Taking the Kids: Camping

There’s been an eye-popping 174 percent increase in the number of households camping three or more times a year with campers reporting they want to share their outdoor experience with the next generation.

That’s not to say you should be spontaneous, especially this summer. Make reservations, especially at campgrounds near or in popular national parks.

Sites like RVC Outdoor Destinations offers a unique family travel experience, accommodating everyone from the littlest kids to grandparents, with upscale services and hotel-like amenities immersed in nature. Campspot – the largest booking site for private campgrounds in North America – released the winners of its 2023 Campspot Awards to inspire families to get and stay outdoors. The top winner is Carolina Pines RV Resort in Conway, South Carolina, complete with arcade, mini golf, a water park and bistro near Myrtle Beach.

Those who don’t own an RV but want to have that RV experience can take their pick of RVs with a peer-to-peer RV rental company like Outdoorsy. Some owners will drive the RV to the site and hook it up for you. There certainly is a learning curve, as we discovered on our first RV trip in Colorado.

Outdoorsy has hundreds of RVs in all shapes and sizes available for rent while HarvestHosts is a membership platform with options to park your RV in unusual places, including vineyards and farms (packages start at $99 a year — roughly the cost of two nights in a campground).

Campgrounds continue to offer more amenities. KOA, with some 500 campgrounds, offers pools, dog parks, activities and options ranging from places to park your RV to yurts to luxe cabins. (Check out my Kid’s Guide to Camping, produced with KOA.)

Wisconsin’s lakefront campgrounds are increasingly complementing their paddle boats, canoes and kayaks with inflatable floating climbing structures, water slides, even houseboat rentals for guests to explore the Mississippi River.

The Jellystone Park Camp-Resort in the Wisconsin Dells offers a big water playground (25 water features), as well as kayaks, rafts and canoes for use on Mirror Lake, the oldest man-made lake in Wisconsin.

Camp Margaritaville RV Resort Crystal Beach (Texas) is the ultimate combination of a beach vacation and RV resort – complete with pool, private cabanas , on-site restaurant, and entertainment.

The popularity of glamping — camping with amenities typically associated with resorts, continues to grow — some 28 percent of those surveyed reported glamping in the past three years.

Terramor Outdoor Resort in Bar Harbor, Maine, offers yoga, in-tent massages, complimentary binoculars to help bird watch. Wildhaven in Sonoma County, California, boasts private Russian River access and a camp store featuring local wines and beers.

AutoCamp Joshua Tree has a desert ecologist on staff and sommelier-led wine tastings while you sleep in Airstreams. There are other AutoCamps across the country from Asheville, South Carolina, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the Hill Country in Texas and Zion, Utah, all featuring accommodations in modern Airstream Suites.

Under Canvas glamping sites continue to grow with a new glamping resort in Moab, Utah. We stayed in one in West Yellowstone.

Got your s’mores fixings?

========

(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow TakingTheKids on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The Kid’s Guide to Philadelphia and The Kid’s Guide to Camping are the latest in a series of 14 books for kid travelers published by Eileen.)