Start Making Your Memorial Day Camping Plans
Those ideal state park camping spots fill up fast
In Mission: Wanderlust, I write and podcast about our family’s travel adventures and the things that we have learned along the way.
It seems too early. The leaves have turned and many have fallen to the ground, turning green grass into a crunchy carpet of brown and gold. If you live in the north, you are probably putting away your camping equipment or winterizing your camper, mourning the end of another camping season and eagerly awaiting the thaw for a freeze that hasn’t happened yet.
Such is life for camping enthusiasts. There were many things that our family loved about living in Texas for the six years that we traded our snow boots for flip flops, but one of the things we loved the most were our Thanksgiving and Christmas break camping trips, exploring the south when the temperatures were comfortable (and yes, sometimes cold) and crowds less prevalent.
While camping is available year-round for most Texas campers, Memorial Day weekend still marks the traditional start to camping season. It seems that for most campers around the country, the three-day weekend gives us the jumpstart to a summer of weekend camping trips and summer vacations spent setting up tents or hauling travel trailers around the country.
And because of the popularity of that weekend, it is often one of the hardest weekends to schedule at the last minute. In fact, when we found our hard-to-get-into site in Brown County for Memorial Day weekend this past year, we reserved the spot five months early, only one month after reservations opened.
We love Memorial Day camping. When we lived in Texas, our Memorial Day trip was usually our last camping trip before leaving the state for our summer vacation. By the time June hit, camping in Texas got downright miserable, even with a travel trailer and air-conditioning. But even if we had to camp close-ish to home—when we lived in Houston that meant camping within 90-minutes of our house—so that I could attend graduation at the high school where I taught, we still tried to make that weekend trip a priority. We worked hard to make it happen, and we continue to be thankful that we made the effort to go a little further for our last Memorial Day weekend in Texas. (That brand new post is coming to you next week.)
This week’s post is a short but simple reminder to start making your plans and reservations for the three-day weekend now. And come rain or shine, our family will be heading out to a different state park this year, because we’ve put the reminder on our Google Calendar to make reservations immediately after Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t wait to share that adventure with you when the time comes.
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The pandemic made reservations even harder to get. We try to plan months out and hope for the best!