Summer Camp Packing List for 1 Week
My niece Lila left for a week at Camp Birchwood last July with a duffel I could barely lift. Three pairs of jeans. In August. She wore zero of them.
That is the trap with a one-week list. You pack for the weather you imagine and the kid you wish you had, instead of the eight hot days that actually happen and the kid who loses one sock by Tuesday. So now I build the list a week out, tape it inside the lid of the trunk, and we cross stuff off together with a marker that lives in the junk drawer. Sunscreen. Two flashlights, because one always dies. The flip-flops for the shower house, which I forgot the first year and regretted by day two.
A print-it-and-pin-it list does most of the nagging so I do not have to. The camp-themed files below are the ones I have actually run through the library copier on cardstock, and yes, a few are affiliate links, so if you grab one it tosses a couple cents my way.
The Journal That Survived a Week in a Wet Cubby
I printed this one for Lila the night before drop-off, two-sided on the library copier so the pages were not see-through. She filled half of it before the bus even left the parking lot at the Glenwood church lot. Cabin names, who snores, the counselor she decided was her favorite.
What I would change. The cover prints a little dark on a tired toner cartridge, so test one page first or you waste a whole sheet. I three-hole-punched it and stuck it in a slim binder so the pages did not curl when her cubby got rained on. They got rained on. The binder held.
Loud Colors That Find a Lost Water Bottle Fast
Bright is the whole point at camp. Forty kids, identical green Nalgenes, one lost-and-found bin the size of a kiddie pool. I sized this PNG down to about two inches, printed it on sticker paper, and slapped it on the bottle and the lunch bag.
The colors hold up in sun better than I expected after a week on a sweaty bottle. One nitpick, the file is high-res so it can choke a cheap home printer for a second, give it a beat. I also tossed an extra sticker in her bag because the first one peeled at a corner by Thursday.
A Plain Camp Graphic I Used for Cabin Door Tags
Simple is underrated. I used this on the name tags we taped to the cubbies, one per kid, so the eight-year-olds could find their bunk without crying at 9pm on night one. Printed four to a page to save paper.
One real gripe, there is a lot of white space around the art, so I cropped it in before printing or it floated weirdly on the tag. After that it laminated clean with the cheap pouches from the office store. Held up to little hands all week.
The Sticker Set for Labeling Literally Everything
Camp loses things. Towels, headlamps, that one beloved hoodie. I ran this through the copier on full-sheet label paper, cut it into small squares, and wrote her name on each in Sharpie before sticking them to the inside of gear.
The art is cute enough that she actually wanted them on her stuff, which is half the battle with a tween. Downside, on glossy plastic the sticker backing did not grab great, so I added a strip of clear packing tape over the top. Stayed put through the lake day.
A Summery Print for the Care-Package Note
Camp lets parents mail one package mid-week. I printed this PNG at the top of a half-sheet, wrote a goofy note under it, and tucked it in with gum and bug bite cream. Took it to the post office on the Tuesday so it landed by Thursday.
It prints warm and bright on plain copy paper, no fancy stock needed. The one thing, the file came in big, so I scaled it to fit the page or it would have eaten a full sheet on the header alone. Small thing. She kept the note, apparently.
The Retro Cut File for the Going-to-Camp Shirt
We made a shirt for the bus. I pulled this SVG into Cricut Design Space, weeded it at the kitchen table while the coffee went cold, and pressed it onto a plain teal tee with the iron-on we already had.
The weeding is where it got fiddly, the script has thin connectors so go slow with the little hook tool or you lift letters you wanted to keep. I lost an apostrophe. Reapplied it by hand, nobody noticed. The retro vibe was exactly her speed for the first-day photo.
A Whole Clip-Art Set for the Pre-Camp Countdown
The two weeks before camp are pure anticipation, so I made a paper countdown chart with these little camp graphics, one icon per day to color in. Canoe, tent, marshmallow. Lila crossed off mornings before school.
Getting the pieces sized right took a minute since they import at different scales, so I dropped them all on one page first and eyeballed it. Worth it. The set has enough variety that the chart did not look repetitive, and the leftover icons went straight onto her luggage tag.
The Simple Camp Icon I Stuck on the Packing Checklist Itself
Every list needs a little something at the top or kids ignore it. I dropped this graphic on the header of our actual one-week packing list, printed it, and taped it inside the trunk lid where she could see it while loading.
It is clean and reads fine even shrunk down small, which is what I needed. My one note, the colors are punchy so on a low-ink printer the darker bits muddy together, swap the cartridge if yours is gasping. Otherwise it did its one job, made a boring checklist look like camp.
