Each Year My Friend Group Goes Camping Together & And It Created Our Village

The other day I asked my two kids what their favorite vacation has been. They’ve been to Disney World. They’ve been to New York City to see Wicked on Broadway. They’ve stayed with their grandparents at a beachfront cottage along the Atlantic. But they both said the same thing: they love Awesome Camp the most.

Yes. The cheapest, closest, easiest-to-plan vacation we take each year is the one that they count down the days to and the one they talk about the most.

And guess what? It’s my favorite, too.

Why do we love it? It’s a week with our friends. It’s a week playing in the woods without screens. And it’s a week with very little structure or obligation.

What is Awesome Camp?

Awesome Camp was born 10 years ago when my friend Dave decided to book a group camp site about an hour outside of town and invite all of his friends, near and far. We had two very small kids — an infant and a toddler — but we accepted the challenge, packed up the car, and went.

We don’t remember why we started calling it Awesome Camp at all.

Now — a full decade later — Awesome Camp has evolved into a highly anticipated annual event with its own sort of culture, and my kids and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

While the location of Awesome Camp has changed over the years, it has always involved a group camp site within a few hours of our city with a pavilion and water near by. I’ve since learned that many campgrounds have these group pavilion sites, often used for family reunions or weddings. What I didn’t know was that they are incredibly affordable — it works out to literally about $10/person for the entire stay where we live — and that they can be rented for any reason at all, even if it’s not really an official event.

These group sites generally have plenty of space for putting up tents, a large covered area with tons of picnic tables, a couple of pit toilets, and some open space for games and socializing. The best ones that we keep returning to have private access to a river or lake.

While attendance varies, we often have 75 people — about 15 families, plus a number of couples and singles — at any given Awesome Camp. And though that can sound like a lot, everyone spreads out, many of the families aren’t there for the entire time, and many families plan their own little adventures and activities during the week, too. It still feels incredibly peaceful, intimate, and isolated, I promise.

Why does Awesome Camp work so well?

I truly believe that this is the type of vacation that we need to return to. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on trips that are over-scheduled and exhausting, why not give our brains a rest and spend quality time with our friends and family? Instead of focusing on taking the perfect pictures for Instagram, why not go somewhere where your phone doesn’t even work?

Here’s what I love about Awesome Camp:

The kids have the time of their lives, together.

The single best thing about a friend camping trip is that our kids suddenly have a group of “cousins” that they can play with all day (and into the night). Our kids have been playing together every summer for a decade now, and they have formed lifetime bonds with one another as they swim, run through the woods, make s’mores, and play games.

I am in awe of how much independence my kids gain each year at camp, as well as how I do not hear a single complaint about screens or phones the entire time — although they do play a lot of music together. In any given day, we might see them playing volleyball, paddle boarding, playing board games on the picnic tables, or just talking together in their tent.

Yes, we have to watch them on the water (and we have strict water rules that everyone in camp follows), but for the most part, the kids are incredibly independent as a group and take care of each other — freeing up more time for the adults to get their own rest in.

The adults can be kids again.

Awesome Camp is the week of the year where I get play, too. I look forward to playing board games and yard games with my friends — and there’s always a few “tournaments” that happen during the week, usually involving Kubb, corn hole, capture the flag, or Code Names, just to name a few.

During the day, when it heats up, we often all sit by (or in) the lake together, just snacking, chatting, and watching our kids play.

And there are so many adults around that it is incredibly easy to slip away to go on a solo kayak, hike, bike, or swim — all you do is let someone know where you’re going and when you’ll be back. At any given time, there are always a few adults hidden away in a hammock or camp chair reading, and we all naturally rotate on and off of kid and camp duties so everyone has time to themselves.

Camp nights are so much fun, too.

At night, the gears shift again and festivities ramp up. Cooking and eating begins, everyone gathers in the pavilion for eating, more games, and socializing. Individuals will often bring a random offering for everyone — just to offer a couple of examples, this year someone made a platter of Hawaiian sushi rolls, someone brought a selection of tinned fish and white wines and set up a tasting table, and someone made signature mixed drinks.

Then the camp fire is lit and we roast things over the fire, sit in a big circle, and talk the night away. Sometimes it strikes me: how often do we all get together and just exist, without some big life-changing event like a wedding or funeral to bring us together?

Saturday night is the big party!

On the last night of camp, everything crescendos. Each year we pick a theme (sample themes from past year: formal night, tropical luau, 80s summer camp) and everyone, kids and adults, dress up. There is even more food, music, playing, and laughter... and by this time, everyone is extremely dirty, sun tanned, rested, and happy from a week in the woods.

Awesome Camp doesn’t end when we all go home.

The really special thing about Awesome Camp is that it doesn’t just come once a year and then disappear from our lives. It gives us such a close week of bonding and friendship that our relationships only get deeper year after year. It is absolutely no mistake that I’ve drifted away from some friends during the busy working single mom years of my life, but I’ve only gotten closer with the people I see at camp each year.

They say that you have to invest serious time with people to make close friends — a recent study found that you need 80 to 100 hours of dedicated interactions to forge a real friendship with someone, and friendships will fade if those hours don’t continue. Awesome Camp is a built-in way to get those hours each year with dozens of people.

And those people are my village.

Believe me, it’s easier to ask someone to watch your kids when you’ve exchanged childcare daily at camp. It’s easier to ask to borrow something when you’ve lived communally and shared everything. It’s easier to ask for help when you have a history of helping each other.

It’s also not a coincidence at all that the people at Awesome Camp are also the people who have helped each other through divorces and deaths, job losses and career changes, broken hearts and failed dreams — and also the people who have celebrated each other’s wins and successes. After all, we live in the woods together for one week a year.

How to plan your own Awesome Camp

One of the biggest perks of Awesome Camp is that they are easier to plan than most other vacations — and once you have the basic gear (a tent, sleeping bags, etc.) it’s close to free.

Here’s how to get started:

• Find a good group campsite. The best place to start is recreation.gov, which is easily searchable and has tons of information, including reviews.
• Invite friends. You do not need to know everyone super well — and you can let friends invite their friends, too. You can also start with a smaller group of a few families and grow your camp over a few years to a size you like.
• Set some safety rules. Our friend camp has significantly fewer rules than some other groups we know of — but we do have some safety rules for the kids, mostly around water and fire. They also aren’t allowed to leave the immediate vicinity of the pavilion after dark. Other camps have more rules — like food restrictions and quiet hours — do what works best for your group!
• Share a packing list. Over 10 years, we have gotten very good at packing for this trip as a group and everyone brings things both for themselves and for the group. We have a Google group/mailing list where we keep everything organized.
• Honestly, don’t get too organized. Other camping groups we know have lots of daily events and scheduled group meals, but we feel like that can take away from the freedom of the week. I like that the “events” of our Awesome Camp are usually weird surprises (like a pop-up tinned fish table) and things that you can either take or leave. Don’t assign yourself too much work! This is a time to rest.

Here’s to Awesome Camp

We just got back from this year’s Awesome camp. It felt even more special since it was our tenth year — and because our kids are now old enough to anticipate it as much as we do.

On our last night, during our 80s Summer Camp theme party, I was chatting with friends, having a drink next to the fire, listening to a Kate Bush song, and watching my kids play flashlight tag, when I looked up. All above us, the Northern Lights were streaking and dancing across the sky. Everyone walked into the field next to camp, looked up, and watched it together.