Rainier National Park assured me that they would mail the Junior Ranger booklet or other educational packets to anyone who called. For programs in state parks, call or go to the park information center for that state, just as you will do when you are seeking information about camping in that state.
While the Junior Ranger program is for visitors to the parks, WebRanger is a National Park Service program for stay-at-homes. It begins and ends at your computer desk. By logging onto www.nps.gov/webrangers, your child can explore the national parks, complete activities, and win awards. Programs are age appropriate, 6 to 9, 10 to 12, and 13 and up, and new activities are added often. The kids will be learning about natural science and American history while they are having fun. It’s a good way to get them excited about and prepared for upcoming trips, or even to help plan next year’s trip. WebRanger allows kids to learn about national parks even if they can’t visit them, and they send a strong message about caring for our parks and our world.
Some parks have their own websites, with pictures of the facilities, including campsites. This is another place for imaginary camping. Look at the pictures with your kids and talk about how you might camp there.
Sam and Sarah like to research their camping trips online.
Finally, when you talk to your kids about camping, make sure that your questions don’t mislead them. If you ask what they would like to eat when camping, they may request something that would be very difficult or impossible to prepare on a camp stove. If you ask which toys they will take, they may list something like Lego, which has a lot of small pieces that would be scattered all over a campsite.
IMAGINARY CAMPING
Campsite Specifics
Look at the various camping websites and find some with photos of campgrounds. After reviewing those, talk with your children about how they would imagine camping at these places. Ask them what they would eat while camping, and what toys they would bring. Of the activities described on the website, what would they do during the day?
Instead, be very specific. When you’re having mac and cheese, you can ask, “Would you like to have this when we’re camping?” When you’re picking up or putting away toys, you can say, “Teddy can go camping with us, but maybe Barbie should stay home (unless there is a Camping Barbie).”
You may be surprised to see your small children begin to incorporate what you have told them into their play. Babies will be babies no matter what you tell them, but toddlers and pre-schoolers might begin to tell their dolls and stuffed animals that they are going camping. Teddy bears can “camp” under a tent made from a favorite blanket.
When I was asked to write this book, my grown daughter gave me a toy camping set made by Danny First. It has a little tent, two cloth dolls (boy and girl), two air mattresses, two sleeping bags, an inflatable boat, and a collection of animals—a skunk, a moose, and a raccoon. Children who have visited me, as young as 2, even the kids who have never camped, seem to understand immediately how to play with the set. A clever parent could replicate some of the items with toys your children already own and a sleeping bag made of a washcloth or a square of felt folded in half and stitched together on two sides.
Planning Your Trip
How Shall We Camp?
Eleven-year-old Sara camps with her father and younger sister in a four-person tent; sometimes, but not often, their mother goes with them. Susan, her husband, and their four kids camp in two small tents, a parents’ tent and a kids’ tent. Ever since her daughter was only 3 years old, single parent Janetta has been taking her camping, sometimes just the two of them, in a tent that sleeps five; it’s roomy enough to hold the play pen that was her daughter’s bed when she was small. Marlene, another single mom, and her two kids, 7 and 9, sleep in the back of their big SUV, with down pillows and comforters; they use their tent only for storage and for changing clothes.
Jeannie and Porter also began camping with their daughter when she was just a toddler, but they camped in a pop-up tent-trailer, which has a floor and a hard lid that pops up to form the roof over canvas walls. Henk Jr. and his wife and kids, 1 and 3, also camp in a pop-up tent-trailer, but when the kids go with their grandparents, Henk Sr. and Elke, they camp in an RV.
Ellen and her family are co-owners with her sister-in-law of a cab-over RV, a truck with living quarters that extend over the driver’s cab. They alternate camping weekends with the other family, and once every summer they negotiate for a longer trip. Ellen’s RV is “pretty much complete.” They leave it packed and ready to go all the time.
Meeghan, a 12-year-old student, hasn’t tried it yet, but she thinks an RV would be the best way to camp, because it would be more comfortable and easier to cook in than a tent and she wouldn’t have to go home if it rained.
So how will you camp? This chapter will help you decide, with detailed discussions of tents, RV camping, trailers, camper trucks, and vans. We’ll also cover renting, and, since I know I can’t answer all the questions you might have, a short segment on some good sources of further information.
Tents
My family camped in tents most of the time, especially on weekend jaunts. We liked tents because we could pretend that we were rugged outdoor people, getting close to nature, challenging ourselves to live without civilized amenities for just a few days. We slept in sleeping bags on thin mattresses and cooked outdoors on a gasoline stove. We carried water from a spigot in the campground, if there was one, or we pumped water through a filter from a lake or stream.
Although we tried to get along with a minimum of equipment, we often had too much gear for the trunk and the top of the car, so some of it rode with the kids in the back seat. That’s not unusual for tent campers. It made for cramped seating, and we tried to stop occasionally to let the kids get out in a safe place and run around. We learned early on that it’s important to load the car so that the tent can be taken out first and set up before we did anything else.
We now own several tents. The largest sleeps four close together, with no room for storage inside; when we use this tent, we leave our stove out on the picnic table all night, but most of our gear and our food stays locked in the car. I like this tent because I can stand up in it, and it has a little extension in the front where the dog can sleep. When the whole family camped, one of the kids spent the night by himself in a pup tent. Both tents must be pegged down in order to stay up.
