If there is no campfire availability at your campsite you will still be socialising in the evenings, albeit inside the tent if it is raining, so we thought we would bring you a few ideas for games that can be played with all ages, without any special equipment.

A great one for playing with children aged 5 and up is the ‘create a monster’ game, where the first person in the circle draws the head of a monster, then folds the paper down leaving just the neck as a guide for the next person. The second person draws the chest and shoulders, or the whole torso, and folds the paper down for the next person and so on until you reach the feet. Then the paper is unfolded and everyone gets to see the monster they helped create. There is one important rule in this game, and this is defining exactly how much each person is meant to draw. This could be reliant on the number of players as you may have to ensure each person gets a turn on each monster, so before playing set out how far down each person draws; is it just the chest and torso to the elbows, or is it to the waist? Do you draw the whole leg or just down to the knees? This game is a timeless classic and can even be played in the car.

A good game for people of a similar age is the ‘Who Am I’ game, using sticky notes to label each person’s forehead with a famous person (or perhaps someone in the friendship group for teens and adults – the important thing is that everyone playing will have an idea of the characters used). You can only ask yes or no questions to determine who you are, and to make the game more exciting you can set a limit to the number of questions, with a forfeit for anyone who cannot work out who they are within 20 or 30 questions. Playing this game with a very broad selection of ages can be a problem, as younger children may not know who Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher are, and older people will have no clue who Mr Tumble is, or one of the characters from Frozen.

Another classic game for challenging the memory is ‘I Went To The Shops and Bought…’, which can be adapted to ‘I Packed my Bag for Camping and Packed…’ or similar. This game works the memory, as you have to remember all the items someone has said, then add your own and try and remember all of these until the next round. The game usually ends when no-one can remember whether every item has been said, and then it starts all over again. If playing with friends of a similar age or with similar interests you can adapt the game for a specific hobby or pastime, perhaps using ‘I went to the pub and I drank…’ then getting everyone to list drinks they can think of. It is fun seeing all the obscure drinks people can think of, and it might inspire a trip to the pub the next evening.

If you have any ideas of games to play, do let us know in the comments below.