A meal plan for car camping

Published 9:26 am Friday, August 2, 2013

This past week my family spent four days car camping in Olympic National Park. At some points it was cold, and very often it was buggy, but on the whole, our camping trip was a lot of fun.

Olympic National Park has it all. Mountains, glaciers, beaches, hot springs, rain forests, wildlife and lakes. My only regret is that we didn’t have time to go to Hurricane Ridge. We spent most of our time at Kalaloch beach and Sol Duc Hot Springs.

One of the biggest hassles of car camping is planning out your food. So here’s my go-to meal plan for car camping, shopping list included.

Meals

Breakfasts: oatmeal with cinnamon and sugar, or cornflakes and milk

Lunches: Choose your sandwich: PB&J, ham and cheese, or tunafish

Snacks: Fruit, crackers, granola bars, snap peas, carrots, popcorn, s’mores, and cookies

Beverages: instant coffee, hot chocolate, and orange juice

Dinner #1: spaghetti with meatballs, and salad

Dinner #2: chicken sausage, and salad

Dinner #3: canned soup, and leftovers

Shopping List

Things to freeze for your cooler:

• half gallon of milk
• sliced cheese
• lunch meat
• meatballs
• chicken sausage
• orange juice

Things to chill for your cooler:

• peanut butter
• jam
• a big bag of salad
• cherry tomatoes
• ranch dressing
• snap peas
• baby carrots
• fruit like grapes or strawberries

Dry goods:

• spaghetti noodles
• pasta sauce
• bread
• fruit, like apples
• oatmeal
• cinnamon and sugar
• cornflakes
• graham crackers
• marshmallows
• chocolate bars
• chocolate chip cookies
• Jiffy Pop
• crackers
• chips
• granola bars
• instant coffee
• hot chocolate packets
• canned tuna
• canned soup

This is a list you can pin, print, or come back to later. Have fun camping!