11 Essential Dollar Tree Items To Perfectly Organize Your Campsite

Camping doesn't have to either be an exercise in minimalism. But even if you're not full-blown glamping, your campsite can start to feel chaotic and cluttered pretty fast while you're busy having a fabulous time in the great outdoors — unless, of course, you take a quick trip to your local Dollar Tree to stock up on a few camping supplies first.

With just a little strategic planning and a handful of helpful organization hacks from the internet hive mind, those handy Dollar Tree items can transform your campsite from a cluttered mess to a well-oiled machine. Instead of rummaging through all of your bins for your cooking equipment, you'll be freed up to focus on more important things — like maxing our your s'mores game.

And you might be surprised at just how many organization tools you can find in the aisle of your nearest Dollar Tree. From tent linens to shower organization essentials, there's an handy tool for just about everything. As one Reddit user put it on r/CampingGear, "Dollar Tree and Dollarama are my main camping supplies stores. Now that I have all the expensive gear, it's amazing how I can always solve some problem or make some step simpler with a cheap, disposable item from a dollar store." We're breaking down the best on the web, so be sure to bookmark this page to use for your next camping trip.

After you've set up your campsite and before doing anything else, seasoned campers suggest setting up a rope lined with S-hooks across your campsite or even inside of your tent or canopy. Not only does this provide you with a clothesline for hanging wet or damp clothing and linens to dry, but it also creates an almost infinitely handy storage solution for many items in your camp.

Breaking down this camping organization hack, one Reddit user on r/LifeProTips shared, "For things that can be hung like camp kitchen utensils and tools I've got a 10ft little rope with S-hooks tied every 6 inches that I string through one side of the canopy frame. Everything is so much more convenient this way and gets used." Use your rope line to hang up solar-powered Dollar Tree lanterns or store your headlamps and flashlights. It's the perfect spot for pots and pans with a hole on the handle as well. Add a mesh bag, and it even works as a drying rack alternative.

Dollar Tree has a fairly wide range of rope options to choose from. For just $1.50, Dollar Tree sells 25-foot paracords available in various colors in the tools and batteries section. For the same price, you can pick up a longer 50-foot poly rope in yellow or black or a 40-foot diamond braided rope available in four colors. To jazz up your campsite, grab a large (and awfully cute) metal animal S-hook, available in butterfly, bee, dragonfly, ladybug, and frog shapes, for $1.50 each. Or, pick up a $1.50 12-pack of beaded metal shower curtain rings for hanging items with.

Carabiners are some of the handiest items you can pick up for your campsite organization game. Or as one Reddit user wrote on r/Camping, "Is it just me or are carabiners a campers best friend?" These helpful clips work well for hanging many items from your rope line, attached to the narrow branches of a nearby tree, hung inside of your tent, or clipped to your canopy beams. But they can also be hooked onto backpacks or belt loops for easy, on-the-go accessibility. There's no need to rummage through a disorganized backpack or storage bin when you can simply snap a carabiner on your water bottle, ball cap, or headlamp — making it much faster and easier to grab what you need.

Carabiners are also useful for keeping several items together inside a bin or backpack. "[T]hey're also easier to find in my bag when they're bundled together," recommended another Reddit user. Stacy Bressler from The Crazy Outdoor Mama recommends using small carabiners to hook travel-sized toiletry products, loofahs, and your travel-sized hairbrush together. You can even use a Dremel to drill a hole in your bar soap and tack it onto your toiletry carabiner. Clip them all around your tent to hang up lighting or portable fans.

And at Dollar Tree prices, its' easy to pick up as many carabiners as you need. Dollar Tree currently sells a multicolored two-pack of carabiner clips in their tools section for just $1.50.

Any type of hanging organizer offers the ideal storage for smaller items you'll need to use frequently such as kitchen supplies or toiletries. For just $1.25, Dollar Tree sells hanging travel organizers that feature several zipping pockets, creating a relatively watertight space to keep items secure. These can be hung inside of your tent or canopy for easy access, or you can hang them from your campsite rope and S-hook system.

Anything you can hang in a storage bag designed for camping or an over-the-door shoe organizer can be stored in these. Unlike the similar shoe organizer hack, you can pack these travel bags before you leave home so there's no setup at your campsite beyond simply finding the right place to hang your bags up. Since the pockets actually zip, you don't have to worry about cleanup if your hanging storage falls. And at that price, why not pick up a few to manage all of your smaller items?

