As a family who loves to camp and explore new places somewhere off the paved roads, the process of getting to a remote location, setting up camp and preparing meals can be enough activity for one day. But, after we’ve settled in to a new spot for a couple of days, there are some fun hobbies that we especially enjoy while camping. Aside from the usual outdoor activities like hiking, mountain-biking and fishing, we also enjoy some other pursuits that are perfectly suited for camping trips.
While not all these outdoor activities will appeal to everyone, this article might provide you some new ideas for fun activities that you and your family can try on your next camping trip. A few of these activities can be enjoyed by the whole family and without spending a dime.
(Full Disclosure: This article includes affiliate links to several products we’ve used and recommend.
Camping Hobby #1 – Geocaching and Letterboxing
One of the more popular activities that many campers and hikers take part in is the sport of Geocaching. A geocache can be anything from a simple logbook, where you add your name and the date you found the hidden cache, or something larger, such as an ammo box, which may be filled with trinkets left by other geocachers, like the one we found near Moab, Utah, containing dozens of foreign coins. At another cache we found, a lightly buried ammo can was full of various military uniform patches and buttons.
(If taking something from a Geocache, it’s customary to replace it with a similar object of equal or more value.)
Occasionally searchers can find special tokens, worth money or prizes, which have been left by organizations or individuals to help promote the activity.
Geocaches Everywhere
The sport of geocaching is perfectly suited for camping and overlanding, because so many caches already have been placed on public land over the years. Also, searching for a hidden geocache may lead you to other interesting things you might not have otherwise found, such as the boiler of an old steam engine that we found in the woods near Cripple Creek, CO.
There are over 3 million active caches worldwide, in 191 countries and Antarctica, with more being added all the time. Over the past decade we’ve located dozens of geocaches while camping and exploring national and state parks and public land. Previously one had to own an accurate handheld GPS, but new phones and geocaching apps work just as well.
Cache In – Trash Out – Geocachers are encouraged to remove any trash they find while searching for caches and practice “cache-in, trash-out”, resulting in thousands of pounds of litter being removed from public lands each year.
What Does it Take To Start Geocaching While Camping?
All you really need to get started is a smartphone and the geocaching app, which is available for both Android and Apple devices. The GPS app will get you in the general vicinity, but to actually find it, each cache will have a set of unique clues (some that are harder than others), which you have to decipher to find the exact location.
The basic version of the geocaching app is free and is great to start with, but as time goes on you’ll probably want to upgrade to the paid version. This costs around $30 per year and offers offline maps, along with listing “premium caches”. The hobby is centered around Groundspeak Inc’s for-profit website Geocaching.com; however, as hobbies go, $30 per year is fairly reasonable.
Be sure to always respect private property boundaries when geocaching, watch out for snakes and poison ivy, and always return the cache to its original hiding place for the next person to find. Also, be sure not to disclose the location to any “Muggles”, or non-geocachers, who might disturb it.
Letterboxing
Long before geocaching came along, the hobby of Letterboxing was enjoyed by thousands of people in outdoor locations around the world. There are over 90,000 of these weatherproof containers hidden all across North America as part of a secret treasure hunt, with the location itself usually being the biggest prize. The well hidden caches often contain a logbook and ink pad, where finders can sign or make an imprint on their own logbook. Those who hide letterboxes will normally post clues for finding them online or spread them through word of mouth.
Letterboxing is much lower-tech activity than geocaching. All you really need to enjoy this sport is a set of clues and a willingness for adventure. We actually tried Letterboxing in Rockport, Texas, where we found a very old, well-used logbook hidden in the hole of an ancient live oak. For more information on how to play you can visit Letterboxing.org.
Camping Hobby #2 – Night Photography and Stargazing
In our last article we mentioned several places where we love to camp and where the night skies are still nice and dark. There, we like to do night photography and stargazing on clear evenings. There’s something magical about seeing stars in a truly dark outdoor location, appearing in all their splendor, much as our ancestors saw them thousands of years ago. Today though, we have smartphone apps such as Stellarium, Star Walk and SkyView, which can help us locate and know the names of celestial objects.
These, along with a pair of good binoculars – and perhaps a zero-gravity chair – are all you need to get started stargazing.
Understanding Binocular Sizes
When choosing a good pair of binoculars for star viewing, it helps to understand what numbers like 12×50 mean. The first number is the magnification level and the second is the size of the objective lens. Field of view is how much of the area you can see without moving the binoculars.
Most inexpensive binoculars with high magnification have a small field of view and unless they’re used on a tripod, they can be difficult to use. A good middle-ground for stargazing is a magnification level between 7 to 12, with a 50mm objective lens.
For beginners, a good pair of binoculars to start out with are the Opticron Adventurer II WP 10×50, (around $135) which are easy to hold, as well as capable of being mounted on a tripod. For more advanced stargazers, binoculars featuring optical stabilization, such as the Canon 10×42 L, (around $1,500), can take the hobby to a whole new level, automatically correcting shaky images for optimal viewing.
