The Best Family Camping
safety gear
fall 2022
As in life, so too in camping: it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Or gets a bee sting or mosquito bite. Or until you run out of clean water. And so on. Which is why it’s always a good idea to heed that whole Boy Scout mantra: Be Prepared. (As for the Scout motto, “Do a Good Turn Daily,” well hey, that’s good stuff, too.)
In the interest of helping you be prepared your family camping trip this fall, we have rounded up some of the best camping safety gear. These are the supplies we always bring and, in about half of the cases (first aid supplies, e.g.), that we hope to never have to use.
We hope you never have to use most of it, either, but should anyone in your crew get a cut or a burn or a bite, you’ll be happy you added these camping safety basics to your packing list. Just don’t forget to pack them!
And don’t forget that your family’s first aid, medical, and safety needs are going to differ from our family’s needs and from any family’s needs, so take the time to ask yourself not “What should a first aid kit include?” but rather “What should our first aid kit have in it?” Then add those medicines, hygiene products, creams, and so forth that are specific to your group.
FRONTIERSMAN BEAR SPRAY IS THE PRODUCT YOU NEVER WANT TO HAVE TO USE BUT WILL BE FOREVER GLAD YOU COULD IF YOU NEED IT
It’s impossible to put a price on the safety of yourself and your loved ones, of course, but the cost of a can of bear spray might do just that. This powerful bear deterrent blasts a scorching beam of bear spray out a full 35 feet, keeping plenty of distance between you and your ursine foil. And a single can will put out multiple blasts of peppery spray, so if the bear doesn’t get the clue the first time, hopefully the second or third wave will convince it to saunter off. It’s a good idea to also invest in a can of inert practice bear spray so you’re ready for the real deal, and it’s a great idea to bring a can of bear spray along with you any time you are hiking, camping, climbing, biking, or paddling through territory you might end up sharing with bears.
The Best Camping first aid kits for families
A first aid kit is only a help if you know how to use the supplies within it, so take the time to familiarize yourself with whichever you use before you’ll ever need to use it. And maybe brush up on some basic first aid techniques, too
The Adventure Medical Mountain Series Hiker First Aid Kit is comprehensive yet compact
As the name suggests, this kit was designed with hikers in mind, so you can count on it being lightweight and portable, yet it’s still more than well enough stocked for a family camping trip. It has bandages of every kind, right up to the point where you’ll probably need a paramedic. It has antiseptics and topical antibiotics. It has basic medications for pain and upset stomachs. It has gloves and scissors. And it has some handy literature you should read through before you head to the woods.
The Coleman Family First Aid Kit is basic but probably all you’ll need
This compact, affordable first aid kit tucks into a handy little tin and comes with all the basics you’ll need for minor wound care, be those minor wounds cuts, scrapes, or burns. It has a few specialized bandages, such as for fingertips, that can be priceless when you need to deal with the kinds of little injuries most often sustained by little campers. And the tin is great for spare change or screws and nails if you ever go through all the supplies.
A Welly Bravery Kit belongs in your kitchen drawer, in your glovebox, and in your pack when you’re camping
This is a great little first aid kit for kids because the playful bandage colors and patterns can take some of the sting out of the injury thanks to, well, psychosomatics. This is a good kit to bring in addition to your other first aid supplies, or to make your only kit for a quick hike or day at the park or beach.
The Best insect repellant for family camping
Ants can be annoying. Mosquito bites can be miserable, and potentially cause sickness. Ditto with ticks. Bee stings are the worst, and if someone is allergic, there goes the trip. Keep bugs at bay with these tried and trusted best insect repellents for camping
Sawyer Permethrin Insect Repellent can create a barrier between you and bugs
To be very clear, this is an insect repellent for gear: you spray it on your tent, your pack, your boots, your hiking pants, and so on; you don’t spray it on your skin. The active ingredient here, permethrin, will not only repel ticks, mosquitoes, ants, and other unwelcome little creatures, but it can even kill them. Which is sad and all, sure, but mostly it will just repel them, and anyway, when it helps keep you and your family safe against bites and stings (and Lyme disease and West Nile virus and such), no sleep lost. Just make sure to treat gear in the open air and give the stuff a while to dry. Then know that it will remain effective even after rainfall or after a few wash cycles, too.
Ranger Ready Picaridin Tick and Insect Repellent can be used right on the skin
This is a safe insect repellent for kids (it’s rated for kids over one, FYI) and is effective for everyone in the family. And despite the fact that bugs hate the stuff, the Scent Zero is truly an almost completely unscented bug spray that the kids won’t even notice. Its repellent effects last up to eight hours and it can be reapplied generously. Which we do. This is a DEET-free insect repellent that is comparably effective to a classic like Cutter Backwoods bug spray, which is also a good choice, for the record, but some people do like to avoid DEET as it causes mild skin irritation in some cases.
Proven Insect Repellent Lotion is easy to apply on kids
And it’s safe for kids, too, of course. Like Ranger Ready, it also uses picaridin as its repellent, and it is also a very low odor bug repellent. Because it’s a cream, it’s easy to carefully apply the stuff to faces where a spray might be an issue. This is a safe insect repellent for babies as young as two months old, and frankly you probably shouldn’t bring a kid that young camping yet anyway, so long story short, if you want great insect repellent for the whole family, this is a great choice, and one we use often.
