220 free Camping trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
49 free Camping trivia questions with answers. Camping trivia is perfect for the campfire itself, a scout meeting, a road-trip game or a lodge quiz night. This set covers the whole outdoors: the Victorian tailor who founded the first camping club, the year Yellowstone became the first national park, who first published a s'mores recipe, why the world's largest campground chain charged $1.75 a night, where you are legally allowed to pitch a tent on private land, and how a five-pound bear cub became the face of wildfire prevention. The questions run from easy warm-ups any kid who has toasted a marshmallow will get, to genuinely hard ones about the Euklisia rug, the Ten Essentials and Apollo astronauts quarantined in an Airstream. Difficulty is marked on every question so you can pick a round for the group in front of you. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 220 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A classic s'more sandwiches a toasted marshmallow and chocolate between what?
Graham crackers
The name is a contraction of 'some more', which had fully taken over by the end of the 1930s.
Q 02A 1927 cookbook from which youth organization contained an early 'Some More' recipe?
Girl Scouts
A Connecticut newspaper had already described Girl Scouts eating 'Some-mores' two years earlier, in 1925.
Q 03On which date does the United States mark National S'mores Day?
August 10
It lands squarely in peak campfire season, which is no accident.
Q 04Recreational camping is usually traced to Thomas Hiram Holding, a Briton who worked as what?
A travelling tailor
His book Cycle and Camp in Connemara led to the Association of Cycle Campers, the first camping group, in 1901.
Q 05Possibly the world's first commercial camping ground, Cunningham's camp, opened in 1894 on which island?
Isle of Man
It sat near Douglas and predated the Association of Cycle Campers' own first site at Weybridge by twelve years.
Q 06Which founder of a youth movement became president of the UK's National Camping Club in 1919?
Robert Baden-Powell
The club had absorbed the Association of Cycle Campers in 1910.
Q 07US camping is often traced to W. H. H. Murray's 1869 book on camp life in which region?
The Adirondacks
The book set off such a rush of visitors that they were nicknamed 'Murray's Fools'.
Q 08Ford, Edison, Burroughs and Firestone popularized US camping under what group nickname?
The Vagabonds
Their well-publicized road trips made car camping look like something a millionaire might choose to do.
Q 09Which country enshrines a right of public access to privately held wilderness in its constitution?
Sweden
The allemansratten lets you pitch a tent on uncultivated land for a night or two without asking.
Q 10Under Norway's freedom-to-roam rules, how long may you camp on uncultivated land without the owner's permission?
Up to two days
The limit does not apply in the mountains or far from settlements, where you can linger longer.
Q 11Which 2003 Act gave Scots a broad right of access to the countryside, far wider than in England and Wales?
Land Reform Act
In Scotland you can camp on most unenclosed land whether it is state or privately owned.
Q 12'Glamping' is a portmanteau of camping and which word?
Glamorous
The word first appeared in the UK in 2005 and made the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016.
Q 13The 1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold summit featured around how many tents and marquees?
About 2,800
Some of the tents came with fountains that flowed with wine, which makes modern glamping look restrained.
Q 21A pup tent, meant for one to three people, is a small version of which basic design?
Ridge
It is meant for one to three people, with a rectangular floor and very little headroom.
Q 22The Sibley design, with a circular floor and a single central pole, is another name for which shelter?
A bell tent
The conical bell design goes back to around AD 600, long before Henry Sibley put his name to it.
Q 23The word 'hammock' reached English via Spanish from a word in which language?
Taino
Columbus recorded islanders paddling out to trade cotton and 'hamacas, or nets, in which they sleep'.
Q 14Which outdoor brand began in 1902 selling gasoline pressure lamps in Wichita, Kansas?
Coleman
During World War II it developed the compact multi-fuel Model 520, the original 'G.I. Pocket Stove'.
Q 15Kampgrounds of America was founded in 1962 in which city?
Billings, Montana
The first KOA site charged $1.75 a night, and by 1972 there were 600 franchise campgrounds.
Q 16Karl Elsener began manufacturing knives for the Swiss Army in 1891 from a business in which Swiss town?
Ibach
That business became Victorinox; American soldiers coined the phrase 'Swiss Army knife' after World War II because they could not pronounce Offiziersmesser.
Q 17Guinness recognizes a 1991 Swiss Army-style knife by Hans Meister as the world's largest penknife. How many blades does it have?
314
It weighs about 11 pounds, so it is not going in anyone's pocket.
Q 18The 'Euklisia Rug', a sleeping-bag ancestor patented in 1876, was made by a mail-order pioneer from where?
Wales
Pryce Pryce-Jones of Newtown, Montgomeryshire, exported it worldwide, and its name is Greek for 'good sleeping-place'.
Q 19A sleeping bag that tapers from the head to the foot to cut volume and hold heat is named after what?
A mummy
Most have a drawstring with a cord lock at the head so warm air cannot escape.
Q 20Compared with synthetic fill, down in a sleeping bag is which of the following?
Lighter and warmer, but costlier
Synthetic fill wins in the wet: it barely absorbs water and still gives some warmth when soaked through.
Q 24Which nation's navy formally adopted hammocks in 1597?
Britain
The Royal Navy's sailors slept in them on cramped gun decks for centuries afterwards.
Q 25The word 'bivouac' is French but ultimately comes from an 18th-century usage in which language?
Swiss German
The clipped form 'bivvy' spread through troops of the British Empire.
Q 26Which agency developed the metallized 'space blanket' in 1964?
NASA
The thin plastic film reflects up to 97 percent of radiated heat, which is why marathon finishers get wrapped in them.
Q 27The insect repellent DEET was developed in 1944 for which organization?
The United States Army
Samuel Gertler of the US Department of Agriculture created it; civilians could buy it from 1957.
Q 28Which Scottish scientist invented the vacuum flask in 1892 but never patented it?
James Dewar
Two German glassblowers turned it into the Thermos in 1904, and he later lost a court case to their company.
Q 29Which knot is nicknamed the 'king of knots' and taught with a rhyme about a rabbit, a hole and a tree?
Bowline
It appears in John Smith's 1627 Sea Grammar as the 'Boling knot', and something like it was found in the rigging of Khufu's solar ship.
Q 30Which campfire lay stacks kindling around tinder the way you would build a frontier house?
Log cabin
Analysis of burned antelope bones in Swartkrans, South Africa, suggests hominins were building campfires roughly 1.6 million years ago.