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camping activities, camping with kids, RV activities, RV Camping, RV Life, RV travel, RVing with kids, Summer Travel
Summer and camping go hand in hand, and there is nothing quite as wonderful as sharing the summer camping experience with your kids. Part of the reason my family lives the RV lifestyle is to spend more time experiencing camping and making memories together, and I think every family should have the opportunity to do the same.
There are many things you can do to ensure your camping trips are memorable. Obviously, traditional camping activities such as hiking, fishing, and campfires should be on the agenda, but the less-common activities below are great options as well.
Go on a Treasure Hunt
Hunting for treasure is fun for everyone. After all, it gives the hunters a great opportunity to pretend they are pirates, and who wouldn’t love to have that chance?
Luckily, you too can have that chance by going Geocaching with your tribe. This real-life treasure hunt adventure is a great way to spend some family bonding time in nature. Check out the Geocaching website for more info.
Or, Hide Some Treasure of Your Own
Many RVers have taken up painting and hiding rocks in the campgrounds they visit. The rocks are then found by others, who have the option to keep the pretty decorations or hide them somewhere else for other lucky campers to find.
Your family can join the fun by holding a morning rock-painting session on your campsite and using the evening to explore the campground and find perfect hiding places for each work of art.
Who knows? You may even have the good fortune of finding a rock or two while you’re at it!
Play Games in the Water
Swimming is a big part of camping for most people. This is especially true during the hot summer months when keeping cool becomes difficult. Why not make your camping swimming sessions even more fun by playing some water games?
The plastic cup race is one silly option. To play, each person puts a plastic cup into the water in front of them. They then spray the cup with a water gun, using the stream of water to make the cup move. The first person to get their cup to a predesignated finish line is the winner.
Other fun ideas include “Marco Polo”, water gun fights, and “hot potato” played with a wet sponge.
Play in the Dark
After the sun goes down, most campers can be found sitting around campfires telling stories and singing songs. While you will definitely want to have the classic campfire experience, there is nothing wrong with mixing it up on occasion.
One of the best ways to make your nighttime camping activities more interesting is to add glow sticks. For instance, a game of glow-in-the-dark ring toss can be played by replacing the rings with glow necklaces. Likewise, a glow stick hunt can keep everyone entertained for a while.
I hope these ideas provide you with the inspiration you need to make this year’s camping trips some of the best yet! Have an idea you’d like to share? Please do so in the comments below.
About the Author:
Chelsea has the amazing opportunity to take part in full-time RV living and traveling with her tiny tribe. She homeschools her five-year-old son as they travel, and takes full advantage of their unique situation by using the entire world as her son’s classroom. A group of total Disney fanatics, Chelsea and her family often find themselves in the Orlando area in order to visit the Disney parks, but they have also visited over 25 of the 50 states with plans to see many more along the way. No matter where her travels take her, Chelsea enjoys riding bikes, gazing at beautiful sunsets, finding new coffee shops, Irish dancing, and sitting around a campfire with her family.
You can join her adventures through her blog, Wonder Wherever We Wander.
Ricky R. ~ “Just wanted to let you know that we had a tire go out on a recent trip to Florida, and for the first time, was able to use my Coach-Net services. Not that I really wanted to ever use this, but that is the reason we have it. We contacted Coach-Net and was assisted by Kristen, who was in constant contact and extremely patient and helpful during our whole, stressful event. Being broken down somewhere strange is not very comforting. She was able to source a tire repair service along with a new replacement tire, which was covered 100% under our plan. Kristen kept in touch up until the repair service arrived. We received an automated call verifying the repair was done and go back on our way. There are so many horror stories about poor service and customer support with roadside plans, so I thought I would share a GOOD story and great outcome. Thanks, again, for great coverage and excellent employees who care.”
We are well into the summer travel season, and although my family and I enjoy RV travel year-round, summer is arguably the most enjoyable. Many RVers that are not fulltimers likely do most or all of their camping in the spring and summer months. Here are some tips and ideas for summer weather RVing.
Summer sunshine is just around the corner and the best time for RVing is almost here. But when school gets out and thousands of RVers compete for prime spots in the great outdoors, do you know how to avoid summer campground crowds?
