The Can Opener and 9 Other Things You've Forgotten on Every Single Trip

A formal acknowledgment of the items that never make it to the campsite no matter how many times you tell yourself they will.

We need to talk about the can opener.

Not in passing. Not as a footnote at the bottom of a checklist. Not as a quick joke at the end of a post about something else.

Formally. Deliberately. With the gravity this topic deserves.

Because if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you have noticed something. The can opener keeps showing up. It appeared in the gear post. It appeared in the boat prep post. It appeared in the campfire cooking post, the pre-season checklist, the unwritten rules, the rainy day post. It has appeared in more Red Run blog posts than some of our actual topics.

This was not entirely an accident.

The can opener kept showing up because the can opener always keeps showing up — at the campsite, in the story, in the moment when someone opens the food bin and does the specific slow turn toward the group that means something has gone wrong. It is the most forgotten item in the history of camping and it has been the most forgotten item for as long as camping has existed and it will continue to be the most forgotten item until the last camper parks the last camper in the last campground at the end of time.

We have accepted this. We are making peace with it together.

Here are the ten things — led, as always, by the can opener — that have been forgotten on camping trips since the beginning of recorded camping history, will be forgotten on your next trip, and will absolutely be forgotten on the trip after that.

1. The Can Opener

Let's start at the beginning.

You own a can opener. You know where it is. It is in your kitchen, in the drawer, in the same place it has been since you moved in. You use it regularly. It is not a mysterious or hard-to-find object.

And yet.

Every camping trip that involves canned goods — the baked beans, the soup, the corn, the chili, the tomatoes for the cast iron dinner you planned — begins with a moment of quiet confidence. You packed the cans. You have the cans. The cans are in the bin, sorted and ready, because you are an organized person who thinks ahead.

The can opener is in the drawer at home.

This has happened before. It will happen again. The cycle is eternal and it does not care how many times you have added "can opener" to the packing list, how many times you have told yourself you'll remember, how many times you have specifically said out loud to another adult "don't let me forget the can opener" while both of you forgot the can opener.

The solution — the only solution that has ever worked for anyone — is a dedicated camping can opener that lives in the camping bin permanently and never returns to the kitchen under any circumstances. It is not the good can opener. It is the $3 one from Meijer. It lives in the bin. It stays in the bin. It is never used at home. It is never removed for any reason.

This is the way.

If you do not have a dedicated camping can opener, stop reading this post, go buy one right now, put it in the bin, and come back. We'll wait.

2. The Matches

You have a lighter. You know you have a lighter because you used it last trip. You are confident about the lighter.

The lighter is in the pocket of the jacket you didn't bring.

Matches are the backup for the lighter you forgot. The fire starter is the backup for the matches you forgot. The backup lighter you specifically put in the camping bin three years ago and have never touched since is the backup for all of them.

The complete fire-starting kit — lighter, backup lighter, matches in a waterproof container, fire starter — costs less than ten dollars and occupies approximately the volume of a banana. Keep all of it in the bin permanently. Keep it together. Check it before every trip to confirm the lighter still has fluid and the matches haven't gotten wet.

The campfire is the center of the camping experience. Not being able to start it because you forgot the matches and the lighter has no fluid and it's been raining since you arrived is a specific kind of camping misery that is entirely preventable and somehow happens to someone every single season.

Don't be that someone. Keep the fire kit in the bin.

3. The Dish Soap

You used it on the last trip. You brought it home to finish the bottle because it was almost empty and it made sense at the time. The new bottle is under the sink. You are looking at dirty dishes on day two of the trip and the new bottle is under the sink at home.

Dish soap, sponge, and a small drying rack. All of it dedicated to the camping kit, all of it in a small bag or bin, never returning to the house. The camping kitchen works as a system or it doesn't work at all. A system with no dish soap is a system that produces increasingly concerning dishes by day three.

Also in this category, while we're here: paper towels. The roll you definitely packed is in the garage where you set it down to load something else and then didn't pick back up. There is always a roll of paper towels in the garage when you get home. Always.

