Family camping hack: Invite another family along

Tim's hack is "social practicality" at its best:

Camping with toddlers can seem daunting, but inviting another family or two to join you gives you some extra adult hands and eyes as well as playmates for the kids. Of course, this holds true for any outing or vacation, but there is something uniquely frustrating about trying to set up a tent when your 15-month old is about to ingest a bug and your 3-year old is running around with the marshmallow fork.

We had six adults and six kids under the age of four, but we managed to get our tents and canopy set up in relatively short order with only one or two of us watching the kids at any given moment. In fact, it started to rain as we were making camp, but all the kids piled in one fairly large tent with me, freeing the other adults to scramble to get things under cover.

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Comments

[jamie]

Or go with your OWN Mom.

My Mom invited the kids and me to join her on a camping trip next week.

And I quote, "Don't bother with any of the kitchen stuff or food honey, I've got all that covered."

Um, okay.

[Polina]

When I had first read the article my thought was "How can they solve the problem, inviting the even bigger problem. Problems are never occupied with each other, they are always searching for somebody else to overwhelm..." Then I realized that it does should work (if you have nerves made of stainless steel)...

[Annette]

I have to agree with Jamie. The best people to bring along anywhere are grandparents - somehow they never tire of the little buggers.