A couple weekends ago, Jon, Wendy and I embarked on a little road trip to Lake Ouachita State Park, Arkansas. It was about a 5 hour drive from Dallas and it was a nice little getaway since we haven’t been able to travel much due to COVID. We camped at the Lake Ouachita State Park campground and it was a great location near the lake. I’ll recap a little at the end about the campground and what you should know!

We haven’t been tent camping in many years, so it was fun to break out the camping gear again for a little adventure. I wanted to put up a post on some of the essential items we brought with us and what you need to bring camping.

1. Light Sources– This is very important! You dont want to be stuck using your phone light to try and get to the bathroom! We have this rechargeable LED lantern, as well as headlamps. The headlamps are a MUST. They let you be hands-free and make walking in the dark super easy. Try to get the ones with the strap over top of your head as well as around. They are way more secure.

2. Tent– Jon found this tent on Amazon and found a deal for an open box in the Amazon warehouse, so it was a great price. It says it sleeps 6, but we had a queen size blow up in there, and that took up a lot of space. There was room for one other person. If we didn’t have that huge mattress we could fit more. Whatever number a tent says can sleep, I minus two and say that is the max it can comfortably sleep with bags and such. The number they give is literally the number of people, but not accounting for any extra items.

3. Portable BBQ– This little BBQ is great for traveling with, taking to the beach, or picnic. The campsite we were at did have a small BBQ stand, but I prefer this propane one so you don’t have to start a fire every time. Dont forget to buy the small propane bottles!

4. Campchairs– these are pretty a obvious item to bring, and a must!

5. Air mattress– Camping in a tent isn’t always the most comfortable, so I prefer as nice big air mattress to sleep on and get as good of sleeps as I can. I remember when I was younger (probably 10 years ago), I would sleep on those thin camping mats! I dont know how I did it, but that would never happen now! Haha

6. Butane Stovetop– We use this little stovetop for breakfast meals to cook eggs, bacon, sausage, etc. If you have a larger family, you could also get the two burner one! *This takes small 8.8oz Butane cartridges, and not propane like the BBQ*

7. Fire Logs– So you can always use traditional firewood, but since we didn’t have a lot of room for firewood, we just brought some of these 2 hour fire logs to get us started. Usually you can buy firewood at the campground, so we use one to start the campfire, and then will just add normal firewood as necessary.

8. Tent fan– This is a rechargeable fan that was the best purchase! It was quite hot while we were camping, so we just hung this from the tent ceiling and ran it all night. I think it has an automatic shutoff at around 6 hours, but we ran it on high for 8 hours before it needed recharging. It is pretty quiet and I didn’t notice it, but there were also noisy bugs outside, so those were louder than the fan. Lol

9. Pie Iron– this was my first camping trip with a pie iron and it won’t be my last! If you saw my Instagram stories, I got creative and made a few different things using this pie iron. I made sausage biscuits, pizza, and smores! You can check out my camping highlight on my Instagram.

10. Hotdog sticks– If you go camping and not roast marshmallows, who are you?? These were great compact, and lightweight sticks. The come with a little pouch as well. Oh and if you make smores, make sure you use Dairy Milk Chocolate– it’s the best.

Extras: a few other things to bring are a car power converter with 3 prong outlets and USB ports. (The car has to be running to use it, but comes in handy when things need to charge or you mattress needs to be blown up.) I also have this solar powered portable charger that I use to charge out phones. It can be charged itself by the sun or by normal USB power outlet.

Dog Essentials

Dog Camping Essentials
1. Portable water container with dish attached– this was the best purchase for Wendy! You just flip the rubber bowl up and squeeze the bottle to fill it. Any unused water gets sucked back into the bottle.
2. Dog wipes– basically baby wipes, but for dogs. I like to wipe her paws off at the end of the day before she got in the tent.
3. Mat or carpet– I didn’t bring this, but wish I would have. It would have been nice to have a piece of carpet or mat for her to lay on outside because it was quite dirty and dusty, so when she layed down, she was getting quite dusty.
4. Pet bed– I had just brought a bunch of blankets for her to lay on in the tent, but she didn’t like being in the tent much, so she ended up sleeping on the air mattress with us. I wonder if she would have been more comfortable if I had brought her bed from home.
5. Dog lifejacket– Since it was Wendy’s first time on the lake, and she doesn’t like swimming, I wanted to make sure she would be ok if she fell in. She wears the large in this style, and she is 45lbs. But I went off the chest and neck measurements given in the description, and it fit great.

Lake Ouachita State Park

This was our first time staying at this particular campsite and it was great! The bathrooms are clean and all the staff was super friendly! We arrived after the office had closed, but I booked our campsite ahead of time online (you just have to go check-in in the morning when the office opens). We stayed in tent site #82 and it was a great spot. It was about a minute walk to the bathrooms, but I liked it because we were a little more secluded. The trees/brush aren’t super thick, so you could easily see all your tent neighbors. Some of the sites are super close together, which works well if you are a group, but not so well if you want privacy. Make sure you look at their campsite map before picking a site.

The lake was very pretty and they have some swimming areas roped off. You can also rent party barges, paddleboats, and kayaks at the State Park Marina on the campground. I wanted to rent a party barge, but they were booked weeks in advance, so we just went with the paddleboat, which is only $6/hour. They are first come, first serve.

They have ice for sale at the office, as well as fire starter. I didn’t see if they had firewood for sale, but there was a little left over at our campsite that we used. They also have a Keurig machine where you ca go make coffee for $1. And there is a little food trailer by the marina where you can get shave ice and some food items.

This is probably my last time tent camping before the baby comes, so I’m glad we were able to do it one last time!