Are camping parents better parents? While we can’t definitively answer that question, we can say that camping as parents probably makes you better parents. Sure, our RVing adventures have put us in many pressure-cooker situations, but they’ve helped us grow–and enjoy each other–in so many ways.
In our previous post, we shared 8 Reasons to Take your Kids Camping. Today, we are sharing six reasons why camping is great for parents. Again, we will be honest. Not every experience is a great experience, but luckily, our brains block out the bad parts and we mostly remember the good things. Isn’t that how all parenting is?
This is a sneak peek from our new book, See You at the Campground: A Guide to Discovering Community, Connection, and a Happier Family in the Great Outdoors. Check out chapter 13 “What’s in it for the Kids?” to read more.
To hear more about the benefits for camping parents, click PLAY on the media player above or search for The RV Atlas wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Here are the six gifts for camping parents:
The Gift of a Family Travel Template
For families that don’t camp, you might think through all kinds of travel options for every trip. Should we stay with family? Should we take a cruise? Should we take a road trip? Having an RV gives us a pretty consistent template to start with. We generally know what kind of trip we might take during each of our school breaks.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t ever mix it up. We do add in something different here and there. But, having this regular vacation pattern makes us more likely to travel more since we don’t have to think about it nearly as much. We know what to basically expect if we take our RV on a trip. Patterns and rhythms are pleasing.
The Gift of Living in the Moment
Sometimes in life, we really get caught up in focusing on the next thing instead of living in the moment. For sure, when we are at home, it is hard to truly unwind when we think about the mountains of laundry and the marathon of cleaning.
Relocating ourselves to the campground takes these things out of our view. We are more likely to sit back and relax a little. That’s something to treasure!
The Gift of Appreciation for Our Own Backyard
Though we feel more relaxed at the campground, camping has helped us have more appreciation for our own backyard. We’ve become more intentional about making sure we bring our favorite elements of the campground home. Whether you enjoy sitting around a fire, inviting friends over, or cooking outdoors at the campground, you can do this in your own yard.
This also means we’ve started to look for ways to appreciate our home region. In the past, we might have overlooked the awesome stuff nearby. Now, we look for the things we enjoy in other towns and make sure to hit a few of those things in our own backyard.
The Gift of Hobbies
Our RVing itself is a hobby, but it’s also lead to so many other hobbies, especially for Jeremy. We’ve started cooking outdoors, taking photographs, birdwatching, doing archery, hiking, and so much more! We are more active as a family thanks to these hobbies that pair so nicely with RVing.
Those hobbies are clearly plusses, even though Jeremy’s affinity for collecting vintage camp stoves might directly bump up against the next gift…
The Gift of Simplicity and Minimalism
When we go camping, it’s a great reminder of how much we have that we do.not.need at home. It’s actually kind of nice to live more simply. The less you have, the less you have to clean up. At home, how much of our time do we spend just dealing with our stuff?
RVing reminds us that you do not need all of that stuff to be happy, healthy, and settled.
The Gift of Communication, Teamwork, & Problem Solving
We used to watch The Amazing Race, and we noticed how some couples worked well together and got stuff done, while others were a hot mess. RVing helps us continually work on our teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills…this is not to say that we aren’t still a hot mess at times.
We do butt heads sometimes, but we are proud to say we succeed way more often than we fail. We really have developed a good rhythm for working together while RVing. We are all in this together! The payoff is that if we work together to get the job done, we all get to enjoy the rewards.
We have been so blessed as camping parents and as a camping couple! Our boys have become different kinds of kids than they would have become without our RVing experiences, and that’s because we have become different kinds of parents.
See You at the Campground,
Jeremy + Stephanie
