Spending quality time with family does not always come easily when you are stuck in the daily grind of your career. In the midst of this, camping has been the timeless recreation that helps you rejuvenate your senses, commune with nature, and live in the moment with other campers in your group.
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Canvas tent camping can bring a family closer together. You get a chance to teach the kids new skills, detox from the constant buzz of your cell phone, and conclude the trip with lifelong memories.
If you have found your tents for camping, booked a spot at the campsite, and made a checklist of essentials to pack; all that is left now is what the entertainment for each day would be. Fortunately, we have compiled some tried and tested classic campfire games that you can add to your camping trip too.
Charades
Charades is a game no one can omit from a campfire game night. Divide the campers into two teams. Pick a theme for charades. Are you doing movie names, places, or things? Once you have decided, one team thinks up the thing or name from said theme, and the other team sends a volunteer who is told the word. This player cannot divulge the word and must act out the word for his team members. If the team can guess what it is they win a point.
Sound Train
This is a great game to play with children. Players start with a sound where everyone has to say a word that begins with the agreed sound. Everyone has to add a new word till a player in the circle is unable to think of anything. The person who was last to add a new word gets to choose the new sound, and the game continues. You can make Sound Train more interesting by adding a time limit within which players have to think up a word or they lose.
Make A Story
Telling stories is one of the must-do campfire activities. Instead of having a designated storyteller in the group, have everyone participate in the storytelling.
This game starts with “Once upon a time…” after which every person around the campfire has to add to the story so that the story progresses. Players cannot negate the last detail added in the story and must build on top of it. Add a time limit for every player to think up what happens next so that nobody gets bored.
Another popular spin-off of the make a story game, is the Fortunately, Unfortunately game. This is where one person adds a positive turn of events in the story by saying “fortunately…” and the next person has to end a negative turn of events by saying “unfortunately…” The story must continue in the same pattern till it reaches a logical end.
Get To Know One Another
If you are camping with extended family or with people in your group that you are not that familiar with; play ‘Two Truths and One Lie’. This is a game where everyone gets their turn telling two truths and one lie about them and the others have to guess what the lie is. To confuse the others, the players have to tell the most interesting and unique things about themselves so that the others have a difficult time guessing what the lie is. The player who guesses correctly the most times wins.
Truth Or Dare
Truth or dare is a classic. Every player gets their turn to accept the challenge of truth or dare. If they pick truth they have to answer any question about themselves that the group asks. Usually, the questions are intense or intimate. If they pick Dare they have to complete a dare.
Remember when playing Truth or Dare to be mindful of boundaries. Set rules about not offering dares that are dangerous or downright bullying. You can also set rules about what topics are off-limits when asking a Truth question.
The Singing Game
This game will test your musical prowess. Divide your group into two teams. Start the game by playing a random song. The word that the song’s first verse ends with is the word the other team has to sing a song starting with. For example, if the verse ends with “you”, the other team has to start singing a song that starts with “you”. The last word of the chorus is what the opposing team has to start singing with and so on again and again. Every team gets 3 minutes to think of a song. If they fail, they pass the song to the competing team. No one can repeat songs.
Word Association
If you have campers of all ages in the group, play a game that everyone can equally participate in. Word Association is where you begin with a random word and the next person has to say the first thing that comes to their mind when they hear that word that has to be associated with the word they just heard. They get a total of 3 seconds to blurt it out. If you pause for too long, you are out of the game. The game goes on and the time limit gets smaller and smaller till only the victor is left.
Never Have I Ever
Never Have I Ever should only be played with friends you trust. It is a great way to know more about other people, and can only be played amongst adults. Every player gets their turn to say something they have never done and anyone who has done that thing has to take a sip. Players can conjure up weird and intimate scenarios depending on the mood of the game.
What’s That Tune
If there is a person in your group who can play a musical instrument they get to head and moderate the game. So the musician plays a tune and the players have to guess the name of the song without hearing the lyrics.
Another version of this game is where players listen to the tune and then sing the lyrics. The person who gets the lyrics right scores a point.
So You Think You Are Funny
Every player gets their turn on the hot seat. All the other players have to make this person laugh either with jokes or silly movements. They get a time limit of exactly 2 minutes. If a person can get through the time without laughing they score a point.
You can upgrade the version and have the person in the hot seat take a sip of water in their cheeks with the challenge being that they can’t spill the water so they have to hold in the tiniest of laughs.
Limbo
Get a stick or a broken tree branch and start limboing under it, after every round lower the height of the stick. The person who can bend and limbo under the shortest height that no one else can slither under wins.
Would You Rather
Would you rather be a great way to bond with your family? Start by asking would you rather do this or that? The next person who answers has to then come up with their own this or that, and so on. The questions can be serious or goofy, or even related to a hobby you all share.
The best thing about it is that you do not need any items to play the game. You don’t have to move around or even need the campfire. You can play would you rather as you lie in your sleeping bags and stargaze at night.
What am I?
This game requires a bit of prep. Start by writing down a few nouns on pieces of paper. Fold the papers and shuffle them. Every person has to pick a piece of paper and stick it on their forehead without looking at what the paper says. Other players have to then give them clues about what they (the noun on their forehead) are. Players can ask questions that help with the hints but nothing that leads them directly to the answer.
Wink Murder
Label players on pieces of paper. Label one as an assassin. The person who draws the assassin cannot reveal who they are and secretly wink at the players one by one after which they have to wait a few seconds, dramatically fall to the ground, and are out of the game. The game is everyone making eye contact in a circle. Every player gets one chance only to guess who the assassin is before they get winked/murdered.
If a player can guess correctly they win and the game ends. If it comes down to the last two players including the assassin, the assassin wins the game.
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