Filed under: Family Weekend Trips

The Changing Face of Campers

When you go camping, do you go to party?  Do you go to see family you haven’t seen in eons?  At campgrounds all around, there is a new face of campers who seem to: camp specifically to connect with extended family, encourage the kids of multiple (often related) families to play together, while partying with all the best camping supplies that money can buy.

The 2012 American Camping Report “confirms that Hispanic campers are social, using camping as an opportunity to connect with friends, family and extended family.”   Being half-Mexican myself, I completely agree with the findings of this report and find them to be true with the Mexican side of my family.  I grew up camping with my extended family and it was oftentimes the only time all year that we would see some of the extended family members.  Camping was an ideal way to enjoy the great outdoors while bringing our extended family together at the same time.

Mexicans are also more likely to go “glamping” (glamorous camping) than the vast majority of other campers, who might be more willing to “rough it” in a tent, according to the study.  Between being more likely to stay in deluxe cabins, paying more for expensive camping gear, and going camping to party and get the family together, Mexicans are a rising minority of campers.  This is “due to the larger proportion of Hispanics new to the world of camping relative to non-Hispanics.”  Hispanics make up 23% of the people, 18 and over, who tried camping for the first time in 2011, while Non-Hispanics, who were new to camping, make up only 2%, according to the 2012 American Camping Report.

Hispanics are also known to be more “social campers” who travel in larger groups, compared to their non-Hispanic counterparts.  This certainly proves to be true for my Mexican side of the family, since camping meant hanging out with lots of extended family for days at a time (we would oftentimes take up 10 camp sites in a row).  From sharing food, beverages, and firewood with each other, it was a very communal feeling at the campsites as a kid growing up camping with the family.  These trips provided me with my very best childhood memories that I will never forget, while offering a great opportunity for family members who didn’t see each other as often as they’d like, to connect.   These extended family camping trips are exactly the kinds of things I would love to recreate for my own children: growing up camping with their cousins having the time of their life, just as I once did.

Last 5 posts by Cynthia Baum

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