Our First Family Camping Trip

It was our first family camping trip this summer. There is something special about sleeping in a field under canvas. It was time to share the experience with the whole family.

I grew up with caravanning holidays, then as soon as I was old enough I went camping with the guides. Following this, I took it a step further and did hiking and rough camping with the Scouts and Duke of Edinburgh awards. I was rather crazy at times…camping in Greenland and hiking and camping in snow knee deep in the Lake District. I have very fond memories of these times, mostly because you have to laugh at challenging/painful moments in your life.

Both hubby and I wanted to share camping with our children. Up until now we have been nervous of taking them. They wake so early and are very noisy, we were worried about their noise disturbing others. However, it was time to give it a try.

We bought a (very large) tent and off we went.

Our family camping experience…

Now one thing we hadn’t thought about was fitting everything in the car, including five people. Hence we ended up taking two cars. We might be investing in a trailer for future trips.

The tent was easy to put up, but it was so big, hubby actually had to do most of it. There were parts I couldn’t even reach.

The children enjoyed ‘helping’. They were so excited. As soon as we had their beds ready, they were in there playing, despite it being an incredibly hot day. It took about a day and a half before they started calming down!

It was wonderful though to just sit and play around the tent in the sunshine. The children played and were literally bursting with excitement. They helped us cook and collect water.

One of the best parts of camping was being able to sit out after dinner and play games together. We played a lot of piggy in the middle, frisbee and football. It was a fantastic way to spend time as a family. It forces you to interact, play and have fun together.

When it got dark, we sat outside the tent in pyjamas with a hot chocolate looking at the stars. The children had never properly looked at the stars before, they loved it. Even better, we actually saw some shooting stars too…very special!

Camping is a great place for making friends, which the children did and for flying kites.

Family camping was definitely hard work, but so worth it. The opportunity to get outside and spend such quality time as a family was priceless. Although I do admit, we had perfect weather for it. I wonder how we would have got on in the rain?

Do you camp with children?