What To Pack for Summer Camp for Teens [5 Things You NEED!]

1. Water Bottle

A reusable water bottle is a great thing to have. You don’t want to be lugging around disposable plastic water bottles, especially when you’re in nature and trying to reduce your footprint.

A plastic or stainless steel water bottle will get the job done, you don’t need anything fancy. Just make sure you rinse it out with a droplet of soap and warm water every day or two so that bacteria doesn’t build up around the mouth area.

2. Spending Money

A little bit of extra cash is good to have on hand, there’s probably some sort of concession stand at the camp for extra snacks, or a vending machine, or other amenities that may be nice to have.

Some camps near town will head into town for day trips, too. This is usually non-essential, but if you can round up a little extra money it may certainly come in handy in a day to day situation, not to mention in any type of emergency.

3. Tactical Sunglasses

It’s not overkill to want the best tactical sunglasses, even if you’re just going to camp. The sun in your eyes can ruin an otherwise perfect day, and having glasses that are up to the task of an outdoor/adventure environment is crucial.

When you’re going to be running around all day in the sun, out on the water in a canoe or sailboat, and then sleeping in a small cabin with a lot of people, there are a lot of ways for your shades to get broken or lost.

You’ll obviously want a durable pair of glasses so they don’t get broken if someone sits on them, or so they don’t fall off your face and land at the bottom of the water.

4. Layers of Clothing

cozy camping by a fire

Your clothing choices will depend on how long you’re camping for and what type of access you’ll have to laundry. If there’s a coin-operated or paid laundry service available, that’s another reason to take a little extra cash with you.

Instead of bringing one warm jacket, one medium jacket, one light jacket, one warm sweater, one medium sweater, etc… You can pack layers, instead. This way, you’ll only need one thin windbreaker, a sweater, and another shirt to have underneath. With those 3 layers, you can cover a good range of temperatures with minimal packing.

5. Sunscreen

You always want to be protected from the sun! This is the type of thing that someone else will surely bring if you forget it, but it’s nice to have your own on hand so that you don’t have to impose and just in case everybody else is relying on someone else to bring it.

If you’re going to a summer sleepaway camp, there’s a good chance that they’ll give you some type of document or checklist to ensure that you bring everything you need. If not, they may have it listed on their website. At the very least, you should be able to find out which amenities they have available.

Mat Woods

Author Information

Mat Woods is the lead writer at TeenWire.org. He works tirelessly alongside the rest of the team to create useful, well-researched, trustworthy articles to help parents and their teens.