Tots in Tents camping trips are designed specifically for families with young kids in mind. Our ultimate goal is to help families fall in love with camping together. We know that the best way to do that is by providing parents with support in advance of the trip and cultivating community connection during the trip.
If you have attended a Tots in Tents camping trip in the past, you may have noticed that our current trips are structured a bit differently now! We made a few changes in order to streamline logistics, improve flexibility, reduce costs, and increase accessiblity. Here is what to expect now:
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Old way: Group campsite
New way: Individual campsites
In the past, Tots in Tents provided a group campsite (or two, or three) for partcipants to share. This helped reduce the planning burden for families and allowed us all to camp in very close proximity.
While this set up was great in many ways, it had a few draw backs. The biggest? Booking group sites and managing limited capacity registrations took a lot of heavy lifting behing the scenes. Site capacities and parking constraints limited the number of families that could join us on any given trip and cancellations and waitlist entries had to be manually handled by me which sometimes (often?) caused administrative bottle necks.
Now we will all book our own individual campsites! The first perk of this new plan is the reduction of the administrative bottleneck that comes with managing limited and flucuating capacity. Individual campsites will allow more families to join each trip, let us visit a larger variety of parks, and allow us to plan more trips in general. Having your own individual campsite will also give you and your kids a private space to take naps or have some quiet down time as desired.
We have plans in place to help families get to know one another before and during each trip. And we will still have all of the things that make Tots in Tents special: daytime group activities, a centralized campfire with marshmallow roasting, and coffee/tea/hot chocolate in the mornings. -
Old way: Breakfast and supplies provided
New way: Families provide all meals
Previously, Tots in Tents provided a full breakfast of fresh fruit, pastries, yogurts, granola bars, etc. Plus morning hot beverages and evening marshmallows. Our goal in providing all of these items was to both reduce the planning load for families.
Providing two breakfasts for 45 people caused some logistical challenges - proper cooling, dietary restrictions, flavor preferences, storage and transport. Overall costs and food waste were also growing concerns.
Our new plan is to provide resources in advance so families feel confident planning for and providing all of their own meals and snacks. We will still provide instant coffee, creamer, a variety of tea, and hot chocolate packets (BYO mugs!) each morning at our gathering campsite. And we will have plenty of marshmallows for roasting each evening (BYO skewers). -
Old way: $35-$70 family registration fee
New way: “Pay what you can” model
We have played with a variety of pricing structures over the years of camping trips in an effort to keep things accessible but also cover the very real costs associated with each trip. Under the previous model, each group trip cost approximately $450 to run (group site rentals, two full breakfasts and related supplies for 45 people, two days of marshmallows and hot beverages, 4-8 bundles of firewood, and various miscellaneous supplies). We played with different accessible pricing structures, but with the material costs of the event being so significant and last minute family cancellations (to be expected with kids!) the trips rarely ended in the black.
With our new structure, trip costs are closer to $145 (central gathering campsite rental, firewood, hot beverages, marshmallows). We are going to trial a “pay what you can” pricing model so that each family can contribute an amount that works for them, with those able to contribute more offsetting those who need to contribute less. Importantly, if contributions exceed the $145 of tangible costs, those funds can help offset the abstract costs of running the website, insurance, planning time, and incidentals. Having those costs covered will allow our programming to remain sustainable for many trips to come!
Those are the major changes. So what stays the same? First and foremost - the feeling of community. Tots in Tents was created with community as the number one goal and that has not changed. By renting an empty campsite in the center of the campground and stocking it with our story book lending library, sharable outdoor toys, hot beverages, and marshmallows we know it will be a gathering place for all of our attendees to come together and get to know each other. We have intentional plans in place to connect families before and during the camping trips in meaninful ways.
Our daytime group activities will also largely stay the same. You will be invited to join us on group hikes, at the playground, at ranger-led programs, swimming in the lake, and at the visitors center. With our increased age-range (kids age 0-12) it is likely we will have multiple hike options of different distances/speeds! As always an agenda of activities will be listed on each individual camping trip page.
With these core elements as our main focus we are excited to move foward with Tots in Tents with a new level of energy and sustainability. If you have any questions about the changes or the trips in general, please don’t hesitate to email me. I hope to see you at an upcoming Tots in Tents trip soon!