Some of the best RVing destinations like 
Dry camping on public lands is a great option to avoid summer campground crowds and save money on your RV adventures. Many people enjoy the independence of living off-grid without RV hookups. Although it’s helpful to have 
If your summer vacation budget is tight, you can save money by camping on the outskirts of major attractions along your route. RV parks and campgrounds close to popular summer destinations like national parks and beaches will always be more crowded and cost more than competitors located down the highway. When your goal is to avoid summer crowds, choose campgrounds and RV parks that aren’t quite as convenient to major attractions. You may need to drive a couple of minutes longer to see things on your bucket list, but you’ll have more money to spend on souvenirs.
One of the original Congressionally designated “Wild and Scenic Rivers,” Oregon’s Wild and Scenic Rogue River offers a multitude of activities, from fishing to hiking to white-water rafting. Winding through dense forests, over rocky landscapes, and between mountains, the river provides a ruggedly stunning landscape that’s unique to this part of Oregon. Book a rafting or floating tour to really get the full experience!
Appreciate the Rogue River from a different angle—by soaring above it on a zip-line! The course at Rogue Valley Zip Line features several zip-lines that offer different views of the mountains and forests of Oregon. Flying over the landscape gives you an adrenaline rush like nothing else! Try the “Zip/Dip/Sip” experience that combines zip-lining and white-water 
The best way to get a real taste for this unique part of Oregon is to head to the famed Rogue Creamery, a local cheesemaker. Their cheeses are predictably creative and delicious: lavender cheddar, smoky blue, and chocolate stout cheddar are just a few options. See how they make their cheeses, sample a few, and enjoy the most unique grilled cheese sandwich you’ve ever had!
It’s summertime, and there’s almost no better place to be than the beach. The warmth of the sun upon your face, the sound of waves splashing against the shore, the blue water stretching into the horizon…Let’s go!
In this year of celebrating the 100th anniversary of America’s national park system, which park among the 59 wilderness parks would you name as the best.
so as you move through this massive park, you get to experience them all. Which, of course, makes for simply spectacular fall colors
of one kind or another. Yet due to the diligence of the rangers and volunteers, the wildlife remains just that – wild.
Horseback riding is offered on both the Tennessee and the North Carolina sides.
And the icing on the cake – if you have the strength and stamina – is to combine it all in one superb hike to LeConte Lodge. There you’ll get history, lodging in basic cabins (no electricity or running water), great food to fuel you for the trip down, unique terrain and trees and fauna, mountaintop views you’ll store in your memory bank forever. Plus you’ll step across creeks and endless cascading water, grab onto cables alongside steep cliffs, and maybe even get to see mountain laurel and rhododendrons blooming at Inspiration Point on the way up. Time it right and the falcons will be flying as a complement to the other colorful birds that hang out there.
Gadgets come and go but there’s one that will never fade into culinary history: the pressure cooker. Even for vegetarians like me, RV cooking with a pressure cooker is always easy as pie.
If you think pressure cookers are just like crock pots, think again. Pressure cookers do so much more than cook meat and make stews. Once I received mine I tried 
Speaking of boiling water: since all of the cooking is done inside a pressurized environment, your rig won’t turn into a sauna when you use this appliance. The only time it releases steam into the RV is when cooking time ends and you open the release valve. To minimize RV humidity during this process, just open your door and aim the valve opening outside.
Note: This article describes a do-it-yourself project requiring intermediate to advanced knowledge of metal fabrication. Alternately, you can employ the services of professionals.
The first step was to identify whether the rack could be moved. Fortunately, there were no obstacles blocking the tire rack from being moved towards the driver side, but moving the tire rack too far could cause a few problems. First, it would add extra rotational force (torsion) to the spare tire mounting bolts. Also, the tire could interfere with the lights and plastic trim near the bottom edge of the RV. Upon inspection of the bolts, I realized they are of sufficient size and grade to handle torsional forces with no problem. I decided that relocating the tire rack eight inches to the left would move it out of the way of the bikes without causing interference on the other side.
After a few coats of paint, I mounted the new rack and checked the clearances. I found that the altered tire rack fit with the bicycle rack and bikes perfectly. I am now able to raise and lower the bike rack cradle and mount four bikes without difficulty.
Nothing quite so effectively displays Mother Nature’s beauty than a sunrise or sunset, those few moments each day when the world shines golden and with incredible serenity.