4. The Sunscreen

It's in the bathroom. It's always in the bathroom. It has never once made it into the camping bag without a specific, deliberate act of will and even then there's maybe a sixty percent success rate.

Sunscreen on a boat. Sunscreen at the beach. Sunscreen on a full day at the campsite with no shade and more UV reflection off the water than you accounted for. The Fourth of July sunburn. The Sleeping Bear Dunes sunburn. The "I was only outside for a few hours" sunburn that somehow covered your entire face and both forearms and the specific V-shape of your collar.

Buy a dedicated camping sunscreen. Put it in the bin. Accept that it will sometimes expire in the bin because camping seasons end and new ones begin and the sunscreen sat there untouched through November. Buy another one. Put it in the bin. This is cheaper than a sunburn and significantly cheaper than the skin damage conversation you'll eventually have with a dermatologist.

Also: the after-sun lotion you'll need when you forget the sunscreen anyway. Also in the bin. Also always.

5. The Kids' Specific Thing

Every child has one. The stuffed animal. The specific blanket. The one cup they'll drink from and no other cup. The book they're in the middle of. The toy that isn't optional in the way that other toys are optional.

You know what it is. You have packed it on every trip. You have forgotten it on more trips than you've remembered it. The ratio is uncomfortable to calculate.

The child will not tell you they need it until approximately 9 p.m. on the first night when the lights are off and everyone is settling in and the specific thing is not there and suddenly the entire camping trip hinges on the presence or absence of a six-inch stuffed elephant named Gerald.

Gerald goes in the bag first. Not last, with the other stuff. First. Before the clothes. Before the food. Before anything else that seems more logistically important than Gerald but is not, in practice, more important than Gerald.

You know what Gerald is. Pack Gerald first.

6. The Chargers and Cables

Your phone. The kids' tablets. The battery pack you specifically bought for camping so you'd always have power. The headlamp that charges via USB. The speaker that has been on three percent since yesterday.

All of them need chargers. None of the chargers are in the camping bag. They are in the various charging stations around your house, plugged in, doing their regular house jobs, unaware that they were supposed to come camping.

The solution is a dedicated camping charging kit — a small bag with a multi-port USB charger, the cables for every device that comes on trips, and a note on the outside that says "CHECK THAT EVERYTHING IS UNPLUGGED FROM THE HOUSE BEFORE YOU LEAVE" in whatever font communicates urgency to you personally.

Charge everything the night before. Pack the chargers. Check that the battery pack is actually full rather than assuming it's full because you remember charging it at some point. The battery pack that was at forty percent when you packed it and has been running the speaker for six hours is not going to charge your phone when you need it.

7. Enough Towels

You brought towels. Two towels. For four people. On a trip that involves swimming, rain, muddy kids, a dog who found something to roll in, and at least one incident with the camp kitchen that requires immediate towel intervention.

Two towels.

The math on camping towels does not work the way the math on home towels works. At home a towel dries out between uses and is available again. At a campsite a towel gets used, gets damp, gets left somewhere, gets used on the dog, gets dropped in the dirt, and is effectively retired from service by mid-afternoon day one.

The rule is one towel per person per day plus two extra for the dog, the kitchen, the kid who needs an emergency towel for reasons nobody fully explained. If this sounds like too many towels it is not too many towels. It is exactly enough towels and you will use all of them.

Quick-dry camping towels help significantly — they actually dry out between uses and compress into almost nothing in the bag. Worth the one-time purchase. Worth it every trip after that. Worth mentioning every time someone asks why you have so many towels in the camping bin.

8. The First Aid Kit Restock

The first aid kit is in the bin. It has been in the bin since 2019. You checked it before a trip in 2021 and it seemed fine. It has not been opened since then except for one incident that used the last large bandage and one incident that used most of the antiseptic wipes and the children's ibuprofen that was in there is now expired and there are two regular bandages and a mystery packet of something left.

This is the first aid kit you are relying on.

