Choosing Who You Camp With

My favorite campers!

How do you go about choosing who you camp with? Is it something you do as a family tradition, every Fourth of July at the same place with the same family, year after year? Do you plan your summer camping trips based on who can go where, when?

For me, I like to go camping with the friends and family that I feel most comfortable with and who also enjoy the outdoors as much as (or more than) my own family does. Since I have young kids, it is also ideal to go camping with friends and family who also have young kids my children play well with.  Most important thing to consider is: who do you want to make lifelong memories with?

I am fortunate that my husband and children (my favorite people to camp with) enjoy the outdoors as much as I do. We enjoy hiking, biking, kayaking, and of course, camping! It is ideal to go camping with families that have similar interests as us. That way, we can all go hiking together, kayaking together, and so on.

I grew up camping at the beach with my extended family every year. The memories from camping trips with my family and playing in the waves with my cousins are some of my very best childhood memories. Thus, choosing who to camp with has always been almost been more instinctual than anything else. Quite honestly, the feeling when camping with extended family is: the More, the Merrier! Oftentimes we will even get a call last minute that some of my family is camping out at the beach and we, being spontaneous people, will pack the kids and gear up and camp with them, even if only for the day.  

Recently, we have begun a new tradition of camping with some friends we go to church with every year on Memorial Day weekend. We are all young families and enjoy the weekend camping together! This year we relaxed in some hammocks (see below), kayaked the lake, hiked the hills and even saw a bear in the wild!  

So in choosing who you camp with, think of who likes the outdoors as much as your family, who you get along with for extended amounts of time, and also who enjoys the same types of activities. That way, you are guaranteed to have a relaxing time making memories with loved ones, due to carefully choosing who you camp with.