The Unofficial Survival Guide to Memorial Day Weekend at an Indiana Campground

Let's be honest about Memorial Day weekend camping: it's chaos. Beautiful, sunburned, hot-dog-scented chaos.

The campground is packed. Someone three sites over has a speaker playing 80s rock at a volume that suggests they believe the whole campground should share in their musical journey. The kids have already asked where the bathrooms are fourteen times. And someone in your group forgot to bring the can opener.

This is fine. This is camping. You planned for this...sort of.

The thing about Memorial Day weekend is that it's not really a relaxing weekend. It's an Event. With a capital E. It's the first long weekend of the summer, everyone's been cooped up since October, and the collective energy at a packed Indiana campground has the vibe of a starting gun going off. People are ready.

So here's your actual survival guide. From people who spend a lot of time at campgrounds and have a very strong opinion about what makes them better.

Arrive Earlier Than You Think You Need To

Memorial Day weekend is the Super Bowl of camping weekends. Campgrounds in Central Indiana fill up fast, sometimes months in advance. If you've got a reservation, great. But arriving early still matters.

Why? Because the best fire rings, the shadiest spots for your chairs, proximity to the bathhouses... all of it is first-come, first-serve once you're inside the campground boundaries. Early arrival means you get to choose your neighbors instead of inheriting them.

It also means you have time to actually set up your site before dark, which sounds obvious until you've done it in the dark once and spent twenty minutes trying to figure out where the tent stakes went.

Pack a Bag Like You're Going to a Music Festival

Memorial Day camping is not the quiet, meditative kind. It's the kind with lawn games and neighbors and communal fire circles and kids who develop new friends groups within 45 minutes of arriving. Pack accordingly.

Don't leave home without:

•   Sunscreen — more than you think you need

• A cooler with actual ice (not the frozen water bottle method that fools nobody)

• Bug spray, because Indiana bugs treat Memorial Day weekend like their personal holiday too

• Camp chairs for every person in your group, not just the adults

• A portable speaker — or at least something to counter your neighbor's 80s rock

• Lawn games: cornhole, horseshoes, ladder golf

• Flashlights or headlamps for every member of the family, not just one that gets passed around

• A dedicated bag for trash that isn't the general cooler area

• Paper plates, because nobody wants to do dishes at a campsite

The theme here is: don't make Memorial Day weekend camping harder than it needs to be. This isn't a survival exercise. It's a vacation.

Plan to Spend More Time Outside Your Site Than In It

Here's the thing nobody tells you before their first Memorial Day camping trip: the campground is the destination, not just the place you sleep. The best campers figure out pretty quickly that the whole point is wandering.

Go explore. Find the waterfront. Walk the trails that ring the campground perimeter. Find the spot where the kids are all playing together and let yours join in. Walk past other sites and say hi to people, Memorial Day weekend campers are, in general, a friendly group with very few exceptions.

The problem, especially with kids, is that all of this wandering takes energy. A lot of it. By Saturday afternoon, the campground death march is real, everyone is tired, nobody wants to walk back to the site to get the thing they forgot, and the bathroom that seemed close suddenly feels very far away.

This is where a golf cart changes the whole equation.

At Camp Cart Rentals, we deliver premium EZGO RXV Elite golf carts directly to your campsite before you arrive, so it's waiting for you when you pull in. No hauling, no hitching, no logistics — just a cart that's ready to go. Lithium battery, JBL Bluetooth speaker, all-terrain tires, four-passenger seating, and a cold drink holder that will earn the love of your entire family immediately.

Build a Loose Schedule — Then Let Go of It

The best Memorial Day weekends are planned loosely. You've got a Friday evening arrival, a full Saturday, Sunday, and a Monday morning checkout. That's actually a lot of time if you don't stress about filling every minute.

A rough structure that tends to work:

• Friday evening: arrive, set up, start a fire, decompress from the drive

• Saturday: the main event — activities, exploring, meeting people, the big cookout

• Sunday: slower pace, maybe a trail walk in the morning, afternoon naps count as camping activities

• Monday: pack up, but leave time to just sit by the fire one more time before you load the car

  
  

The mistake is over-scheduling Saturday and under-scheduling everything else. Memorial Day weekend is long enough that you don't have to cram everything into one day. Also: naps are underrated. You're at a campground. Nobody's watching. Sleep in the chair.

Make the Campground Feel Like Yours

The campers who have the best Memorial Day weekends are the ones who treat the campground like a neighborhood rather than a parking lot for tents. That means chatting with your neighbors, letting the kids roam (with a loose perimeter), and generally settling in instead of staying confined to your 30x40 site.

A few things that help:

• Set up your camp chairs facing outward — it signals that you're open to conversation

• Share the fire. Neighbors wandering over for a campfire chat is one of the best things about camping

• Let the kids be kids. Scrapes and grass stains are the whole point

• Don't apologize for the s'mores. There's no upper limit

  
  

And if you've got a golf cart? You're automatically the coolest site in a three-row radius. Kids will materialize from nowhere. Adults will ask where you got it. Roxy, our Chief of Cart Vibes and official Camp Cart Rentals mascot (she's a Cane Corso, she takes her role very seriously), would argue this is the optimal social strategy.

The Cookout Is Non-Negotiable

We will not be taking questions on this. Memorial Day weekend camping requires a cookout. This is established American tradition and we support it fully.

Some logistics that make it better:

• Marinate your meats at home and bring them in a sealed container — the flavor payoff is real

• Bring double the hamburgers you think you need. Someone always wants seconds.

• Have a dedicated cooking chair. The person at the grill is doing the lord's work and deserves a seat.

• Hot dogs are not a lesser option — they're faster, the kids love them, and they're perfectly campfire-adapted food

• Bring a cooler specifically for drinks and keep it separate from the food cooler. This one tip will save your weekend.

  
  

Plan to eat outside your site if the campground has a common pavilion or picnic area. Memorial Day cookouts are communal by nature.

Protect the Sleep

This is the part of Memorial Day camping that separates a great weekend from a brutal one: sleep.

Campgrounds are loud. Especially on Friday and Saturday nights of Memorial Day weekend. People are celebrating. That's fine — you might be one of those people. But at some point, everyone in your group needs actual rest, especially kids.

A few things that help:

• Pack earplugs. Seriously. Especially for kids who sleep lightly.

• Bring a white noise machine or use a fan. Battery-powered options exist.

• Let the kids run themselves into the ground during the day. Tired kids sleep.

• Agree on a general lights-out time so the adults don't accidentally stay up until 2am every night

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Sleep is the thing that determines whether Monday's drive home is pleasant family bonding time or survival mode. Protect it.

One More Thing Before You Pack the Car

We're Camp Cart Rentals — a small family business out of Central Indiana that rents premium golf carts and delivers them directly to your campsite before you arrive. We serve campgrounds, festivals, and outdoor events across the greater Indianapolis area and surrounding counties.

Our carts are EZGO RXV Elite — lithium battery, JBL Bluetooth speaker, all-terrain tires, four-passenger seating, upgraded rims, headlights, turn signals, and seat belts. We also offer add-ons: cornhole boards, cooler backpacks, etc.

If you want your Memorial Day weekend to feel like an upgrade — not just another camping trip — a golf cart is the move. Memorial Day weekend books fast. We'd love to be part of yours. Book today.