We have completed our first family camping trip of 2023! On Tuesday afternoon we headed to Powell River on the upper Sunshine Coast. A short ferry ride away, this is where Sechelt folk go to get away when Sechelt gets too busy for us!
We camped our first two nights close to the centre of town at Willingdon Beach. This is a short walk to shops and right next to a playground, exercise park, and splash pad, as well as being right on the ocean.
We’ve often played at the park before but never camped there since the site overall is fairly RV/trailer heavy. Meaning the individual sites don’t offer much privacy. We had however noticed one particular tent-only site tucked away at the edge that we thought looked promising. When Peter spotted it as available on their website we decided to go for it.
We enjoyed the luxuries of flush toilets, ice cream across the street, and going to a restaurant for dinner!
Since we’ve made several visits to Powell River in recent years, we have a few spots we like to go to. On our second evening we paddled to First Beach to play in the sand.
On Thursday we left Willingdon Beach and headed to Inland Lake. We’d camped at the campground there back in 2021 (read about it here!) and spent a lovely day on Anthony Island, which is a small island about 4km from the campground. It’s accessible via bridge and has a couple of campsites on it. Knowing how beautiful it was, we headed that way with the aim of camping on Anthony Island this time. We loaded up our gear, Peter, and both girls in our tandem kayak while I took the paddleboard.
The island is absolutely beautiful and we had it to ourselves the whole time, save a few hikers and paddlers making brief stops. Idyllic might be the best word for such a place. We spent two nights, just us and the frogs (lots of frogs), mostly swimming, playing on the shore, reading.
I know I said it last year but our “investment in future fun” (as we used to call camping with little kids) pays off more every year. Each summer we hone our family camping experiences more – gear, meals, timing – and each summer it gets easier with our kids. This year we enjoyed kids who could run to the playground on their own or explore an island on their own. Kids who can swim with minimal assistance. A big kid who reads chapter books. This year we also sent the girls into the tent earlier to read and colour while Peter and I sat out on the beach to chat and have a drink together before sleep.
As ever, Powell River didn’t disappoint and we look forward to adventures there next summer!
Karissa Reads Books 
That’s really nice that you were able to include an adult element into your vacation! When I look at family vacations with kids, I can’t help but think how every element seems driven toward making kids happy, which I think is what parents sign up for, but there is a part of me that sees kid fun as very boring. To be fair, most parents I’ve met say kid fun gets boring quickly, too; the trick is to have adult time.
That’s definitely a reality of parenting but I think a lot of parents also consciously or unconsciously teach their kids to love the same things as they do. And so family vacations (hopefully) become easier as kids get older. Our kids love kayaking and being outdoors and looking at books and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Peter and I like these things too. But of course it’s still really nice to fit in those times where we get to do our own thing without catering to the kids!
My dad likes riding motorcycles and being in bars. Guess what we did a lot when I was a kid 🤣
Hahaha! Your dad sounds like the opposite of mine. I still feel surprised when I see him drinking beer because he never ever drank any alcohol when we were kids.
That’s nice, actually. Sometimes I feel like alcohol gets too much credit for good times.
[…] hiking of the day before this felt like smooth sailing. Plus we were hiking towards where we had camped just two weeks prior and things began to feel more familiar. We stopped stopped at a picnic bench where I remember […]