12 essentials to take to a festival

If you’re heading to a festival this summer, either with kids or on your own, here are my 12 essentials to take with you.

TENT

Obvious I know!! Consider how much tent space you need – our ‘four man’ tent {that is just one room} is only really big enough for two of us to sleep in on a double air bed. We have two, 2-roomed six man tents that we take – that gives us four bedrooms and two living rooms. We also have a small pop-up tent that we usually take as a storage tent. It means we have plenty of space inside the tents for us and all our belongings – with little kids, you need some tent space for them to play.

GAZEBO

We love our gazebo! We set it up in the center of our pitch, with the tents around us. This gives a great space that’s ours, means we don’t have anyone camping right on top of usa, and it offers shade if it’s sunny and shelter if it’s wet.

CAMPING STOVE

From tea and toast first thing in the morning, to pasta for dinner, and hot chocolates to warm the kids before bed. A stove makes life much easier {and saves you having to venture out for tea before you’re properly awake in the morning!}

EAR PLUGS

I’m a light sleeper and these are great – I can still hear my kids if they wake, but they drown out the noise that is part of a festival campsite at night.

FLEECE BLANKETS

It can get pretty chilly at night, so I always take a stack of fleece blankets. Whether to wrap around you whilst enjoying the evening bands, or to pile on top your sleeping bag at night. They’ll keep you warm, and are easy to wash/dry once you’re back home.

BATTERIES/CHARGERS

We take these battery powered phone chargers and a LOAD of batteries – cheaper than paying to charge your phone there and means you don’t have to leave it somewhere for a while either!

WATERPROOFS

I’d love it if I could guarantee sunshine, but I can’t! We always pack full waterproofs – trousers, coats, wellies – as it’s far better than getting wet through. I’ve experienced that and it’s so hard to get dry/warm after!

TORCH

It gets really dark at night – and if you need a midnight trip to the loos, torches are essential! We love head torches for their hands-free ness!

DRY SHAMPOO

It might be ok to skip a shower {or two} at a festival – but dry shampoo means you can avoid a greasy mop of hair at least!

TOILET ROLLS

We always pack a big pack of loo rolls, and keep one or two under our buggy at all times. The kids also have those mini packets of tissues in their day bags.

BABY WIPES

Cleaning bums/hands/faces/bodies…. these are a must even if you haven’t got a baby!

FOOD

Yes, you can buy food there. But one, it gets expensive buying every single meal/snack and two, if you’re hungry first thing or in the middle of the night you don’t want to have to leave your tent to find food! We take some meals, but also plenty of snack foods with us {you can see my feeding a family at a festival post for more ideas!}