Restock the first aid kit at the start of every season. Not when you need something from it. At the start of the season, before anything happens, while you still have time to go to Meijer and buy the things that need replacing. Open it all the way. Take everything out. Check every expiration date. Replace what's gone, replace what's expired, put it back together in order.

The fifteen minutes this takes at home is purchased insurance against the moment at the campsite when someone needs the large bandage and there are only two small ones left and they're the ones that don't stick properly and you're forty-five minutes from the nearest pharmacy.

Restock it. Every season. Put it on the list.

9. Bug Spray

The can opener of the insect world.

You know you need it. You have needed it on every single camping trip you have ever taken in Michigan, where the mosquito is effectively the state bird and operates with a confidence and persistence that suggests it has never once been successfully repelled by anything.

The bug spray is in the garage. It is on the shelf right next to the sunscreen that also didn't make it. They are a matching set of things you know you need and somehow both forget in the same motion. You get to the campsite, the sun goes down, the mosquitoes arrive, and you do the slow turn toward the group.

Dedicated camping bug spray. In the bin. With the can opener and the dish soap and the fire kit. Never returning to the garage shelf. The bin version and the garage version are different items that live in different places and serve different purposes and the organizational integrity of this system is what stands between you and a camping trip that ends with everyone covered in mosquito bites at 8 p.m. talking about going home early.

Also DEET wipes for the kids because the spray goes everywhere and nobody enjoys that process. Also citronella candles for the table because layers of defense are the correct strategy against Michigan mosquitoes. Also the bug zapper lantern that doesn't actually work on mosquitoes but makes a satisfying sound and gives everyone hope.

10. Something to Do After Dark

You planned the hike. You planned the swimming. You planned the campfire dinner and the s'mores and the sunset from the boat.

You did not plan for 9 p.m. when the fire is burning low and the kids are wired and it's too dark for most of the activities and too early for everyone to sleep and someone says "what do we do now" and the honest answer is nothing because you forgot to pack anything for this exact window.

Cards. A board game. A puzzle. A book for each adult. A movie downloaded on a tablet for the kids' backup option. Glow sticks for reasons that will become clear to you at approximately 9:15 p.m.

The after-dark hours at a campsite are some of the best hours of the trip. The fire going low, the stars coming out, the day winding down into something quiet and unhurried. They are also the hours that need the most support because they're the hours with the least obvious structure.

Pack something for after dark. Not one thing. A few things. The card game you haven't played since last summer. The book you've been meaning to read. The extra bag of marshmallows for the extended s'mores session that becomes its own activity. The glow sticks — seriously, the glow sticks — because kids with glow sticks in the dark at a campsite will entertain themselves for an hour and that hour is a gift.

The Bin System: A Final Word

Here is the thing that solves most of this list in one move.

The camping bin. The dedicated, never-gets-unpacked-completely, lives-in-the-garage-year-round camping bin.

Everything on this list — the $3 can opener, the backup lighter, the dedicated dish soap, the camping sunscreen, the first aid kit, the bug spray, the charging kit, the extra towels, the after-dark entertainment — all of it lives in the bin permanently. Not brought from the house before each trip. Not borrowed from its regular home and returned after. In the bin. Always. The bin version and the house version are different items.

The camping bin is not a bag you pack. It is a kit you maintain. You add to it when things run out. You check it at the start of the season. You load it into the vehicle whole rather than assembling it from scratch.

The bin doesn't guarantee you'll remember everything. Nothing guarantees you'll remember everything. The can opener will still be forgotten by someone somewhere on some trip because that is simply the nature of the can opener and its relationship with humanity.

But the bin makes it a lot less likely.

And on the trips where you do forget something — because you will, we all will, that is camping — you adapt. You use the pocket knife. You make the meal without the missing ingredient. You find a workaround that becomes the story you tell later.

The forgetting is part of it. Always has been.

It just shouldn't be the can opener. Not again.

The bin is packed. The can opener is in it. We checked.

What's your can opener — the thing that has betrayed you on more trips than you care to count? Drop it in the comments. Special recognition to anyone who says the can opener.

We know you're out there.