Day hikers can walk to one of the first spots where the sun touches America each morning via the South Ridge Trail in Maine’s Acadia National Park. The trail is a 7.2-miles round trip to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest summit on the Eastern seaboard. Though the hike would be done in the dark, with moonglow and flashlights, the trail is traversable. Acadia’s ancient granite peaks are among the first places in the United States where the sunrise can be seen. Be sure to bring a blanket to lay out on the cold rock and take a seat looking southeast.
Fairyland really does exist – it’s smack dab in south central Utah, where a maze of totem pole-like rock formations called hoodoos grace Bryce Canyon National Park. Hoodoos are unusual landforms in which a hard caprock slows the erosion of the softer mineral beneath it. The result is a variety of fantastical shapes. Take the Queens Garden Trail, which descends into the fantasyland of hoodoos. When hiking during the early morning, sunrise’s orange glow magically lights the trail’s contours.
About 1 million Mexican Freetail bats live in Carlsbad Caverns. During the day, they rest on the ceiling of Bat Cave, a passageway closed to the public. At sunset, to feed for the evening, the bats dramatically swarm out of the cave in a tornadic-like spiral, their silhouettes stretching into the distant horizon. An open-air amphitheater allows visitors to safely watch the bats’ departure in an event called The Night Flight. The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail, a half-mile loop, also allows you to watch the bats disperse across the New Mexican desert.
Among the Grand Canyon National Park’s most spectacular sights – sunrise and sunset – can be seen within walking distance of Grand Canyon Village in Arizona. While the South Rim Trail extends several miles along the canyon edge, you only have to walk to Mather Point, where views of the canyon shift like pictures in a marquee at both sunrise and sunset. Another great spot that’s a little less crowded is Ooh Ahh Point on the South Kaibab Trail, which is east of the village and south of Yaki Point. The aptly named Ooh Ahh Point is less than 200 feet below the rim.
You can enjoy views of sunrises and sunsets covering up to a hundred miles on the Clingmans Dome Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At 6625 feet, Clingmans Dome is the highest point in Tennessee and along the Appalachian Trail, as well as the third tallest east of the Mississippi. A half-mile trip leads to the summit. How incredible are the sunsets? They can be crowded, as those hoping to photograph the stunning scenery line up 45 minutes before the sun descends.
A full 95 percent of Florida’s Biscayne National Park sits underwater, a turquoise blue paradise laced with vividly colored coral reefs – and nothing quite says romance like a sunset over this tropical ocean. Adams Key offers a quarter-mile trail from the dock through the hardwood hammock on the island’s west side; most of the route skirts the beach, where the sunset can be enjoyed.
Clambering over boulders and ambling across strangely angled slickrock – and watching needles aglow at sunset – await on Canyonlands National Park’s Slickrock Trail in southeastern Utah. The 2.9-mile loop trail generally follows a mesa rim. Plan to walk the trail about an hour or so before sunset; on the final mile, tall thin rock formations called needles fill the horizon, glowing crimson as the sun sets.
RVs are a gift that keeps on giving. Not only do they give us the freedom of the open road, but they’re our ticket out of summer’s hottest months. Why not put those hot climate vacation destinations on the back burner and point your rig to cooler climates instead? These three summer destinations are hot places to keep cool this summer.
Dock your RV at Duluth’s funkiest waterfront RV park on the shores of Lake Superior and you might think you’re on the San Francisco Bay. This seaport city has undergone a renaissance over the last few years, welcoming visitors with miles of trails, forests to explore and tasty cuisine. A few typical RV parks are situated on the edge of Duluth but for a more unique experience, park your rig at 
Mark Twain’s famous saying is still true: the coldest winter you’ll ever experience is a summer in San Francisco. Bring a sweater and watch the unprepared tourists shiver as they walk along Fisherman’s Wharf in their bermuda shorts – it’s a riot! Don’t worry about parking your rig on San Francisco hills, however. The closest RV parks to San Francisco are located safely outside of the hustle and bustle. If you just want a place to sleep so you can focus on exploring the city, 
Cool off and enjoy plenty of elbow room near the Canadian border in the spectacular Rocky Mountain playground surrounding Kalispell Montana. This thriving mountain community is in an outdoor paradise cooled by the snowcapped peaks of