Campfire Scary Stories for Your Camping Trip
Keep kids on their toes with some campfire scary stories for the whole group.
After setting up the tent, eating dinner and watching the sunset on the first night of Dads & Kids Camping Weekend, it’s time to make a campfire to sit around. Depending on how many people are in attendance, you might have to make several campfires and divide kids up by age group if you want to tell scary stories.
Every campfire should have a flashlight for the old traditional light-in-the-face effect. With younger kids, try to take it easy because you’re the one who they’ll be waking up in the middle of night with nightmares!
On the brighter side, campfire scary stories are a great way to bond as a group and thrive on the adrenaline of fear in the dark.
Traditional Campfire Scary Stories
Everyone knows the story of The Babysitter, The Scarecrow or The Hitchhiker that terrorizes people home alone or while on the open road, but you can make campfire scary stories as a group using your own creative minds. AmericanFolklore.net has an archive of other campfire scary stories, such as the “Ghost Ship of Captain Sandovate”, which starts:
“When Captain Don Sandovate voyaged from Spain to the New World in search of treasure, he found gold in abundance. But among his crew there were many sailors who did not wish to share the new-found wealth with the monarchs of Spain.
On their journey up the Atlantic Coast, the sailors mutinied and imprisoned their captain, tying him to the main mast and refusing to give him food or drink. Day after day, the captain lay exposed to the hot sun of summer, his body drying up as the treacherous sailors worked around him.
Finally, his pride broken, Don Sandovate begged: “Water. Please. Give me just one sip of water.” The mutineers found this amusing, and started carrying water up to the main mast and holding it just out of reach of their former captain.” Read the rest of this story…
Creative & Original Campfire Scary Stories
To try an even more creative approach, choose someone to start the story with a single sentence. The person sitting next to them in the circle adds another line and keep going on in this fashion.
This engaging storytelling technique takes the edge off of scary stories, but also adds everyone’s attention and creativity to the tale. This method is great for younger kids, because it can only get so scary when it’s controlled by the minds of five and eight-year-olds.
Traditional Campfire Scary Stories
You can take a more traditional route with campfire scary stories by purchasing a book of tales before your camping trip. At book stores you can find treasuries of ghost stories for all ages. Depending on your kids, you can start with goofy tales for young campers and move up to terrifying tales for adults. This is where the separation of age groups with campfires comes in handy.
Ask others in your group to share campfire scary stories they have learned over the years. Frequent campers are more familiar with stories as they spend more time in the eerie woods at night on camping retreats.
Campfire stories are an ideal part of your group camping excursion, so be prepared with tales to scare each other. Just be sure to use caution with small children to avoid nightmares and tears.
If you want to learn more about how to start your own Dads & Kids Camping Weekend, check out my 45-page Dads & Kids Camping Handbook.