If you’re on a budget, be sure to check sites like Facebook marketplace and eBay for used binoculars. You don’t have to spend any money to enjoy stargazing though. In dark sky locations such as Big Bend Ranch State Park, your two eyes are more than enough to take in the magnificence of the Milky Way and other celestial objects.
Night Photography
Night photography requires more skill, equipment and patience than stargazing, but can be very rewarding. In the past, only very skilled photographers, using special lenses and equipment, were able to take decent photos of the night sky. Today most digital cameras, placed on a tripod and using the right settings, can take long exposures of the night sky.
Some new cell phones even have modes for night photography and can achieve results comparable to an expensive DSLR. The night photo above, which captured a meteor falling to earth, was taken with the author’s cell phone, which was placed in a special holder on a tripod.
If you’re interested in learning how to do night photography, the video below is an excellent starting point, with tips on how to set your DSLR camera.
Game Cameras – An offshoot of night photography that we also enjoy while camping is using a game camera, placed somewhere near our campsite where animals visit at night, such as a watering hole or trail. The 4K resolution trail camera above costs around $70 and features a special infrared mode that takes excellent night photos and video. We’ve captured some nice images of foxes, bears, and even a rare ringtail (a relative of the raccoon) on our game cam while camping. Before setting one up in a state or national park, first make sure they’re allowed by checking with the ranger station.
Camping Hobby #3 – Amateur Radio
Amateur or ham radio isn’t everyone’s bag, but it’s one of my favorite activities to do while camping. In addition to having yet another means of summoning help in places where there’s no cell phone signal, it’s simply good fun to talk (or just listen) to amateur radio operators in various countries scattered around the globe by bouncing a radio signal off the atmosphere above.
In the photo below, taken at Muleshoe Bend Recreation Area near Austin, we’re using a length of wire carried aloft by a kite as our antenna to talk to another radio operator in Switzerland.
One challenging aspect of the hobby we really enjoy is called QRP operation, or using as little power as possible to talk as far as we can.
Small and affordable portable SDR (software defined radio) transceivers can be found in the $80-$200 range, and under the right conditions can be used for worldwide two-way contacts from your campsite. Local amateur radio clubs often have “swap meets” or used gear sales, where excellent bargains can sometimes be found.
A new or used radio, along with a simple wire antenna suspended from a tree at your campsite are all you need to get started after getting your ham license. An entry-level, technician class amateur radio license isn’t difficult to get and there’s no fee. This will give you access to hundreds of repeaters on VHF and UHF, as well as voice privileges on part of the 10 meter band, which often has worldwide coverage. For more info you can check out the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) to learn what you need to get started.
Parks On The Air – Parks On The Air is an amateur radio award program that was started in 2010 to encourage ham operators worldwide to operate in a variety of parks and public lands using portable stations. Often when we visit a new park or national monument, we’ll log into the POTA app on our phone to let others know we’re active, then set up our QRP rig and try to make as many contacts as possible.
So far we’ve talked to hundreds of other operators, including campers in parks across North America and Hawaii, using less than 10 watts of power. A similar program is SOTA (Summits on The Air), which is an awards based program where radio operators take their gear to the top of hills and mountains of all sizes to make connections across the globe.
Camping Hobby #4 – Bird and Wildlife Watching
A much less technically-oriented camping activity is that of bird and wildlife watching. This hobby doesn’t require any special skills, license or gear, just patience and good fortune. A good pair of binoculars can come in handy though, along with a field guidebook or phone app for identifying wildlife species that you might encounter while camping.
The Audubon Society recommends the Sibley Guide to Birds, along with the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America for use in identifying most species you may see when camping. A good phone app for birdwatchers to use is called Merlin, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It uses a set of questions about the birds you’ve seen (such as color, location, size, etc.) to help determine the species.
When observing wild animals, always be sure to keep a safe distance and never encourage them to come near your campsite by luring them with food or water.
Camping Hobby #5 – Dutch Oven Campfire Cooking
With a severe drought affecting many of the areas we love to visit, this past year of camping has been largely without campfires. When we can have a nice campfire, we love to try new recipes in an old-fashioned cast iron Dutch oven. Because you can place hot coals on the lid, heat is evenly distributed around your food to cook it like a regular oven.
Few things are better than a warm dessert after a meal by the campfire, or a hot, buttered biscuit for breakfast if you’re feeling that ambitious in the morning (which we normally aren’t).
A good #10 Dutch oven, such as those made by Lodge, will set you back about $60. There are some excellent cookbooks, such as The Camp Dutch Oven Cookbook, by Robin Donovan, which features 85 recipes which can be made with five ingredients or less. Dutch oven cooking requires some patience, as well as trial and error (since there’s no temperature gauge) but once mastered it can be very rewarding.
There Are Many More Hobbies That Can Be Enjoyed While Camping
These are just a few of the hobbies that you can enjoy while on a camping trip. Others include metal detecting, gold panning and rock collecting (allowed only in certain areas), as well as more common pursuits like trail running and rock climbing. When it comes to hobbies you can enjoy while camping, the sky’s the limit!
Full Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links to products we recommend. Our readers never pay any extra when using these.