If you prefer an all-natural insect repellent, Murphy’s Naturals Balm is a good choice
This bug balm (it repels them, not soothes them, don’t worry) uses extracts from cedarwood, lemongrass, rosemary, peppermint, and castor oil to ward off bugs, so it’s completely safe for use on people. Even the youngest people. If you are going somewhere with a high potential concentration of ticks or mosquitoes or such, probably a good idea to also hit the gear and clothes with a permethrin solution, but this natural insect repellent balm will help ward them off your bodies.
Murphy’s Naturals Mosquito Repellent Incense Sticks can create a reduced bug zone perimeter around your campsite
Living in an area that’s plagued by mosquitoes in the summer, we often burn these pleasantly-scented sticks in the backyard. And we always light a couple during the day around our campsite, too. Provided the breeze is mild, they will gently permeate the area with an odor that drives mosquitoes away, and when used in tandem with other insect repellent measures, they can greatly reduce the likelihood of bites
The Best hand sanitizers for camping
Clean hands are a must at all times in life, especially when those hands have been playing in the dirt or splashing in the pond and are now about to conduct s’mores to mouths
A bottle of GERM-X Hand Sanitizer makes short work of unsanitized hands
Why? Because these spray bottles lay on a potent 62% alcohol content sanitizer on thick. There will be no missed spots when you spray this excellent choice for camping hand sanitizer on hands, and it’s also a great choice for sanitizing things like a pocket knife blade or a dropped toy or what have you. Or hey, use it at home or the office on any high-touch surfaces, like doorknobs and such.
The Suds2Go portable hand washing station makes it easy to scrub up before meals, bedtime, or any time hands get dirty
Hand sanitizer is great and all, and we all got quite used to it in the years 2020 and ‘21 in particular, but ultimately there’s no substitute for a real hand washing with soap and water, not in terms of how clean your hands get but rather how clean they feel. This two-in-one soap and water dispensing station makes it easy for you to wash your own hands and, much more of note, to wash those grubby kid claws just about any time and anywhere.
Honest Company Hand Sanitizing Alcohol Wipes are your quick-and-easy sterilizing allies
These 65% alcohol-infused wipes are perfect for use on kids’ hands. And on things kids hands are bound to touch, like utensils, toys, walkie-talkies, water bottles, tablet screens, binoculars, and oh, the list goes on. These sanitizer solution-infused wipes make it easier to ensure the needed sanitizing solution gets spread all over the surface it needs to clean, be it a kid’s hand or any of the aforementioned objects or beyond. We keep a packet of them in the car, in the hiking pack, in the tent – in other words, we always have them on hand, as it were.
The Best Camping Water Filtration systems
You know how they say dehydration is a soldier’s worst enemy? Well it’s a fun killer for campers, too. These are a few of the best water filter options for camping, not to mention for having on hand at home, because always Be Prepared
We keep a LifeStraw water filter in both cars, one in the home, and always bring one camping
A LifeStraw is a quintessential example of one of those things you hope to never have to use, but that can make all the difference if and when that need arrives. You can quite literally jam this water filtering “straw” into a pond, a puddle, a stream, or any other source of “fresh” water (fresh here meaning not salty and not meaning fresh as in clean) and drink deep, knowing the LifeStraw will capture any impurities. For hikers or mountaineers looking to seriously cut gear weight and who can count on water sources as they trek, a LifeStraw is a great way to lighten the load. For people living in areas without reliable access to clean water, these things are literal lifesavers. For us, they are a source of peace of mind, and one from an altruistically-minded brand we love to support, by the way.
This Katadyn Hiker Microfilter water filter is the one I have trusted on treks to alpine lakes, frosty glaciers, and a South American jungle
I have passed hundreds and hundreds of liters of water through my Katadyn water filter (with a few filter replacements over the years, of course), pumping clean water out of everything from ponds to streams to lakes to pots of melted ice and snow, and every drop of it – whether used for drinking or brushing or cooking – has been perfectly pure and safe. The long tube and the floating tip of the intake system make it easy to get to the source of the water. The pump takes some patience and elbow grease, but is simple to operate and the long output tube for clean water lets you easily set up your water bottles, pots, reservoir, or whatever is collecting the water wherever you need. Ideally, this allows you a moment, as you squat, sit, or kneel there beside the stream or mountain lake to take in your surroundings even as you work that pump to produce clean, pure water.
These water purification tablets are a backup, sure, but it’s nice to know they’ve got your back
Look, you will almost surely never need iodine water purification tablets. To be honest, we have even tossed old, expired ones unopened and bought new replacement that I fully expect to throw away again, unused, in a few years. But that said, these are an affordable (I dare say “cheap” albeit not in a pejorative sense) way to ensure that, in an emergency, you can create clean drinking water. It might taste a bit medicinal, but you won’t need medicine to fight off a stomach bug later. (Also, you can always spring for tablets that come with a taste neutralizer, too.)