Before anything else always check with your troop for the official camping gear list! Every camp is a little different, and they’ll let you know exactly what your scout needs. What I’m sharing here is just from our own experience as scout parents, and one item that turned out to be super helpful.
When our son went to his first summer camp, we packed all the stuff from the list: sleeping bag, headlamp, med kit, extra socks, and so on… you know the drill 😀 . On the list, we also saw “bug net + PVC tubes and tennis balls.” When I asked at the scout house what that was all about, they explained that having a bug net is great for keeping mosquitoes away, and to hang it properly, you need to raise it – and PVC tubes with tennis balls are the go to method for that…
I talked to a few other parents, and someone suggested looking into self-folding bug nets. That’s when I found the spring-loaded, pop-up mosquito net tent made for platform tents, from MosquitoOasis.
The net was honestly great, but there were a couple of things to keep in mind:
1 – It was tough to pack back up. My son had a hard time folding it at first, so we practiced a lot before camp. The good thing is that older scouts are usually great about helping the younger ones, but I could tell it stressed him out a bit. Still, he preferred dealing with that over getting eaten alive by mosquitoes – which he was much more afraid of! 🙂
2 – It’s NOT good for backpacking. When folded, the net is fairly bulky. For scout summer camp, it’s totally fine since all the gear gets delivered to the site and you’re not hiking with it. But I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for backpacking trips where every ounce and inch matters.
By the way also this video was game changer for our folding practices 😀