Reddit users remind campers not to include any items that could attract bears. Beyond that, you can store just about anything small in them. "You can store flashlights, headlamps, batteries, matches, bug spray, sunscreen, and all the other small items you need easily and they are in clear compartments so you can find exactly what you need quickly," one Redditor on r/LifeProTips noted, adding, "It's an awesome camping hack!" It's also a great spot for stashing first aid items, eating and cooking utensils, and paper products.

If you want to keep everything in your camping bins completely organized, pick up a handful of Dollar Tree's shopping bags or their sturdier plastic beach bags. Posting on r/Camping, one frequent camper shared, "I camp at least every other weekend all summer and can't stand having a messy camp."

To keep everything nice and organized, the camper said they rely on a color-coded bag system that makes clean-up a cinch after every meal. All of their kitchen gear goes into a black tote bag, while food products get sorted into green. For camping gear, they use a blue bag. You can also use these bags to sort hygiene products, first aid items, lighting and batteries, or miscellaneous camping essentials. Or use separate tote bags to sort individual campers' personal items into separate colors. Once you've unpacked everything, use your carabiners or S-hooks to hang your bags inside your tent or canopy or from your campsite rope line. When you're ready to pack up, simply roll up each bag and tuck it away inside a bin, and you're good to go.

Dollar Tree typically has a variety of reusable bags available in a wide range of colors and styles for just $1.50. You can pick up a few of their extra large plastic tote bags or a handful of woven reusable tote bags in some pretty cute prints without breaking your budget.

Another great way to keep your smaller camping items organized is using the smaller bins available from Dollar Tree. You can pick up small transparent, locking plastic storage bins for just $1.50 each, available in clear, black, and blue. These boxes are lightweight, durable, and easy to stack either inside your larger storage totes or arranged around your campsite. And the fact that they're transparent makes it easy to find what you're looking for at a glance. 

To maximize your small bin usage, seasoned campers recommend laying out everything you plan to pack, sorted into separate categories like kitchen and toiletries. Allocate anything small enough to fit into your shallow bins — the types of items that can be tough to find in an overpacked packing tote. "I like to have one for food items like pans, dishes, utensils, aluminum foil etc, and one for hygiene things like paper towel, bleach wipes, hand sanitizer, soap, tissue and so on, and don't like them mixed together," advised one Reddit user on r/Camping.

Reserve one bin for tent-setup items such as tent patch kits, rope, and your hammer. These bins are also perfect for organizing kids' items like crayons and small toys.

Teachers and scrapbookers everywhere know that Dollar Tree pencil cases are the unsung heroes of the organization world. They're the perfect size for organizing small items like a handful of phone cables, flashlight batteries, or your camping party's plastic cutlery. They're also good for organizing makeup and small toiletries, contact lens supplies, and other small items, and they're the perfect size for creating a small emergency kit full of band-aids, Neosporin, and matches. Cut a hole in one side, and they're perfect for storing your roasting forks.

Hard plastic or cardboard pencil cases provide crush-free storage, while soft zippered mesh, plastic, or fabric pencil cases are easy to fit inside a larger bag or tote. "They weigh next to nothing," shared one Reddit user on r/OneBag, adding, "you can see what's in them, and, because each is relatively small, you can stuff them into empty spaces in your bag."

Dollar Tree offers a broad range of pencil cases to choose from, especially during the summer months and early fall when they're stocked up on school supplies. Choose from one of four translucent jewel-toned hardside pencil case colors, all available for $1.25. Or for the same price, you can pick up one of the store's many soft-sided zippered pencil cases like their adorable iridescent case, available in three color-shifting shades or a soft, squishy matte pencil case available in rosy pink, baby blue, pretty peach, or sea foam green.

Bins can be incredibly useful for organizing, but you really need labels to keep everything straight. Take it from one poster on r/Camping, who shared, "Bins are clear and labeled for the category of stuff in them. Seems to work well for camping." You can tag just about everything with your labels: big bins, small bins, and everything else in your camping gear.

Fortunately, you don't have to shell out for the fancy labels available from your nearest office supply store since Dollar Tree has a fairly robust selection of stickers, labels, and more to help keep your camping supplies straight. For labeling smaller bins, a 120-pack of color-coded file folder labels, available in orange, white, green, blue, and red at just $1.25, should cover everything you've got. Or head over to the scrapbooking section to browse Dollar Tree's pretty self-adhesive label stickers — you can pick up a 30-pack in an array of cute colors for $1.25. For your larger bins, grab some black poster letters (a 56-pack is also $1.25).

