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Updated April 9, 2024
Susan and I are on the road nine months a year, making us three-quarter-time RVers. We think finding fun camping activities at night is one of the most fun parts of RV camping!
When we are on the road, we hang out with friends and have a cocktail around the campfire.
When we are camping with our grandkids, we enjoy star gazing and making s’mores.
No matter where you camp or who you are with, we hope you can enjoy some of our 25 Awesome Camping Activities at Night!
25 Best Camping Activities at Night
1. Sit Around the Campfire
A staple for many camping trips is sitting around the campfire. Just staring, poking and adding wood is sometimes all you need to entertain you for hours.
Nothing brings people together more than sitting around a warm, cozy fire until the late hours of the night. Throw some magical flames on the fire for some added color!
2. Tell Stories and Jokes Around the Campfire
Goofy, embarrassing, funny, scary or even made up! While enjoying the warmth of the campfire, take turns telling stories and funny jokes that’ll make time fly.
3. Word of Mouth Games
If you’re all out of stories, try and play a silly word-of-mouth game that’ll engage everyone around the campfire. My favorite game to play is called the “Alphabet Game.” You first pick a theme like “animals” or “foods,” and in a circle, you take turns naming one thing that starts with the next letter in the alphabet and compiling as you go.
For example, the first person would say “Aardvark,” then the next person would need to repeat “Aardvark” before saying something like “Beaver,” the next person would then say “Aardvark, Beaver…Cat!” and so on. It’s fun to see who can remember the whole list by the end!
4. Play Music
If you’re lucky enough to have a musically talented friend, encourage them to bring their guitar or banjo to your next camping trip and sing along to some tunes while the fire provides background noise. You can even make it into a game by merely humming a tune and seeing if your friends can guess the song! Just remember to observe “quiet hours” if you’re at an established campground!
Susan and I don’t play musical instruments but enjoy listening to music on our outdoor speaker.
5. Have Cocktails with Friends Around the Camp Fire
Sitting around a fire enjoying cocktails is definitely one of our favorite camping activities at night. Here we are in Thousand Trails Orlando with our friends on New Year’s Eve!
We enjoy this activity as many nights a year as possible! Thanks to all of our friends who have made our camping adventures so much fun!
6. Make Dessert
There’s nothing better than some roasted marshmallows or s’mores made on an open fire. Our grandkids love them!
If you’re looking for a fun new family activity, try making a new fireside dessert like a “campfire cone.” You take ice cream waffle cones, fill them with marshmallows, fruit, chocolate chips or whatever your heart desires, wrap them in tin foil and sit next to the fire for a few minutes, let them cool, and enjoy!
7. Stargaze
If the fire is dying out and you’re lucky enough to be far enough away from the city lights, take some time to lean back and stare at the never-ending stars. We used our zero gravity chairs to lay back and Stargaze very comfortably.
Our grandkids love this activity, but not for long! lol! They get impatient and want to move on to activities with more action.
8. Go For a Walk with Your Flashlights
Like camping during the day, camping at night doesn’t have to have many bells and whistles to enjoy yourself. Just grabbing a flashlight or headlamp and taking a walk around the campsite can be an excellent way to wind down before bed.
To make it even more fun, you can turn off the flashlight, let your eyes adjust and be amazed at what you can see! If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to spot some wildlife as well.
9. Practice Your Night Time Photography
You probably have tons of photos of the kids jumping in the pool or the overlooks you saw on your hike during the day, but the nighttime provides a whole new world of photography opportunities.
Whether you’re trying to get an excellent capture of the moon, your lit-up tent or the kids running around with glowsticks, take the time to play with your settings and see what you can capture when the sun goes down!
There is a great website called cameratips.com where you can buy cheat cards for your camera. The cheat cards tell you the exact camera settings for your specific camera to take all types of shots, including photos of the stars. I’m not an affiliate, but I have them, and they are a great resource.
