Thanksgiving Camping With Kids

Pick a campground that is actually open

The first planning trap is assuming your favorite summer campground is still running. By Thanksgiving, a large share of seasonal campgrounds across the northern states have closed for the year. Some that stay open shut off the water, close the bathhouses, and leave only vault toilets. Check the specific campground page for its season dates and which loops and facilities stay open, not just whether the park itself is open.

The places that are genuinely good in late November fall into three groups:

• Warm-weather destinations. Florida, the Gulf Coast, Texas, southern Arizona, and the southern California deserts are in their prime camping season. See camping in Florida, camping in Texas, and camping in Arizona for where to start.
• State park cabins and yurts. Many state park systems keep cabins or yurts open all year, including in cold states. For a family whose kids have never slept through a cold night, this is the smart version of the trip: the campfire, the hike, and the meal outdoors, with a heated room for sleeping.
• Year-round loops closer to home. Some state parks keep one winterized loop open. Expect fewer amenities and much quieter neighbors, which is half the appeal.

Book it now, not in November

The quiet-campground reputation does not apply to the warm-weather parks. Thanksgiving week is one of their busiest stretches, because every family with a four-day weekend is heading to the same short list of places that are warm. Federal campgrounds and many state systems release sites on a rolling window of roughly six months, which means Thanksgiving sites at popular federal campgrounds went on sale in late May. Some state systems open further out than that.

If you are planning in the fall for this year, the best options are cancellation alerts, first-come sites where they exist, weeknight arrivals on the Tuesday or Wednesday, and cabins, which people often overlook. The mechanics of the booking window are in recreation.gov reservation strategy.

Shrink the turkey to fit the campsite

A whole 14-pound turkey is a home-oven project. At a campsite it does not fit in a normal Dutch oven, takes hours of coal management in cold air, and is very hard to cook evenly. The camp version keeps the meal and drops the difficulty.

• Cook a breast or thighs, not a whole bird. A 3 to 4 pound boneless turkey breast roast or three or four bone-in thighs fit in a Lodge 10-inch Camp Dutch Oven (with lid lip).
• Use the coal rule. For a 10-inch Dutch oven at about 350 degrees, start with around 20 briquettes: roughly 14 on the lid and 6 underneath in a ring. Cold air and wind pull heat away, so add a few extra briquettes on a chilly evening and rotate the lid a quarter turn every 15 minutes to avoid hot spots.
• Plan on roughly an hour to an hour and a half. Treat that as a guess, not a rule. Fresh coals will be needed partway through a long cook, so light a second batch in a chimney about 45 minutes in.
• Let the thermometer decide. Turkey is done at 165 degrees in the thickest part, and there is no reliable way to judge that by look over coals at dusk. A cheap TempPro TempSwift Instant Read Meat Thermometer with a backlit display settles it in a second.

Leave the turkey fryer at home. Fire safety organizations, including the NFPA, discourage consumer turkey fryers even in a driveway, and a campsite with kids running around, uneven ground, and dry leaves is a worse place for a pot of hot oil. Check the campground rules on charcoal too, and use the fire ring or a raised grill rather than bare ground.

Make the sides at home

The turkey is the fun part to cook outdoors. Everything else is easier made in your own kitchen the day before and reheated. Stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy reheat well in a pot on a two-burner stove. Cranberry sauce and pie need no reheating at all. Pack each side in a flat, sealed container so it stacks in the cooler and does not slosh.

That leaves one pot of turkey on the coals and one or two pots on the stove, which is a manageable camp kitchen instead of an overwhelming one. For more make-ahead ideas, see easy family camping meals.

Food safety in a cooler

A holiday meal is a lot of perishable food, a lot of raw poultry, and a long, distracted evening. A few rules keep it from becoming a stomachache:

• Keep the cooler at 40 degrees or below. Late-November weather helps, but a cooler in the sun in Florida or Arizona still warms up fast. Keep it in the shade.
• Bring the turkey thawed. Thawing in a refrigerator takes about a day for every 4 to 5 pounds, so a frozen breast needs to start thawing at home several days out.
• Raw turkey goes sealed and on the bottom. Double-bag it so it cannot drip onto the sides or anything eaten cold. Packing order matters, and how to pack a cooler covers it.
• Two hours out, then back in the cooler. Cooked food should not sit out longer than two hours, or one hour above 90 degrees. Around a campfire, that window closes quietly while everyone is talking.
• Reheat leftovers to 165 degrees. The same thermometer works for the next-day turkey sandwiches warmed in a skillet.

Plan for a long, cold evening

Late November has some of the shortest days of the year. Sunset lands before 5:30pm in most of the country and closer to 4:30pm in the north, so the Thanksgiving meal happens in the dark whether you plan it or not. Start the turkey by mid-afternoon, set up lights before sunset, and give every kid a headlamp.

Overnight lows in the 30s are normal, even in desert parks that feel warm at 2pm. The ground takes more heat from a sleeping child than the air does, so an insulated sleeping pad matters as much as the bag. Put every kid in a 20-degree bag, dry base layers, and a warm hat for bed. The full cold-night system, including what to do when a kid wakes up cold, is in how to keep kids warm camping.

In much of the Midwest and Northeast, rifle deer season overlaps Thanksgiving week. If you are hiking in state forests or public hunting land, put kids in blaze orange hats or vests and stay on marked trails.

Give kids real jobs

The trip lands best when kids help make the meal rather than wait for it. Good jobs by age:

• Little kids: gather leaves to decorate the picnic table, set out plates, and fill a gratitude jar with notes read aloud around the fire.
• Older kids: count briquettes, check the time on the lid rotation, and read the thermometer with an adult standing by.
• Everyone: a short afternoon hike while the turkey cooks, and a pie or s'mores course around the fire afterward. The campfire recipes for kids guide has more ideas kids can make themselves.

If your family already did a campground Halloween weekend in October, Thanksgiving is the natural next trip: a similar cold night, fewer crowds outside the warm states, and a meal that becomes the thing kids remember.

Frequently asked

Where can you go camping over Thanksgiving?

Mostly south and southwest: Florida, the Gulf Coast, Texas, southern Arizona, and the southern California deserts. Closer to home, look for state parks with a year-round loop, cabins, or yurts, since many northern campgrounds close for the season by late November.

How do you cook a turkey while camping?

Cook a 3 to 4 pound boneless breast or turkey thighs in a 10-inch Dutch oven with about 20 briquettes, roughly 14 on top and 6 below. Plan on an hour to an hour and a half, and call it done at 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

How do you keep Thanksgiving food safe in a cooler?

Keep the cooler at 40 degrees or below, bring the turkey thawed and sealed on the bottom, put cooked food away within two hours, and reheat leftovers to 165 degrees.

Is it too cold to go tent camping with kids at Thanksgiving?

Not with the right sleep system, but expect lows in the 30s and a sunset before 5:30pm. Give each kid a 20-degree bag, an insulated pad, and dry layers, and keep a cabin fallback for a hard freeze.