The Reality of Camping with your Family!

As you may know, my family and I have been roaming all over the place in our sprinter van. I wish could tell you it’s all been so blissful….. reality is 85% of the time its a complete s**t show. Between packing up everything and making sure you have the right clothes for the trip, the right amount of food, snacks and god forbid you don’t pack enough booze.

It’s All Fun And Games….

It’s all fun and games until you travel and camp with 3 small hooligans. For the most part our girls are chill and self sufficient but then there’s darling little Vinny (can you sense the sarcasm in my voice?). This little darling can scream at the top of his lungs non stop for a good 45 minutes. He does rest his lungs in between melt downs but that lasts maybe 30 seconds. Can you imagine riding in a car with a shrieking baby for that long??? Well… we do it every trip, hence why I freak out if I forget to pack the wine and tequila! We all know that it can be a challenge traveling with your kiddos, I recommend bringing coloring/sicker books, markers and a multi functional baby toy that can distract the little one! Oh and NEVER forget back up pacifier EVER!!!!

Potty Breaks

MOM I have to go to the bathroom! Im pretty sure one of the girls make this comment on cue about 45min into our drive EVERY TIME! We then ask, “Umm didn’t you just go when we left the house?” to which the reply is”YES”! Thankfully we have our on board potty, which save us a lot of stops a long the way. We have now come up with our own bungee cord method to keep the loo in place while driving. Please note , I do not recommend going to the bathroom while the van is in motion but sometime you got to do what yo got to do. Another important thing to remember is when you are traveling through different altitudes ALWAYS remember to pull the lever slightly open before going with the lid CLOSED or you could get sprayed (I know from experience ).

UGH the LAUNDRY!!

Here’s another fun and true fact, when camping with kids you somehow go through significantly more laundry! Kids will be kids and anything that consist of dirt, water, sand or sticky substances they will be attracted to it. When you’re in tight quarters like we are in the van you can’t just let it pile up. I find myself schlepping more loads of laundry to and from the laundry mat then I’d like to think about! If I was just kicking it for a weekend I’d let those little knuckleheads stew in their filth until we got home, but we are usually gone for weeks at a time. Remember to pack a few laundry bags for long trips. We bring laundry pods because of convenience and lots of quarters!( just throw them in a zip lock and store up top so little ones don’t have access)

Cramped Quarters

How the hell do we sleep 5 people and a dog in our van?? I’ll tell you, very closely, that ‘s how. Ron and I most of the time sleep our heads on opposite ends of our bed so we aren’t getting karate kicked by the baby ALL night! Hazy and Cece seem to be just fine sleeping together on the grove lounge. Leroy has his own bed but does from time to time get trampled on if someone goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s cramped but the van is so well designed it feels bigger than it is (unless you’re on the road for a month then it gets to be a bit much! I’ll blog about that later).

Bottom Line

I just thought it would be nice to share some truths about traveling. I know there are a lot of people who only post the “good” stuff or “pretty” things. The reality of it all is that when you camp with your family it will most likely be a s**t show and thats ok, because that’s what makes the memories. Not all trips are going to be perfect or go as planned. It’s the trips that get all mucked up that are the most fun. If you’re not getting into some type of shenanigans while on a road trip with your family you’re not doing it right!