Caravan Setup Essentials: 12 Small Things That Make Family Camping Easier
Ask a new camping family what they need and they'll talk about the van, the fridge, the solar. Ask a family who has been doing it for five years and they'll tell you about a clothesline and a good torch.
The big gear gets you there. The small stuff decides whether the trip feels relaxing or relentless — and almost all of it costs less than a tank of fuel.
Here's what our community keeps coming back to. Twelve small things, in the rough order we'd buy them.
The quick list
- A pegless clothesline
- Sand-free towels
- A head torch each (yes, each)
- Quick-dry sun-safe clothing
- A doormat
- A map sticker for the van
- Collapsible everything
- A 20-litre bucket with a lid
- Command hooks and carabiners
- A dedicated camp toy box
- A warm hoodie you'll actually wear
- A written setup order
1. A pegless clothesline
Number one for a reason. There is always washing — togs, spilled-on shirts, the towel someone dropped in the dirt — and pegs are the worst possible way to deal with it in wind.
The Slide n' Dry Pegless Clothesline is twelve clickable slides you set to whatever length your site allows, with two heavy-duty bungees on the ends. You slide the clothes in instead of pegging them. It holds 40kg, so wet towels and jeans are fine, and the whole thing lives in a zip-lock bag in the camp kitchen tub.
At under fifteen dollars it's the cheapest thing on this list and the one you'll use most. More on the whole system in our guide to caravan laundry.
2. Sand-free towels
A regular beach towel comes back into the van heavy, damp and carrying half the beach. It then sits on the line for a full day taking up the space you needed for actual clothes.
Our sand-free towels shake clean, pack down to almost nothing, and dry in a couple of hours. With four people that's the difference between a manageable line and a losing battle.
3. A head torch each
One torch for the family means one person holds it and everyone else stands in the dark being annoying about it. A cheap head torch each — including the kids — solves night-time toilet trips, finding things in the boot, and reading in bunks.
Buy them in different colours or you will spend your holiday adjudicating whose is whose.
4. Quick-dry, sun-safe clothing
This is the one that changes the shape of your whole day. Cotton holds water and smells, and it offers almost nothing against the sun once it's wet.
Our UPF50+ fishing shirts dry fast, wash in a bucket, and mean the kids can be in and out of the water all day without the sunscreen argument every ninety minutes. The sun-safe dresses do the same job for mums who want to go from campsite to the pub for lunch without changing.
A decent cap matters too — the MWCAC Pony Cap has the ponytail gap, which sounds trivial until you've tried wearing a normal cap with your hair up for eight hours.
5. A doormat
Cheap, boring, transformative. A mat at the van door catches most of the dirt, sand and grass that otherwise ends up in your bed. Get a coir one, not a soft one — soft mats hold moisture and go mouldy.
6. A map sticker for the van
Part decoration, part kid-entertainment, part genuinely useful trip planner.
The Map of Australia Sticker shows every town and every National Park across all states and territories, and you mark off where you've been with a Sharpie as you go. It's 40cm wide, UV-rated for the outside of the van, and printed in regional Victoria.
Our kids treat it as a scoreboard. Other families at the park stop and compare theirs. It's a surprisingly big deal for a sticker.
7. Collapsible everything
Buckets, colanders, washing baskets, drink bottles, kettles. Every collapsible version of a thing you already own buys back cupboard space, and cupboard space is the real currency of van life.
Start with a collapsible washing basket and a collapsible colander. Those two alone will free up a whole locker.
8. A 20-litre bucket with a lid
It's a washing machine on drive days, a nappy bin, a toy tub, a step stool, a fishing bucket and somewhere to put the wet togs. If you buy one item off this list that isn't a MWCAC product, make it this.
9. Command hooks and carabiners
Vans have almost no hanging points. A packet of adhesive hooks inside the van and a handful of carabiners on the awning rail gives you somewhere to put hats, tea towels, torches, the dog lead and the bag of pegs you no longer need.
10. A dedicated camp toy box
One tub that only ever lives in the van, restocked once a season. Cards, chalk, a footy, a bucket and spade, colouring stuff, a few cheap craft bits.
The magic is that the toys are novel every trip because they never come inside the house. For more of this thinking, our school holiday camping ideas has a pile of low-effort options.
11. A warm hoodie you'll actually wear
Aussie campsites get cold at night in every season, including summer, and especially inland. The mistake is packing a thin jumper and then wearing your husband's fleece for the whole trip.
The Camp Moodie is oversized on purpose — it goes over everything, it packs into its own hood, and it's the thing our community talks about most around a campfire. Pair it with a stubby holder and that's your evening sorted.
12. A written setup order
Not a product — a list. Write down the order you set up and pack down, laminate it, stick it inside a cupboard door.
It sounds excessive. Then the day comes when you're arriving in the dark with tired kids, and having a list means anyone can do the next step without you directing traffic. It's also how the kids learn to help.
Before you spend anything bigger
If you're weighing up a genuine upgrade — tent to camper, camper to van — read From Tents to Vans: A Family's Guide to Camping Upgrades first. And if power is the thing holding you back, The Mum's Guide to Camping Power explains it without the jargon.
Questions we get asked
What are the most useful caravan accessories for families?
A pegless clothesline, quick-dry towels, head torches for everyone, a doormat and a lidded bucket. They're all cheap, they all get used every single trip, and together they cost less than one piece of big-ticket gear.
What do first-time caravanners forget to pack?
A doormat, spare torch batteries, a bucket, enough hooks, and a way to dry washing. Nobody forgets the fridge. Everybody forgets the clothesline.
How much should I spend setting up a caravan for a family?
You can cover everything on this list for a few hundred dollars, and most of it lasts for years. Spend on the things that get used daily — clothing, drying, lighting — before you spend on gadgets.
What clothes should kids wear camping in Australia?
Quick-dry, sun-safe layers. UPF50+ shirts or shirt dresses for daytime, a warm hoodie for evenings, and closed shoes for around the fire. Cotton tees are fine as a backup but they're slow to dry and offer little sun protection.
Start with one
You don't need all twelve before your next trip. Pick the one that fixes your most annoying recurring problem — for most families that's the washing — and add from there.
Have a look through our customer favourites to see what other camping mums keep reaching for, and come tell us what's on your list in the MWCAC Facebook community.
Written by Prue | Founder, Mums Who Caravan and Camp
Prue is a camping mum, community builder, and the founder of MWCAC — Australia's go-to brand for sun-safe UPF50+ clothing for families who love the outdoors. She has kitted out and re-kitted out a family van more times than she'd like to admit, and started MWCAC after years of fighting the sunscreen battle with her own kids at campsites. Today, MWCAC is trusted by over 30,000 Australian camping mums.
Victoria, Australia | mumswhocaravanandcamp.com.au | Facebook Community