Most weekend camping trips go wrong in the boot before they go wrong at the campsite. Loose gear slides around on the drive, soft bags get crushed under eskies, and the one thing you need first — the tent, or the kettle — ends up buried at the bottom. None of that is really about how much gear you own. It's about how it's grouped and loaded.
Group gear by when you'll use it, not what it is
The instinct is to pack by category: all the cooking stuff together, all the sleeping stuff together. That's fine for storage at home, but at the campsite you want to pull things out in the order you'll use them. A more useful grouping is:
- Arrival gear — shelter, mallet, torch. This goes in last, so it comes out first.
- Kitchen gear — stove, basic cookware, mugs. Goes in a single container, not loose.
- Overnight gear — sleeping mats, bedding, pillows. Bulky but light, so it can sit on top of heavier boxes.
- Everything else — chairs, tables, anything you won't need until you're properly set up.
Heavy and rigid at the bottom, soft and light on top
Coolers, water containers and cookware boxes should sit flat on the boot floor, hard against the seat backs so they can't slide forward under brakes. Soft items — sleeping bags, clothing, pillows — go on top, where they double as padding and won't damage anything underneath them.
Use containers, not the boot itself, as the unit of storage
Loose items are the single biggest cause of a messy boot. A duffel or a set of packing cubes turns a dozen small things into one object you can lift, stack and find. It also means you're not unpacking the whole car at a servo to find your phone charger — everything has a bag, and every bag has a job.
Leave a gap you can actually reach
It's tempting to pack the boot completely full and flat. In practice, leave a column of space you can reach without unloading everything — for a jacket, a snack, or the tow strap you hope you never need. A boot organiser with a few compartments does this without eating much space.
Do a five-minute reverse-pack before you leave
Before you drive off, picture arriving at a dark, possibly wet campsite. What do you want in your hand first? Usually a torch and the shelter. If those are buried under the folding table, move them. It costs five minutes now and saves twenty at the other end.
None of this requires expensive gear — it's mostly about containers and order. If you're after a few purpose-built pieces, our bags and storage range is built around exactly this system: a duffel or two, packing cubes, and a boot organiser for the odds and ends.