Recently my husband and I took our toddler camping. First let’s clarify that we were camper camping. I’m very pregnant and no one wants a grouchy pregnant woman from being hot all weekend! We still experienced many outdoor camping experiences such as go for walks, exploring nature, playing at the campground playground, swimming, cooking outside and of course...s’mores!! The weekend we decided to go camping it was pretty hot so we also did some indoor activities like shopping and taking our son to his first movie (Incredibles 2).
The weekend was a great getaway as the days of being a family of three are becoming less and less, but traveling with a toddler is always an adventure! The biggest thing that made the weekend less stressful and most enjoyable was being flexible and adaptable. For our toddlers first movie we didn’t know how he would react so even though we had just paid for three tickets we knew that having to leave during the movie was a possibility. He did pretty good once the movie actually started and he found a comfy spot on dad’s lap. Other than shopping and the movie we mainly stayed at the campground because we knew our son would be the happiest there where he could roam around. However, like I said, it was HOT! So planned for the movie and shopping during the hottest parts of the day so that he could be outside during the cooler parts of the day. We made sure to bring out the cold water and popsicles every so often to allow him time to cool off. We even spent some time in the very cold pool (still not sure how it was so cold when it was so hot outside) so that he could be outside and stay cool at the same time. He didn’t seem to mind that It was cold.
The weekend was a blast for our little family but if we would have tried to force him to do all the “things” we wanted to do it would have been a much more stressful trip. We enjoyed our time watching our son explore and adapted our plans/actions to make the trip successful.