10. Go for a Night Swim
If your family loves swimming during the day, there is something a bit taboo about swimming at night that makes it even more exciting. Not only that, if you happen to be camping near a natural body of water, the water usually feels warmer at night.
It might feel like a warm bathtub to play in! Grab your flashlights, towels and sandals and head to the lakeside! Note – do not swim in the ocean at night!
11. Play Flashlight Hide and Seek
Another good way to burn off some energy before getting snuggled into bed for the night is to designate who is “it” and tell everyone to run and hide! After a few seconds, whoever is “it” gets to try their hand at searching for the rest of the family with their flashlight!
This is one of our 4-year-old granddaughter’s favorite camping activities at night. No one likes to play hide and seek more than she does.
It probably doesn’t need to be said, but finding a safe, open spot to run around with little to no obstacles is important to ensure everyone stays safe.
12. Play Flashlight iSpy
If running around isn’t in the cards, have one person flash their flashlight around to spot something, and then give everyone else a turn to take guesses as to what they spotted. If they guess correctly, they get to spot something next!
13. Play Cards or a Board Game
Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, and it forces you to hang out in the tent or the RV for the night. If you can’t play outside, bringing along some cards or a small board game can help the time fly. If you have a deck of cards, go around in a circle choosing which games to play!
14. Play a Game on Your Phone
If you don’t want to bring along a deck of cards or a whole board game, you could easily download a group game like “Heads-Up” on your phone before your trip and take turns playing.
15. Watch a Movie on your Phone/Device
Sometimes, after a long day of exploring and playing, merely watching a show or movie on your device is a good bonding tool for you and your family. Save your data plan by downloading some choices before you leave home.
16. Do a Craft
If your family is handy, this might be the perfect opportunity to knit a new scarf or paint an original watercolor to decorate the inside of your RV. Camping crafts are an ideal quiet activity for you and your family on a rainy night or to have a calm evening.
17. Journal
You might have pictures to remember your activities with, but nothing can describe the trip quite like your own words. Winding down at the end of the night is the perfect time to write in a journal or diary and recall the day’s events.
18. Read a Book
Whether to yourself or out loud to your family, curling up with a good book is a timeless camping relaxation activity.
19. Look at the Pictures You Took Throughout the Day
Take some time and look at all the pictures and videos you took during the day. It’s a great way to have some laughs and appreciate the day! GoPro has an awesome app called Quik that takes the day’s videos and pictures and combines them all to make cool music collages. Below is a Quik video of me, Mike from RVBlogger, which I made with my daughters in Shenandoah National Park.
20. Make Shadow Puppets
A fun activity for kids of all ages is making shadow puppets. This activity will encourage everyone to put on a creative and sometimes educational type of entertainment. This can even be done inside or outside your camper trailer. It’s one of those rare activities that requires no equipment, no electricity, and no previous experience necessary!
21. Catch Lightning Bugs In A Jar
A lot of us remember catching lightning bugs in jars as a kid. This is a great nighttime camping activity, but only if you release them immediately, as we never want to harm nature or her precious animals.
You can use this as a teaching moment with your children by explaining the delicate balance between humans and Mother Earth. It could lead to some very interesting and educational conversations with your family.
22. Watch an Outdoor Movie
Since I wrote this article in 2020, outdoor projectors have become pretty popular. We even bought one for our adult kids so they could use it with their kids (our grandkids) while camping.
Just string up a white sheet and set up the projector and you are good to go! On our other website, TravelTrailerPro.com, one of our writers wrote an excellent article called How to Set Up an Outdoor Movie While Camping. Check it out for all the deets!
23. Creative Camping Bingo
Who doesn’t love a game of bingo?! It’s easy. It’s fun. And the whole family can join in. With a little planning, you can create your very own version of family camping bingo.
