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8 Reasons to Camp with Your Family

October 29, 2024

Camping with family will bring you closer together physically and emotionally. Parents and kids can snuggle inside a tent while grandparents pass down stories and demonstrate the best way to cook a meal over a campfire. Reconnect with in-laws and coax teenagers to help out around camp. Going on a camping trip with family is totally worth it.

1. Family Bonding Time

A family camping trip is a great way to spend undivided technology-free time with loved ones. Thrown together in the car or RV, inside a tent, and around the campfire will get you talking, swapping stories, and, most importantly, laughing. Find activities for the entire family to do together or break off from the group to do something memorable with just a sibling, child, or parent.

2. Generational Knowledge

Going camping with experienced campers guarantees you’re doing things right, like setting up the tent correctly and following food prep and storage protocols. Grandparents and parents who love to camp could have the know-how to make your family camping trip safe and fun. While setting up camp, start a conversation about everyone’s favorite family stories—you might learn a thing or two.

3. Great Company

Some of the best company to bring along on a camping trip is family. You know each other well and understand each other’s strengths. Family members will look for ways to help each other enjoy the camping experience, like grandparents taking the kids to find frogs at the pond so mom and dad get some alone time. Camping with family comes with a comfort level where spending several days together feels natural.

4. Built-in Support System

When you camp with family, each member has outdoor living strengths and weaknesses. Make it a family goal to find ways to use everyone’s strengths to support the team. Working together to prepare food, shelter, and fun activities is important, but so is allowing space and time for independent pursuits.

Grandparents camp in a tent with their two grandchildren in the fall season.

5. Family Reunion

Going on a family camping trip gives grown children the opportunity to live together with parents and siblings like when they were younger. It gives grandparents a chance to hang out with grandkids and everyone a chance to reconnect with loved ones.

6. Family Tradition

Maybe you’ve been camping at the same National Park for years, or you’re looking to find a new place your family will love to gather every year. Camping as a family tradition is a great way to create memories to reflect on when you’re back home and reminiscing about fun times together. Camping creates common ground with family members, so you’ll always have something fun to talk about.

7. Exposure to Camping

When children have the opportunity to experience what it’s like to camp, they might feel more equipped to try camping on their own later in life. Teenagers might push against going on the family camping trip, but their childhood camping experience will stick with them.

8. Problem-Solving Skills

When challenges arise at camp, solutions may come easily, or difficult decisions might have to be made. Everyone on the trip has the chance to lead the way in finding the best solution, and it might be the making of a proud family moment. When you work together as a family unit, you will have an amazing time supporting and cheering each other on.


Eva Barrows

Eva Barrows is a San Francisco Bay Area freelance writer. Eva writes about local places, people and events on her website www.evabarrows.com. She founded the online literary journal Imitation Fruit in 2007 and has enjoyed promoting fellow writers and artists ever since.

 

 

 

 

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