Daily Camping Journal—A Record for Remembering

Keeping a daily camping journal is a wonderful way to remember your camping trips. We refer to past journals to find out where we stayed in a certain location and whether or not we liked the campground and facilities. By checking the daily logs from past trips, we can discover the routes we traveled and judge the length of time it will take us to reach a destination for a return trip. It is pretty depressing to check the price of gas from past years’ camping trips to present, but interesting to see how we did on mileage per gallon.

As the years tick by and more camping trips are recorded, it is fun to remember the experiences you have shared. Each family member will have plenty to add to the story of any particular trip. And yes, with the information in black and white, debates on where or when you camped can easily be decided.

Make Your Own

You can pick up a camping log with all the pages printed for you, but if you are handy with a program on the computer, you can make your own journal. Customize the information for keeping track of your camping trips with categories that are important for you to save.

Making the Decision to Keep the Daily Journal

I know that keeping the daily journal may seem like something extra added to all the other things you need to do when getting ready for camping trips. I found that it is easy to keep the pages of the journal in a pocket folder in the console of our truck so it is always handy. Before taking the vehicle out of the park, grab the folder and record the mileage, the weather or whatever you need to as you start out the gate of the campground. You can also hand the responsibility of record keeping to one of your children who enjoys doing things like that. Having a map handy to explain where you are and where you are going for the day helps keep them interested in the information on the sheet too.

If you forget to record the information in the daily journal, don’t feel guilty about it. Some days we have to “guesstimate” mileage and remember campgrounds to catch us up on our daily log.

Information to Include in the Daily Journal

There are a lot of interesting things that can be included in the Daily Camping Journal. Here are a few ideas to get you started. You can add to these depending on your family’s habits and lifestyle. You may be able to put 2 or 3 log forms on one 8.5” x 11” sheet.

• Date
• Weather
• Traveled from
• Traveled to
• Routes traveled to destination
• End mileage and Arrival time
• Start mileage (below end mileage and arrival time so it is easy to subtract the difference) and Start time
• Total mileage traveled and Total travel time
• Campground/Place stayed
• Fee for camping
• Fuel expenses include price per gallon, mileage, miles per gallon (divide number of miles traveled on a full tank by the number of gallons to fill up tank again)
• Food expenses when traveling
• Comments can include information on the campground, restaurant, traffic, road construction, sight-seeing, and stories you will never want to forget about the day.

Make it a habit to keep good records of your camping trips and you will be rewarded with a camping journal to remember each outing with your family and friends.