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How do you pack your car for camping?

We have been camping for a good few years now.  Started with just the car. Then the roof box and then the trailer as well.  Even with the roof box and trailer, when we go for our main 2 or 3 weeks the car is solidly packed.  We have always put things individually into the car and squeeze individual bits in here and there. If there is small space a shoe or fleece or cup etc will get squeezed into it.  This works fine on  the whole but I find on packing up day I have my entire tent contents laid on the groundsheet for the world to view whiclt we pack the tent and big stuff in first.

We have just bought a new slightly larger car and am pondering whether or not to invest in some plastic crate (or steal the kids toy boxes) and pack in a much more organised manner. I have seen alot of people pack like this.  I can see the benefits of knowing where everything is and it must mean less trips to and from the car when packing and unpacking.

So whats best?  Do you loose alot more space like this? How do you organise the packing etc.

Ideas and opinions and advice welcome!

We use a mixture of boxes and this year we bought cheap cool bags, and have everything sorted out into their seperate box or bag. Tbh find it better when we are in the tent as well that we know where everything is.

Jubilee TBA-
July - Blue Dolphin

I find cool bags and soft sided holdalls are easier to pack than rigid sided containers. The exception to this is the kitchen equipment box, which packs like a childs 3-D puzzle with no wasted space! It's easier too to have everything together in a bag, because then you don't have to unpack it into something else like a larder. Which also takes up more packing space. I keep ;like with  like ie spare pegs live with the tent repair/tool kit; first aid kit lives with other essentials like batteries, sewing kit, laundry kit & alarm clock; gas lamp lives with spare cannisters and Party Grill. Etc. I can't imagine packing it all loose at each end and having to sort out the resultant guddle twice per trip. Doesn't it take hours?????

Exceptions? I take the folding camp chairs out of their bags because I think they pack easier this way. They can sort of slot together.

There's also a few things I pack loose. Football, bucket and spade, waterproofs etc. I do have a blue Ikea bag for these though which lives under everything else, because sports gear and outdoor coats live permenantly in the car and I can't stand it all rolling around loose in the boot when on site.

We keep most of our stuff in two plastic crates with lids, one for the kitchen stuff and one for the rest. It makes it much quicker to pack - once we've got the two crates out of the loft, we've only the big stuff (bed and bedding, stove, gas bottle, water carrier, table, chairs, tent) and our personal stuff to find and pack.

We got the ones with lids so that we could leave them outside when we had a much smaller tent, but the lids are good as they give you a level surface to stack other stuff on and things don't fall or get knocked out. They definitely take up more room in the car than loose stuff or small bags though.

We have used a mixture of boxes, crates, holdalls and just stuffing things where they will fit in our estate car and roofbox - can lead to utter chaos when trying to find something.

 However this year we are going to try more boxes if I can find some suitable ones. A lot of boxes seem to have sloping sides so that when they are next to each other or the side of the car they waste space. Then there is always the problem of cost - we would rather spend it on proper camping gear or spends than boxes to pack things into.

Cheers.

We used to use the folding crate approach but I think we must have been overfilling them because the bottoms kept falling out!!  Now for both camping and caravanning we use the supermarket re-usable bags - the ones you have to buy and that come in two sizes.

We have one each for clothes, one for food, one for dog food, and one for "stuff" - books, magazines, phone chargers, etc.  The table goes unders the dogs' bed in the boot of the Discovery and we'll sometimes tuck folding chairs under there, too.  The dogs don't seem to mind their elevated position as it gives them a better view!

Heavy stuff like the tent we usually try to keep on the floor in the back - it's not over the axle, but it's as low down as we can get so it can't become a dangerous projectile in the event of an emergency stop.  That does unfortunately mean that all the not so heavy stuff is on top of the tent and so needs to come out before the tent can go up but there's just the two of us so, if the weather is bad we either wait for it to improve or we move what we have to into the front seats to allow access to the tent.

It works for us but might not for all.

i have used all sorts of methods and this year i am trying out laundry hampers, the ones primark sell for 3.00 so far they have worked out great, i put all the clean clothes in them, all the fleeces and jackets in another they are tall and i could fit clothes for myself and 3 kids in 1 enouygh clothes for 9 nights, once at camp these clothes go in my camp wardrobe and the empty hamper is used to put all the dirty clothes in, and hey presto back into the car, going to get another few to put the sleeping bags and mats/blankets in.

i also use a long narrow storage box the under the bed type for shoes etc, makes use of the porch space better and is great in the boot, the kitchen stuff also goes in a large crate with a lid on, footballs go in the luggable loo with anything else that fits in it.

i think ones ideal way of packing is another ones nightmare.

happy packing and happy camping.