Half the fun of going out camping is the lack of light pollution at night. There’s so much more of the night sky you can show off to your kids that can’t be seen from your balcony, backyard cul-de-sac, you name it. It doesn’t compare to the night sky of camping.

In this Waypoint, we’ll give you ideas on what to do with your kids at night and what to talk about while you look up at that night sky. Telescopes are cool and all, and we totally recommend them, but this one is about what you can see with your naked eye and hear for yourself.

For a look back on all our waypoints for this car camping series, click here: Summer Summit 2020: Car Camping.

If your campsite doesn’t have a good view of the sunset, try to find a good spot facing west. Is there a lake nearby, a beach, or an overlook that opens up? Scoop up the kids and head over about an hour before sunset. Most weather apps will let you know what time that happens.

As you’re enjoying the sunset, come in and drop some knowledge on your kids.

Sunsets occur as the sun disappears below the horizon due to the rotation of the Earth. The awesome colors you see are a result of a phenomenon called scattering that occurs when tiny particles in the atmosphere alter the direction of light rays emitted by the sun.

The scattering is more noticeable at sunset, because the sun is closer to the horizon, so the atmosphere is more dense. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the light.

The sun rays also have a longer distance to get to you compared to noon when it points down on you. And since red wavelengths are the longest, they shine through while the blue rays stay out wherever the sun is currently directly above.

Clouds make for great sunsets because they catch the rays and reflect the light to the ground. It’s part of the reason you should wait for that afternoon storm to pass, then hurry up out to a sunset spot for an epic view.

If you’re looking for the best spot in your state to see a sunset, check out this list from Reader’s Digest - yes, that’s still a thing.

If you’re close to the equator, you have just over an hour after the sun sets until it gets dark enough to see a good bit of space. The more north you go, the more time you have.

Based on that, you’ll want to get the kids ready to bundle up when that darkness hits. Even more so if there’s not a cloud in the sky. The clouds are what keep the warmth of the day close to the Earth. No clouds will make for an open night sky, but a chilly one.

When the sky is clear, there’s nothing to hold the warmth of the Earth in, so it will feel colder at night. Body temperature also starts to fall as your body gets ready for a good night’s sleep.

The best way to combat both is have layers ready to add warmth, including a hat and gloves.

Be especially cautious out in dry deserts and high altitudes. There have been more than 20-degree temperature changes between day and night due to less moisture in the air and a thinner atmosphere.

Obviously you don’t want to add any light pollution (that’s the cool part, right?), but you still need to get around the campsite, so headlamps are our go-to for nighttime.

Each person wears one on their head and can control when to turn it on and off. A battery-powered lantern is also great to keep in a secure place in the middle of your group. Leave it be while you enjoy the night, then turn it on when it’s bedtime and everyone makes their way to the tent.

By far the coolest light to get for kids at night are glow sticks and glow necklaces. It’s almost ridiculous how much of a kick kids get out of them, but then again, we loved them just as much when we were kids - still do, actually. They’re also great to tie around them, so it’s easy to keep track of where everyone is. Double win.

Not only that, but your kids can use their glow sticks to do our Paint with Light Waypoint where you use your phone to capture the slow motion of kids waving their glow sticks around and creating shapes in the night. It’s seriously cool, and seriously entertaining.

Once that dark night really settles in, gather your clan and find the North Star, also called Polaris. It’s one of the easiest survival skills you can add to their knowledge bank. Every other constellation and navigation can be based on that star, because it will always lead them North due to its location above the Earth’s axis.

The North Star isn’t particularly bright, so you need to know where to look. And that, my friends, is why the first step to finding the North Star is to find the Big Dipper constellation.

Have your kids find that first. It should look like a big ladle in the sky. Four stars to make the bowl, and three to create the handle. Have them pick out the two stars at the end of the bowl. Those stars are called Merak and Dubhe.

Then have them draw a line connecting those stars from the bottom of the ladle to the top and out into the sky. When they go 5x the distance away from the ladle, they found the North Star.

Once they find it, have them face the star and stretch their arms out sideways. Their right hand will point due East and their left hand due West. Directly behind them is due South.

A fun game to play is to have your kids close their eyes, move them to a new spot, then have them point out a specific direction while you check with a compass.

We’ve even got a Waypoint for you right here: Find the North Star.

The sounds you hear at night can be radically different than the sounds you hear during the day. You’ll want to prep your kids for this. Talk them through the new sounds.

During the day, stop by the park’s visitor center, and read up on what animals come out at night near there.

Is it a mixture of owls, katydids, and crickets in the forest? Or wind from shrubby trees and lizards scuttling around in the desert? Maybe blackbirds flying around or elk in the mountains.

Whatever it is, try to get them to enjoy it. If your family practices Leave No Trace and you keep your food cleaned up, there’s not much to worry about. Help them appreciate the serene feeling that comes with nighttime. Maybe even make guesses the first night, then check the visitor center in the morning to see who’s right.

You’ve all settled in, you know which way to the North Star, and the kids have started to quiet down as they listen to the sounds of the night sky. Now you can let the conversation fade, tilt your heads back and really take in all that you can see in the sky.

Teach them about patience as they wait for a shooting start. Work your way out from the North Star to find the Little Dipper, Orion, and other constellations nearby. Maybe you’ll get lucky and a few planets will be visible. Even better if you get a good view of the Milky Way. There’s nothing like a good look at the Milky Way to spark a conversation about how vast the universe is and all the possibilities in it.

Even though we’re all looking up at the same universe, what each of us sees depends on where you are and the time of year.

That’s why instead of trying to explain all that, we’ll leave you with this amazing resource called In-the-Sky.org. Pop in your location and the date your family will be looking up to discover all the constellations, planets, comets, asteroids, you name it out there above you.

It really is amazing out there.