Tent camping at many campgrounds can mean having to gather up your belongings and make a trek to the shower facilities. For keeping your shower supplies organized, seasoned campers recommend the simple solution kids that sleep-away camps everywhere rely on: portable plastic shower caddies. Pack your loofah, body wash, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, and any other miscellaneous shower items, and you've got everything you need for a shower on call and ready to go.

But these handy little caddies, with their convenient handles, are also every bit as useful for use within your campsite — particularly as an all-in-one handwashing and sanitation station, as recommended by Crazy Outdoor Mama writer Stacy Bressler. Use zip ties or a bungee cord to tie one to the handle of your cooler where it's centrally located, then stock it with everything you need for quick cleanups like wet wipes and hand sanitizer. Add other campsite essentials like sunscreen and bug spray, and you're good to go. "Keeps everything off the table and stops the 'where's the bug spray?' scramble every time someone sits down to eat," Bressler advised. You can also use a shower caddy at your campsite's picnic table for your plastic cutlery, napkins, salt, pepper, and wet wipes.

Dollar Tree sells divided three-compartment caddies in either black or white for just $1.50 each. Or pick up one of their smaller plastic craft caddies, available in hot pink, black, white, or bright blue for just $1.25.

You've probably thought of using a seven-day pill organizer to make sure you've got all of the basic medicines you might need on your camping trip — camping med staples like ibuprofen, Pepto-Bismol, and allergy pills. But these little organizers are also handy for neatly storing all the spices you'll need to cook campsite meals even Gordon Ramsay would approve of.

You'll need the basics — salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Depending on what you prefer to cook, other essentials could include cumin, paprika, onion powder, or chili powder. Just be sure to label all of your seasonings so there are no culinary mishaps to ruin your meal.

Dollar Tree has a bunch of options to choose from. There's a standard, rectangular seven-day pill organizer for just $1.25. They also have round seven-day organizers, available in peach, sea foam, or orchid for the same price. Available in the same colors at the same price, you can pick up a pack of seven smaller removable round pill holders. And for chefs who like to get really creative, they also sell a couple of multi-dose seven-day options, which means you've got room to pack anywhere from 14 to 21 seasonings.

For a mere $1.50, Dollar Tree sells a 12-inch by 4.75-inch portable cake container, transparent with solid trim. Sharing this hack, Facebook account Mama Cheaps wrote, "Super easy camping (or picnic) hack – grab a cake container from dollar store. Use it to hold your paper plates and napkins and keep them from blowing away!"

They're exactly the right size for storing your plastic or paper plates, napkins, and cutlery so everything is ready to go for your next mealtime. And because they snap shut, it's a guaranteed way to prevent grass, bugs, or that thin layer of grit that tends to cover everything from getting all over your dinnerware. It's also a great way to ensure your paper plates and napkins don't end up flying all over your campsite. If you've got the room for it, consider bringing a cake container to hold dining supplies for each camper in your party. It's a great way to ensure each camper is responsible for washing their own dishes. And they provide a sterile environment that's far more effective than mesh food tents when it comes to keeping flies and bees at bay.

If you're camping for more than a day and you're planning to cook, you'll eventually need to wash dishes. That's why many seasoned campers plan ahead to set up their portable camp kitchen station, complete with a well-planned spot for washing. "My dish washing basins fit on top of the camp stove, and the utensil box fits inside the dish basins," shared one Reddit user on r/Camping.

It's also a great way to ensure water conservation at your campsite. Use one for washing, packing your drying towels, sponges, and dish soap inside for use when you're ready. Use the other two for rinsing and drying, accordingly. When it's time to clean, heat up your water on the stove. Leave the first pan empty, filling the rinse pan and a capful of bleach to rinse and sanitize your clean dishes in. Lightly drizzle hot over your dishes for cleaning, apply liquid dish soap to your sponge and scrub, and then rinse in your rinse pan. Between meals, you can use them to sort your dishes and cookware until it's needed again. "I can fit a roll of paper towel, trash bags, extra propane, and some dishes along the edges as well," the same Redditor went on. To complete your organized washing station, pick up a trio of Dollar Tree bins. Add an electric drink dispenser, and you've got an easy DIY camping sink.

You can use just about any appropriately-sized bins for the job, and Dollar Tree has plenty to choose from. Some of the best options for your dish station are Dollar Tree's transparent wide refrigerator bins, available at just $1.50 per item.