How to enjoy a family glamping trip

Corporate to Kids - 16 Jul 19

For the past two years, we have taken the boys glamping. I’m a fair-weather camper it’s true. I do however have years of Girl Guide camping experience under my belt, so if you need a bedding rack built in your tent, I might be your girl. We have experienced a smorgasbord of weather situations and varying degrees of sleep. Regardless, it’s been fun, and the boys have loved it. Therefore, I’m a family glamping convert, and you can be too if you follow these easy (ahem) steps.

Go with friends

We have glamped with my NCT friends and we all have children of the same-ish age. This massively helps with the entertainment aspect of glamping. Between you make sure you have enough water guns, balls and sporting equipment. Glamping is all about the great outdoors, so let them run wild. Organise rounders games or hide and seek or whatever your creative juices allow. The fresh air will hopefully exhaust them so you can have adult fun time when they crash.

Appoint a Team Leader

Okay, so we’re very lucky in our camping group that one friend takes the lead. Not only does she book the glamping tents and tent pitches, but she organises all the food. Total winner and total legend. She and her husband create a meal plan before the event and then buy all the supplies, and we split the cost. If you can find one of these leaders in your group, it makes the trip run a lot more smoothly.

Forget routine

You may as well chuck your watches away because there is no clock watching during family glamping. I once camped at Glastonbury and recall waking up extremely early every day under the sweaty canvas, and therefore cocktails for breakfast were completely acceptable. The same goes for children when you camp (no, don’t give them cocktails for breakfast please). They will run around in varying states of clothing (pants, topless and generally covered in dirt are all commonplace). Their hands will be thick with grime, and they will eat at strange times. They will likely go to bed late and wake up at an ungodly hour. It’s all part and parcel of the trip. It’s quite liberating to chuck away routine and let them turn feral for a while.

Don’t be precious

I’m all for looking my best, but I just can’t be bothered once I get between the canvas walls. I confess that I take a hand mirror on the glamping escapade, but whether I use it is debatable. It’s not about make-up or freshly quaffed hair. Quite the opposite. It’s about a full can of dry shampoo, plenty of deodorant and close friends who don’t care if you look like you’re only fit for the black bin bag. Fashion goes out the (plastic) window. Shorts and layers are essential, dresses that blow around or hunch up are not. The husband made a glamping faux pas and forgot bed socks (not sure he owns any) but was lucky enough to don my spare red fluffy pair. Exactly my point: fashion pride is irrelevant while glamping.

Bring enough supplies

I like a drink during camping. If the sun is shining (or in the rain) you’re going to want to pop a beer. So, don’t scrimp on the booze. Too much is never enough, and too little is just a juvenile error. You may not have ice for a gin and tonic, but there’s no excuse for running out of whatever your poison is. Aside from alcohol, don’t forget what is and isn’t provided in the glamping tent as no one wants to go the weekend without bedding because you thought they were included.

I love being outdoors and so apparently do children. We don’t get much of a summer, so embrace it while it lasts. Ditch routine, your five a day and your vow to have a dry weekend. Sit back, watch the kids play together and hit the barbeque food hard. I’m so keen that I’ve booked for the boys and me to go family glamping again at the end of the summer holidays with just friends and no husband. Am I mad? Possibly. Must be all the fresh air.

Corporate to Kids

Who: Sarah - Queen of self-deprecation Job: from corporate HR career to Mum, Writer and Blogger Children: two boys with a 13 month age gap!! Obsessions: writing, Haribos, rainbows, coffee, fizz

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