Using Christmas as our chance to gift our kids quality outdoor gear has been an annual tradition! I set myself a one-hour timer to come up with ten outdoorsy kids Christmas gifts for under $20 in hopes of helping you check more items off your holiday “to do list”. Mission accomplished with time to spare!
We kicked this tradition off when our girls received their REI Kindercone Sleeping Bags when they were 2 & 4. Old enough to be thrilled with playing “glow worm” and young enough to not really know what to put on their Christmas lists! While that bag doesn’t make the “gifts under $20” list, it is currently on sale for under $50!
Last year, Sierra Designs Flex Capacitor packs were under the tree! Spoiled much? At ages 10 & 12, their response was “cool”, but that’s a gift that they won’t fully appreciate quite yet. I know those packs will be adventuring with them for the next decade or two!
This year we are determined to master a minimalist, time together emphasis of the holidays, so finding useful gifts for under $20 has been a great goal.
All of these are items our girls currently have OR will be under our tree this year!
Outdoorsy kids gifts for under $20
- Snow Peak Titanium Spork, $9.95 (REI or SnowPeak): This spork is not only ideal for outdoor dining, but it also gets packed regulary in the school lunch box. Recently, my cousin informed me that her elementary-aged son shared his wonder over his spork from Santa “he even stamped it with a snowflake”. Oh how I love the magic of Christmas!
- SOL Critter Kit, $10.45 (REI): I have recommended emergency whistles and a compass on past gift guides (here and here), but this one takes the cake! It’s so adorable! I know my girls will finally remember to take it on hikes because there’s also room for their chapstick and, well, it’s CUTE!
- Rite in the Rain Outdoor Journal, $11 (REI): Once one daughter received one of these all-weather journals, the other one made sure to take her wallet with her and purchase one with her own money! That’s a solid WIN!
- Retro, outdoorsy retro tees, $13.93 (REI): Our kids are at the age when they have really strong and completely unpredictable tastes in clothes. However, a soft retro tee remains the one item we all agree on!
- Campfire Stories Deck, $14.95 (REI): We’ve taken story cubes on many camping trips, the dice are easy to throw into a pack and entertain us on those rainy nights inside a tent. These story cards look like a fun variation on that! I love that they can be used to create stories and new card games!
- Handlebar Streamers, $8.95 (REI)/ $8.39 (Amazon): Both of our girls upgraded to larger bikes this year. While their bikes are more preteen than princess, they still will love adding this fun accessory to their bikes!
- LED wheel lite, $18.39 (Moosejaw): The streamers reminded me of their favorite bike accessory! We found ours in a campground gift store (similar Amazon)! They absolutely LOVE turning these on and riding their bikes around campgrounds at dusk. In fact, our cousins who we often camp with, had to immediately run out and find some for their kids!
- Freeze-dried ice cream sandwich, $3.99 (EMS): We opened this can of worms years ago and it’s now a staple of our stockings! Important: be sure to add one to your own stocking, your kids won’t want to share! These are such a fun thing to take along on a back-country trip too!
- Aerobie flying ring, $12.05 (EMS)/ $9.56 (Amazon): I was so excited to discover that these still exist! Last summer the girls dug my childhood Aerobie out and greatly preferred it over a traditional frisbee. The rubber around that old one was disintegrating with each catch and we eventually threw it away. This is a great gift for the whole family!
- Outdoor backpacking twinkle lights, $17.99 (Amazon): This was one of Jake’s brilliant stocking stuffers a few years ago. He isn’t a fan of holiday spending, but he does enjoy tackling the challenge of inexpensive, fun and useful stocking stuffers! Our backpacking lights aren’t this exact one, but honestly, this is a bit of an upgrade that I’ll be getting once our current ones die.
Wow! I truly thought that it would be harder to come up with 10 great ideas of stocking stuffers for outdoorsy kids under $20. I didn’t even add the kids Smartwood socks that was one of my original ideas for this post! For even more ideas, here is my Camping Gifts for Kids list that I often hear positive feedback from!
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