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If you are staying at a campground there are normally lots of different activities to fill your day. Whether it is sight-seeing, photography, exploring the wilderness or games such as petanque or croquet or even just playing catch. You can normally find something to do without getting bored. However, when the sun goes down it is not so easy to fill in your time with activities so the following section is all about activities to do when it’s dark.   The Classic Campfire   There is nothing more fun during a camping trip than sitting around a campfire with family and friends at night under the bright shining stars and toasting marshmallows or smores. Building a campfire is actually quite easy but it's absolutely vital to do so responsibly so as not to damage the natural environment or endanger other people.   Location   It is especially important to find an area that is suitable for building a campfire. While camping in the great outdoors can be a bit more difficult to find a suitable place to build a fire as opposed to an actual campsite. It's imperative to follow all the rules as laid out by park rangers and to pick a site which is not too close to forested area, particularly bushes that could easily be ignited, and also not too close to a rocky area. It's also necessary to make use of a fire ring if provided but in the case that it isn't, stones will do the trick to help contain ash.   Firewood   When you've chosen the ideal spot to set up your campfire, the next important thing to think about is gathering firewood. You can gather firewood from your natural surroundings and it's ideal to collect twigs and branches as tinder as well as kindling to get the fire started easily. If wood is not readily available in the area where you are camping, it's recommended that you bring firewood with you.   Lighting the campfire   Building a campfire requires the builder to have a little bit of experience in truly getting it right but the whole process is relatively easy. A fire will burn properly with the aid of several pieces of wood along with air, and fuel. First thing needed is tinder which can be twigs, leaves, paper, wood shavings or pine needles. Followed by that is kindling which is mainly smaller sticks and then ultimately firewood which is larger wood to help maintain the fire.   To construct the fire, simply lay the kindling over the tinder in a criss-cross pattern while ensuring not to build too many layers as fire requires air ventilation to burn. There should be a small amount of room at the very bottom (the base) in order to light the tinder. Once lit, simply adding firewood will help keep the fire burning.    Safety is important so it's wise to not leave the fire unattended nor allow inexperienced people or young children to maintain it. Fire should be handled responsibly which means only those who are experienced in creating and maintaining fire should be supervising it.   Putting Your Fire Out   Making sure a fire is properly extinguished is extremely important. Firstly use water to snuff out the hot kindles and cover it with dirt/earth if need be. Carelessness could lead to spreading wildfires so make sure your fire has been put out completely.   The post What To Do While Camping first appeared on Coastal Camping Rentals.