Your Guide to the Best Travel Camping Games for Families in 2024

Your Guide to the Best Travel Camping Games for Families in 2024

Camping trips are a wonderful way for friends and family to take a break somewhere so they can be together and enjoy the great outdoors. Returning to nature, these holidays offer a fantastic opportunity to switch off screens and be in the moment.

While it’s great to turn our favourite devices off, it’s also important to have entertaining diversions on hand to ensure boredom doesn’t creep in. This is why taking a good selection of family board games is a great way to ensure everyone feels amused.

Importance of Compact Travel Games

Whether in a tent or caravan, two things are certain: camping holidays require a great deal of stuff and space is at an absolute premium.

On the whole, it’s important to go for compact games; simple board games for all the family that can be transported and stored easily, and that don’t require acres of space to be played in.

Which Camping Games to Take?

Bringing along a few favourites like Monopoly may involve a bit of a challenge in terms of keeping track of the cash, cards, and mini houses, particularly in a tent, but it will be worth it for the fact that it can occupy considerable lengths of time.

It’s also good to pack a few different types of games; from general knowledge favourites to drawing games. That way everyone feels included and has an opportunity to play to their strengths.

Classic games are also a strong choice; and while new immersive experiences are great fun, there could well be limited WIFI or power supply.

Why Board Games on a Family Camping Trip?

Holidays and time away should be special; however, the lack of home comforts can bring challenges. An activity such as a board game lightens the mood, creates a diversion, and provides a welcome focus.

Below is our pick of the best games on the market for surviving a family camping trip!

The Best Camping Games:

• Match 4
• Monopoly
• Chess
• Scrabble
• Backgammon
• Guess Who
• Beat That
• Uno Party
• Hive
• Pictionary

 

 

1. Match 4

The beauty of this classic is that Match 4 can be played by all age groups; everyone knows how to play; and it can be put together easily, particularly with the travel edition.

It’s a simple case of creating a straight line of four, either red or yellow, tokens, whether that’s vertical, diagonal, or horizontal. The challenge is being strategic and blocking your opponent’s progress while securing four in a row.

The red and yellow tokens and blue grid have remained the same for decades. This is a great introduction to board games for young players and a fun way for them to develop their motor, numeracy, and competitive skills!

2. Monopoly

Perhaps not an obvious choice for camping given the mini houses and banknotes but if you’re looking for a game that can help while away several hours, this travel version of Monopoly is perfect.

No one will miss the TV schedule while building their property empire and working to become a financial success.

The aim of the game is for players to move around a board, purchasing properties, and in doing so working to bankrupt their opponents by charging rents should they land on the relevant squares.

Auction or mortgage properties, and if a player collects all the properties in a coloured group, they achieve a monopoly.

Just make sure tensions don’t rise as the other issue with playing board games when camping is there isn’t much sulking space!

Want to know how to win at Monopoly? read our guide here.

3. Chess

Another game that will help occupy several hours is the all-time favourite Chess and this travel edition is perfect, coming with a magnetic board and chess pieces which are beautifully stored away in the board which transforms into a box when folded.

Handcrafted from Dutch wood, this travel version of the game is not a camping compromise. If travelling with youngsters, having the time to engage them in this classic pastime could foster a lifelong love for the game.

Chess is a timeless classic and popular with grandparents wanting to play with their grandchildren.

4. Scrabble

Patience is an important quality for playing Scrabble as it is slightly more complex than it would appear at first glance which makes it ideal for camping where the lure of screens is likely to be limited.

Using letter tiles which are marked with a numerical point, players create an integrated grid on a board made up of squares which themselves contain points. It’s not simply about words and letters but there’s some maths involved here as well!

In simple terms, players keep a rack of seven tiles and use them to create words by adding to one created; for example, using the “j” in “major” to spell “jumper”. Words can only travel horizontally or vertically – not diagonally. And use a scorecard to keep track of accrued points.

5. Backgammon

The beauty of Backgammon for a camping holiday is the ease with which it can be transported. The game invariably comes with a smart case although some travel versions feature a roll-up board.

A two-player game, each sits across the board from the other, with a set of 15 chequers. The board is made up of four quadrants each with six points.

The chequers are set up on the board’s quadrants in a corresponding way.

The object of the game is to be the first player to remove all chequers from the board. Players roll a set of dice to determine how many spaces a chequer can move according to the score on each dice.

6. Guess Who

If travelling with little ones, Guess Who is a quick and easy game to play. Invented in the late 1970s, the game’s characters have been updated to be a little more inclusive with more women and people of colour now represented.

Easy to assemble, simply place all the character flaps in their upright position, each player chooses a card featuring a character and the other needs to deduce who it is by asking a series of questions, for example, “Does she wear glasses?” If correct, they can flip down all characters not wearing glasses identifying from who remains the name of the mystery figure.

Great for observation skills and common-sense questioning, the speed of the game means everyone can take a turn relatively quickly.

7. Beat That

This is a fantastic option for playing outside in the sunshine and is a useful way to break the ice with fellow campers and potentially make some friends!

Beat That features more than 160 wacky challenges which can be undertaken using a set of props that include: ten cups, five plastic balls, four dice, chopsticks, a memo pad, tape measure and the all-important sand timer!

There is a twist to this game as players use tokens to bet on their own ability to complete a challenge successfully. The winner banks their points and it’s even possible to play in pairs.

Great fun to play on a hot summer’s evening as everyone relaxes at the campsite!

8. Uno Party

The beauty of Uno Party is its compact size, making it the ideal travelling game. And continuing the theme of making new friends, up to 16 players can get involved so it’s fantastic to play around the campfire.

This version mirrors the classic edition albeit with a simple update as the “Point Taken” rule has all players pointing at other players, then each player must draw as many cards as there are fingers pointing at them!

Whatever happens, don’t forget to shout out “Uno” when only one card is left. If another player gets there first then pick up two extra cards.

9. Hive

Although not as well-known as some of the games listed here, Hive is a popular choice with campers no doubt because it doesn’t require a board, simply a bag of tokens that reflect the natural world.

A two-player game, the objective is to try and imprison the opposing queen bee. Each player controls a set of hexagonal-shaped pieces, representing different types of invertebrate creatures: ants, grasshoppers, spiders, and beetles.

The pieces form the board by touching each other: ants move around the line, the grasshoppers jump from one side to the other, spiders crawl at the edges, and heavy beetles climb over the other insects. The queen bee herself should be manoeuvred strategically.

Once players have mastered the choreography, they must remember to keep the pieces linked at all times. The winner is the player whose pieces completely surround their opponent’s queen.

Complex and a little bit technical but addictive once mastered!

10. Pictionary

Put your drawing skills to the test with a game of Pictionary; fairly compact so easy to pack, this version comes with drywipe boards which means no need for pads of paper.

Players make as much progress up a board as possible using very cute pencil tokens. Roll a dice and whatever colour square the pencil lands on, a clue from the corresponding category needs to be illustrated. Teams have just 60 seconds to guess and the winner gets to roll the dice again.

Final Thoughts…

Hopefully, this list of fun games will bring some light-hearted entertainment to any camping trip, helping to build on the memories already created.

Board Games are a wholesome complement to this wonderful type of holiday.