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Dear Parks Canada: I Don’t Get It

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Dear Parks Canada, Yesterday, I saw a news article circulating on social media that caught my attention. It claimed that to help celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary, a free annual Parks Canada admission pass would be made available. I thought this sounded rather nice. It would certainly help spur our family on to see a few more of them. (We regularly visit Provincial Parks, as my camping/roadtrip posts can attest to, but rarely make the … [Read more...]

First Camping Trip of the 2015 Season!

Arriving and setting up.

It will come as no surprise to some of you that we chose Achray campground in Algonquin Park for the location of this season's first outing with the pop-up tent trailer. (If you've never heard of Achray and want to learn more, click here and here for details.) Nature was so kind to us! We had beautiful weather, with beautiful people and left with beautiful memories. So, I'd thought I'd share some of this beautiful with you ... … [Read more...]

A trip to Achray Campground in Algonquin Park, Ontario

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I suspect that many camping families get themselves in a bit of a rut now and then. I think we find a magical campsite and then just keep going back and back. Sure, there's nothing wrong with returning to the tried and true. Let's a lot of advantages actually: kids often feel happy when they're in familiar surroundings and mothers often feel happy when they now how to navigate themselves through the forest to the toilets in the middle of the … [Read more...]

Camping lesson #1: If there’s no nature, it’s not worth it

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In an attempt to bring ourselves back into the camping spirit now that we have children, we bought a pop-up tent trailer this spring. I admit that we swallowed our pride when we parked it in our driveway. It really put a damper on our camping "street-cred." Just as we defiantly swore we'd never buy a minivan just because we had children (and, for the record, we still have not succumbed ... yet), we also swore to never "car camp." Our first … [Read more...]

8 Tips for Camping with Kids

Good Monday morning! My daughter Stella has shared her top tips for successfully camping with kids in a post that is now live on the Kids in the Capital blog. If you are ever in the care of children in Ottawa, this is the blog to hit for ideas! It covers activities, playgroups, books, crafts, cooking -- you name it! -- all neatly organized under the "Categories" listing on the right-hand menu. Definitely worth a visit. Hope everyone has a … [Read more...]