If your kids are old enough, you could have each of them design their very own bingo cards based on where you are camping and duplicate enough of them so everyone can play. Of course, you will need to bring paper and pencils or crayons for them to do this. But if it is raining, what a great and creative way to keep the kiddos busy!
24. Make Trail Mix for the Next Day
This night time activity will be greatly appreciated the next day when you and your family go for a nice hike in the woods or have a long travel day planned.
Start making your family trail mix by handing each child their own zippered style sandwich bag or quart sized bag. If they are old enough, have their write their name on their bag with a permanent magic marker.
After dispensing the bags set out the following and help each child to put a portion (use a 1/3 measuring cup) into their bag.
Here are some ideas of what to put into their trail mix bags. Remember, if a child does not like a particular ingredient or is allergic to something, there are plenty of mix and match ingredients to pick from below. The most common Trail Mix ingredients are:
- Peanuts
- Cashews
- Almonds
- Pistachios
- Small snack sized pretzels
- Small snack sized butter crackers
- Candy coated chocolate candies (with or without peanuts or caramels)
- Crunchy cheese snacks
- Small bagel bits or larger bagel bits that are broken up
- Dried raisins
- Dried blueberries
- Dried cranberries
- Dried apricots
- Dried plantains
- Whole grain cereal squares or circles
- Flaked coconut
- Fruit leather sliced into smaller sized bits
- Fruit snacks or gummy snacks
- Broken up bits of chocolate bars
- Granola
- Chocolate Chips
- Peanut Butter Chips
Making trail mix together is fun and practical because everyone gets what they want to eat the next day. You can be as creative as possible. Buy the above-mentioned ingredients in bulk and design your family’s very own style of trail mix and wait for the rave reviews.
25. Fairy Princess or Pirate Lights
If you have only girls, this game can be a fairy or princess twinkling lights. If you have boys in your family, you could call this activity pirate cannonballs.
Basically, you will string strands of twinkling LED lights around your campsite. String them up in trees and bushes, even attach them to the corners of your camper trailer. This will create a magical atmosphere, and you can take turns adding to a storyline, aka “Telephone Game.”
How it works: The first family member in the circle whispers a word or sentence into the ear of the person sitting or standing to their right. The game continues. Players whisper the whole entire phrase or story to their neighbors to the right until it reaches the last player in the circle. That person tells what “they heard” and it could be a funny story by the time it reaches them!
With these 25 Awesome Camping Activities At Night, the nighttime might even be your family’s most fun! No matter what nighttime camping activity you and your family choose, you’re bound to have a good time!
Join a Local Camping Club and Have a Blast!
RELATED READING:
1️⃣ Roadschooling 101: How to Homeschool While Traveling
2️⃣ 21 Practical Tips for Living in an RV with Kids
3️⃣ 13 Awesome Tips for RV Camping with Kids
4️⃣ 12 Life Changing Benefits of Camping with Family
5️⃣ Internet For RVing: What Are Your Options?
We sure hope you can use some of our 25 camping activities at night. Do you have any favorite nighttime RV Camping activities? Please share them in the comments below!
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Mike Scarpignato – Bio
Mike Scarpignato created RVBlogger.com over five years ago in 2018 to share all we have learned about RV camping.
Mike is an avid outdoorsman with decades of experience tent camping and traveling in his 2008 Gulf Stream Conquest Class C RV and 2021 Thor Challenger Class A motorhome.
We attend RV Shows and visit RV dealerships all across the country to tour and review drivable motorhomes and towable trailers to provide the best evaluations of these RVs in our blog articles and YouTube videos.
We are 3/4-time RVers who created RVBlogger.com to provide helpful information about all kinds of RVs and related products, gear, camping memberships, tips, hacks and advice.
The blog which you shared has really some interesting games. Camping with family & friends is my favorite outdoor activity. From our busy schedule it is good to have such moments with our loved ones. Many activities have been shortlisted after reading your blog to enjoy with everyone. Thanks for sharing this!