Before you plan your actual camp programme, agree between you who is doing what and when before the camp. Put dates in your diary to remind you when you need to do all the things on your checklist.

Fill in page 3 of ‘Programme.docx’ from the You Camp zip file.

Start off by filling in the time you’re meeting on the Friday and the time you’re being picked up on the Sunday. Then fill in the times you think you’ll be eating each meal, when you’ll be going to bed, when you’ll be getting up in the morning. Think about what time you’ll need to prepare each meal – if you’re cooking over an open fire you’ll need to plan ahead for collecting wood, lighting the fire in good time etc. If you’re doing activities at particular times, you may need to adjust your meal times to suit. Most campsites will expect you to be quiet between 23:00 and 07:00, and it’s sensible to stick to these times for going to bed and getting up.

It might be tempting just to fill in huge blocks of ‘Free Time’, and think that you’ll just decide what you’re doing on the day. While it’s good to have some chill out time at certain points in the programme, if the whole programme is ‘Free Time’, you’ll get bored very quickly, and at the end of the weekend you’ll wonder what you actually achieved.

‘Pencil in’ activity times if you’re planning to book activities, then when you’ve booked the activities you can adjust the times accordingly. If you’re going on a day’s hike, make a note on the programme that you’ll be eating lunch during the hike.

It is wise to add in ‘contingency’ times – over-estimate how long a hike will take for example, add in time to get to and from activities, ‘feet up’ time after strenuous activities, shower time after water activities etc.