area, doing so is as easy as pumpkin pie.

1. Moundville Archeological Park

A haunted house may not be a place to take your youngest kids this Halloween, but taking them to an ancient Native American city is something they will thoroughly enjoy. Moundville Archeological Park is one of the most historic sites in Alabama, and is home to a small museum, nature trails, and even a campground. The park is open from 9 a.m. to dusk, and campers must call ahead to reserve a spot. Spending the night is an option, but as it’s located only about an hour away, a day trip is easily doable. And only twenty minutes away, in Greensboro, is the Pie Lab, which is a must for lunch or dinner.

2. Walls of Jericho

If you and your family are interested in a more remote adventure, the Walls of Jericho is a breathtaking destination full of caves, canyons, and rock amphitheaters. Though the hiking at this destination is pretty difficult, the secluded trails, fascinating water and rock formations, and scenic landscape more than make up for the difficulty. Pack in all your camping supplies and enjoy an unforgettable backpacking trip in a truly magical part of Alabama.

3. Geocaching

All over the world Geocachers stash items with specific GPS coordinates in given locations, and Birmingham and Alabama have a ton of Geocaches spread out, just waiting to be found. The only thing you need to join this increasingly popular and fun outdoor activity is a GPS device. It is very much like a big scavenger hunt, which can take all day or all weekend, depending on how many treasure troves you want to find. Just go to the geocaching website and pick an item to hunt, and be prepared to land in some pretty unique hiking and camping locations.

4. Pinhoti Trail

The Pinhoti Trail is located in the Talladega National Forest, about 88 miles from downtown Birmingham. While an adventure here is not for the faint of heart, the hiking and camping here is as serene as it gets, and the bragging rights you’ll have over your office mates on Monday morning will make it worthwhile. Not to mention, the mountains and forests this trail cuts through are absolutely gorgeous, especially at this time of year when the trees are exploding with color. Anyone who is even slightly interested in backpacking simply has to trek this trail on a long fall weekend.

5. Hammock at Moss Rock Preserve

Sometimes finding a peaceful place to relax can be an excursion in itself, but at Moss Rock Preserve you can easily venture away from the bustle of the city and find two perfectly spaced-out and secluded trees to hang a hammock. Only 12 miles from downtown, Moss Rock is a great getaway that’s not far away, perfect for drifting away in a hammock with a good book in hand.

 6. Lake Guntersville State Park

Even though your camping adventure might actually turn into staying at a hotel and playing golf, a visit to this state park definitely still qualifies as a worthy excursion. Lake Guntersville has a long list of fun things to do, ranging from fishing, boating and paddling, to hiking and cliff jumping, and yes, even golf. For lodging, this state park offers tent camping, RV sites, cabins, and even a hotel, so if you’re looking for an exciting and relaxing adventure all in one weekend, this is the spot for you.

Written by Daniel Byars for RootsRated and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.