One of the keys to RVing with kids is to have less fun. At the very least have less fun then those around you. It’s the only way you’ll enjoy it.
Let me clarify. By less fun, what I mean is. Literally, have less fun.
You see RVing, any type of camping for that matter, is important to experience in the context of your life. If you are escaping your regular life, then by all means, have all the fun you want to.
But if you are going for a rather longtime, pacing is important. Children you see, are not super duper smart. They may be plenty intelligent, but smart, they are not. They have trouble thinking about things like managing their energy. Or that different days have different types of activities.
So whatever you do one day, your child generally expects you to do the next day.
When people launch full time they refer to this as “vacation mode.” on vacation you try to pack in as much fun as possible.
Now picture if this is how you lived every day.
There are only two ways you can live every day jumping out of bed and shouting “Let’s have the most fun EVER!” you are either a youtube vlogger who needs the clicks and has yet to burnout, OR a cartoon character.
And so we discovered that we needed to carefully pace our kids. When they tried to pack in all the fun all the time they just got tired and grumpy. (I would comment on whether or not it made us parents tired and grumpy as well….but I seem to have misplaced my notes on that).
The problem however, is that when you are camping, nobody pulling into the campsite next to you asks you “what is your camping style and how can we accommodate it”.
I’m not talking about partiers, I am talking about FUN havers. Campers with the sole focus of having fun, and boy is it a problem.
At one point this summer we had a family roll in next to us at 6pm who by 8pm had set up their campsite, gone swimming, gone on a bike-ride, played a round of minigolf, played at the playground, and were making smores.
Our poor neglected children who had simply swam at the beach for the umpteenth time during this summer of freedom and played outside the rest of the day, looked at us like “so that’s what real love is like huh? I guess we know you hate us now.”
It took nearly our entire summer staying at the campground outside Ottawa for our kids to realize that they didn’t need to compare their daily life to the kids around them. In fact, just like in our regular home life once they had a handle on what “regular” life was like they settled into a good routine and were comfortable telling their new friends at the beach or playground “I have school” or “quiet time” and that they would be back to join in the festivities later.
If you’re thinking of going on a long term trip this is the advice I would give you. For you “vacation mode” will sneak up on you in your desire to eat at local niche restaurants and buy tickets to every cool museum and experience.
For your kids though, it will be in feeling like they should be matching the level of fun and activity of the vacationers around them.
Like all things in life, it will be an adjustment, but in our experience it honestly doesn’t take too much time to learn to have less fun. And still take “vacations” in the middle of your new normal life.
But the most fun of all is when you wake up one day and realize that to you and your family, it’s the vacationers who seem to be living life at an odd pace.
Best Summer Item too help relax
The GCI Outdoor Waterside Pod Rocker Collapsible Rocking Chair. If your kids are going to play calmly and nicely, you need a comfortable camping chair to watch them play. This is the best. Hot tip though, it is not 100% fireproof. Don’t ask how we know.
*Links to products on our blogs may be amazon affiliate links. We receive no promotional incentives beyond the fact that if you use our links to purchase something we get a small percentage from amazon. We only link to products we actually use and don’t shut up about to our friends in person
aterribleidea.ca 