A Second Camp Graphic for the Bunk Buddy Gift Tags
Lila wanted to bring little gifts for her cabin mates, six girls she had never met. We printed this on cardstock, cut tags, punched a hole, and tied them to friendship bracelets she made on the drive up to Lake Tamarack.
The art is small and friendly, perfect tag size, no fussing. The only snag, the PNG has a faint background tint that showed on white cardstock, so I bumped the contrast before printing to clean it up. After that the tags looked store-bought. Six new friends by Wednesday, she reported.
The Vector Pack I Leaned On for Custom Labels
This is the one I went back to most. A whole vector pack means I could pull a canoe for the water-shoes bag, a tent for the sleeping gear, a campfire for the snacks, all matching. I made a full set of bag labels in an afternoon.
Since they are vectors they scaled to any size without going blurry, which is the whole reason I keep clip-art packs around. The nitpick, there are a lot of files, so name your folder well or you scroll forever hunting the one you want. I did not. I scrolled forever.
The Cheerful One That Won Over a Nervous First-Timer
Lila’s little cousin Mara was terrified of her first camp year, so I printed this rainbow camp design on a card and tucked it in her bag with a note that she could look at it when she missed home. Cheesy. It worked.
It prints bright and sweet on regular paper, no special stock. One real thing, the rainbow has soft gradients that can band on an older inkjet, so if yours streaks, knock the size down a bit and it smooths out. Mara taped it inside her cubby, the counselor told me.
The Campfire Cut File for Matching Cabin Mugs
Last project before drop-off. I used this SVG to vinyl a cheap enamel mug for Lila so she would not lose hers in the mess-hall pile of forty identical ones. Cut it, weeded the campfire flames, applied it with transfer tape at the counter.
The flames have tiny points so weeding took patience, lost one little ember and just left it off, looked fine. Heads up, this is a mug so hand-wash only, the vinyl will not survive a dishwasher and she does not have one at camp anyway. Came home with the mug. Miracle.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to pack for summer camp?
Lay everything out on the bed a week early and pack to the actual days, not the days you are scared of. One week means roughly seven outfits plus one spare, and most of it should be stuff you do not mind getting ruined. I learned that the hard way after sending Lila in nice shorts that came home gray.
Roll clothes instead of folding, it fits more in the duffel and the kid can find things without unpacking the whole bag. Put each day’s outfit in its own gallon zip bag if your camper is the type to wear the same shirt four days running. Mine is.
How to organize a summer camp?
If you are the one running it, not just sending a kid, the thing that saved my sister when she ran a church day camp was labeling everything before day one. Cabin tags, cubby names, color-coded groups so the little ones know where to line up. Print it all in one batch so it matches.
She also kept a master checklist taped to the supply closet door and crossed off as gear went out and came back. Sounds obvious. The week she skipped it, two coolers and a first-aid kit vanished and nobody could say when.
What to pack for summer camp?
For a one-week stint, the stuff people forget is the boring stuff. Shower shoes for the gross camp bathrooms, a refillable water bottle, a flashlight plus spare batteries, sunscreen, bug spray, and a hat. I forgot the flip-flops Lila’s first year and she padded around the shower house in socks all week. Never again.
Then the comfort stuff, a small stuffed animal even for the too-cool tween, stationery to write home, and a laundry bag so the wet swimsuit does not soak everything clean. A printed packing list taped to the trunk lid keeps you honest while you load the car at 6am.
Can I print these at home?
Yep. I print most of mine at home on a basic inkjet, and the ones that need to survive a wet cubby I take to the library copier for the heavier cardstock. Plain copy paper is fine for notes and countdown charts, sticker paper for the labels, cardstock for tags and journal covers.
The only catch, a couple of these files come in big and high-res, so scale them to your page before you hit print or you will waste a sheet on one floating graphic. Ask me how I know. Test one page first, every time.
Before You Pack Up
Lila came home from Camp Birchwood sunburned, missing one flip-flop, and already asking about next year. The journal was half-soaked and full. The duffel, for once, was not packed with three pairs of unworn jeans.
If you build the list a week out and tape it where you can see it, the morning of drop-off stops being chaos. Pick a couple of these files, run them through whatever printer you have, and let the kid help cross things off. That part, Lila will fight you for the marker.
More Camping Ideas We Love
Heads up: some links in this post are affiliate links. If you grab a file we love, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only feature designs we would happily pack on our own trip.
