Backyard Camping

Kids love to explore, so a good method of teaching our kids "camping etiquette" is backyard camping. Just pitch a tent in your back yard, get a small fire brazier, and food supplies to last for a couple of days. Lock up the house and use your back yard as your camp site. It is a safe controlled environment for teaching our children about the proper way to be safe when camping. You can even get elaborate with it and create trees and a makeshift "river" using simple items around your home. The kids will have a great time and so will you.

 

I live on two acres next to a river. My 4 year old granddaughter and I just did four days of camping in the side yard. The travel trailer is winterized, so we did come inside to bathe and use the bathroom. No TV - just books, music, wagon rides, and fun.

 

When I was growing up, I would sometimes have one or two of my friends over, and we would camp out in the yard. We usually had a bonfire and made hot dogs over the fire for dinner, and (of course) had roasted marshmallows for dessert. Then, we would all lay in our cozy sleeping bags and talk until we fell asleep.

Early the next morning, we would poke the embers of the fire until we got it going again, and heat up a can of chilli con carne for breakfast. Then we would catch and saddle our horses for an early morning trail ride. Many times, we would surprise a deer sleeping in the brush, and they would jump up just in front of the horses, which always made the horses jump and snort. We never slept out more than one night at a time, but it was a lot of fun.

When my kids were little, we camped out in the back yard in the summer sometimes, too. It is a great way to get kids used to camping, and still be in a safe place to do it.

 

Those were the best times of my childhood. It was the first experiences of being independent but not really because your still in the backyard. It wasn't like a sleep over with your friends. It was to detach yourself from your parents but it was safely done because they were an earshot away from you.