Camping in the Rain

You may wonder what got us started on the journey to become glampers? And I’m here to tell you. Rain. Rain is what started this whole journey.

You see, I LOVE the outdoors. I like camping in the woods, I love exploring new hiking trails, I adore sitting around a campfire with my family.

But I do NOT like camping in the rain. And for the first couple of years we started out camping as a family, it seemed Mother Nature was determined to literally rain on our parade.

There’s nothing worse than spending weeks planning a fun-filled family camping trip, only to be beholden to the weather app on your smart phone anxiously trying to decide if a 50% chance of rain is going to ruin your trip.

One time we camped at Davidson River Campground in North Carolina. The weather forecast was iffy, but we forged ahead anyway. Sure enough, as soon as we got the entire camp set up, and my husband got the grill hot enough to cook some burgers for dinner, it started to rain.

The kids and I scrambled to grab as much as we could throw back in the car to keep everything from getting soaked. My poor husband tried to cook hamburgers while holding an umbrella to keep the grill fire from going out. We passed around a bag of potato chips in the car for dinner. To say I was frustrated was an understatement. I was down right mad! We’d worked so hard to plan a fun trip and it seemed every time we tried to go tent camping, the rain would spoil our plans.

We ended up sitting in the tent at about 6 p.m. (the kids don’t usually go to bed until about 9 p.m. on the weekends). So imagine trying to keep everyone entertained in the tent for three hours with no electronics on hand. The horrors!!!!

I’m happy to report we lived to tell the tale through that rainy night. We played Go Fish. We acted out charades. We sang songs. And we went to bed early.

Don’t get me wrong – these rain-filled experiences didn’t squash my love of camping – it just fueled our motivation to take matters into our own hands and find a trailer we can hide out in should the weather turn on us in the future!

So here we are, researching camping travel trailers and having my car upfitted with a tow package so we can continue exploring the great outdoors, without worrying so much about weather a little rain will dampen our plans.

I can’t wait to see where our travel trailer will take us!

This is us. Camping in the rain. Although I’m smiling, trust me when I tell you I was not a happy camper!