10 Games We Play When Camping (And Most of Them Just Need a Stick)

10 Games We Play When Camping (And Most of Them Just Need a Stick)

One of my favourite things about caravan life is what happens when you remove the noise of everyday routine. You pull up at a campsite, the boys jump out, and within about four minutes they've found a stick.

We have a collection of games that live permanently under the seat in our caravan. Rain, hail or shine, they come with us on every trip. Some need equipment. Some just need whatever's on the ground. All of them get the boys moving, thinking, and into the world around them.

A bonus? These games have a funny way of attracting other kids at the campsite. Before long you've got a full tournament happening on the grass and parents from three caravans down have wandered over with a beer. That's the magic of a simple game outdoors.

Angela Hanscom, author of Balanced and Barefoot, writes about how unstructured physical play builds the vestibular system, strengthens core muscles, and develops the kind of creative thinking no classroom can replicate. Basically, messing around with sticks and balls at a campsite is doing more for your kids than you think.

Here are the 10 games that never leave our caravan. 🌿

1. Chalk Snakes & Ladders — the Gus edition
This one started with my son Gus and a piece of chalk at a caravan park. He disappeared for a while and when I found him he'd drawn an entire snakes and ladders board on the concrete - full grid, numbered squares, snakes, ladders, the lot. He used sticks as the playing pieces.

That's it. That's the whole game. But what Gus did before the game even started - designing it, drawing it, problem-solving the layout - was worth more than any toy we could have packed. Peter Gray, in Free to Learn, calls this kind of self-directed play the foundation of creativity and independent thinking. We now keep chalk in the van permanently.

What you need: chalk, sticks, any flat surface, a dice.

 

2. Finska — won on a train platform
Our Finska set has a story. We were on a train trip when we stopped at a station and found a group of elderly gentlemen teaching kids on the platform how to play. They had made the sets themselves by hand — beautiful, solid timber, clearly crafted with love. The deal was simple: the winning family took home a set.

We were the lucky winners. That set has come on every camping trip since.

If you don't have one - go buy one today. It is the single best outdoor game for families. Easy enough for young kids, competitive enough to keep adults genuinely invested. You set up 12 numbered wooden pins in a cluster and take turns throwing a wooden skittle at them from a distance. Knock one pin over and you score that number. Knock multiple pins and you score the count. First to exactly 50 wins - go over and you drop back to 25. The maths alone makes it educational. The arguments it causes make it entertaining.

What you need: a Finska set (original or make your own) - ours lives permanently in the van.

 

3. Bocce — a gift that keeps on giving
Our bocce set was an end-of-year gift from the reps at work. That was over 12 years ago. It has been used at more campsites, backyards, parks and family gatherings than I can count — and it still goes strong. Best gift ever given at an office Christmas party, without question.

For the uninitiated: you throw a small target ball (the pallino) then take turns getting your larger balls as close to it as possible. Closest wins the round. It works on grass, gravel, sand, dirt — basically any campsite surface. Calm enough for little kids, competitive enough for adults, and a guaranteed crowd-drawer at any caravan park.

What you need: a bocce set (compact, fits easily under the seat).

 

4. A ball — the most versatile thing you own
One round ball. That's all you need. It becomes basketball at a court, handball against a wall, football on the oval, tag with a twist, or just kick-to-kick on any open patch of grass. A ball is the most reliable magnet for kids I've ever found — pull one out at a campsite and within minutes other kids appear from nowhere, drawn in by pure instinct.

It's also the easiest way to create an impromptu game when you've got a mixed group of kids of different ages. No rules, no setup, no stress — just throw it and see what happens.

What you need: one round ball. Any size, any sport.

 

5. Handball (4 Square)
All you need is chalk and a ball. Draw a 2x2 grid on any flat surface - a caravan park road, a concrete slab, a footpath — number the squares 1 to 4, and you have a game that could genuinely last all afternoon.

The person in square 4 serves — bouncing the ball into another square, which that player must hit into any other square without catching it. Miss and you drop to square 1. Kids make up their own rules constantly, which is exactly the kind of creative, self-directed play that researchers say is so valuable.

What you need: chalk and a rubber ball.

 

6. Stick sword fight (with three rules)
Every stick becomes a sword eventually - you may as well lean in. The rules in our house: no hitting above the shoulders, no hitting hard, and the moment someone says stop, you stop. That's it.

Meg Meeker in Boys Should Be Boys is very clear: rough-and-tumble play is how boys develop physical confidence, learn boundaries, and understand cause and effect in a safe environment. Let them fight with sticks. Just set the rules first. Someone end up crying, but it's part of the learning... 

What you need: two sticks and three rules.

7. The scavenger hunt — also known as mum's five minutes of peace
I'll be honest — this one doubles as a survival strategy for me.

I don't use a written list. I just pick something I can see — an orange flower, a smooth round rock, a leaf bigger than my hand — and send the boys to find it. They have five minutes to come back. Whoever gets back first with the right thing wins that round. If it's something I can compare — biggest leaf, smallest rock, longest stick — I give them a set time and judge the results.

Those five minutes? I sip my coffee. I read a couple of pages of my book. I breathe. It's beautiful. I call this game "The queen ordered"

But beyond the mum's-sanity benefit, Richard Louv talks about this kind of nature exploration as one of the most powerful ways children build a real relationship with the natural world. Kids who are given freedom to look closely, touch things, and discover on their own terms develop a genuine love of nature - not just tolerance of it.

What you need: your eyes, five minutes, and something nearby worth finding.

 

8. Stick javelin
Find a long straight stick, draw a line in the dirt, and take turns throwing it as far as you can. Mark where each one lands with a smaller stick. Argue about technique. Declare a winner. Repeat.

Requires nothing, takes 30 seconds to set up, and fills an entire hour. My boys will do this until their arms give out.

What you need: sticks. That's it.

9. Dam building
Requires a creek or a puddle, or the beach - which most good campsites have. Give the boys a pile of sticks and rocks and tell them to build a dam. That's the whole brief.  A bucket works well too, they get to build and then damp the water and hope it won't pass the dam.

What follows is an hour of pure engineering, problem-solving, negotiation and getting very, very wet. Hanscom would have a field day - this activity hits almost every sensory system at once. Running water, uneven surfaces, the weight of rocks, the texture of mud. It's a full developmental workout disguised as messing around.

What you need: water, sticks, rocks, and the willingness to deal with wet shoes.

 

10. Cards — when the sun goes down
Not every game needs to be outside. When the light fades and the mosquitoes arrive (always the mosquitoes) or the rainy clouds come in, we move inside the van and break out the cards. Uno is the staple — loud, chaotic, genuinely fun for all ages, and many kids can play at the same time. But we also play classic deck games: snap, go fish, war, and a few family favourites that have developed their own house rules over years of caravan trips.

A deck of cards and Uno weigh nothing, travel perfectly, and have saved us on more rainy evenings than I can count. 

What you need: a standard deck of cards and Uno. Both live under our van seat.

The under-the-seat kit

If you're building your own caravan game kit, here's exactly what lives under our seat:

• Finska set
• Bocce set
• One round ball (use it for everything)
• Chalk (at least 4 fat pieces)
• Uno
• A standard deck of cards
• A small notebook and pen (scorekeeping)
• A couple of spare dice

Everything else — the sticks, the rocks, the puddles, the orange flower — you find when you get there. That's the whole point.

Happy camping. 🌿