Much like the rest of the country, when Covid hit and traveling came to a screeching halt, we decided to buy a camper. I bet you didn’t have me pegged as the camping type. I’m not so much. Though I wouldn’t call what we do “camping” – it’s more like “glamping” for sure. If you have power, air conditioning, a Keurig, recliners and even a fireplace (for heaven’s sake), it is definitely NOT considered roughing it. My hubby and daughter LOVE it. And I love that we could travel during a pandemic. We sheltered in place, but just took our “place” with us (and kept any germs we potentially had to ourselves). Just the three of us in a giant tin can with deluxe accommodations and groceries we packed up from our online order. Indeed, I am thankful for the temporary escapes, I mean adventures, it allowed us to take.
Last year, we hauled our metal travel suite on wheels all the way to the beach. Which was without a doubt my favorite trip thus far. It had been over a year since I last saw the ocean and my soul truly needed some vitamin sea! We stayed at a ginormous campsite called Camp Hatteras. If you’re into camping, you might want to start taking notes because this place was great. Thanks to its location, you could either opt to stay ocean side or sound side. We chose to stay at a site overlooking the sound because we could see it from the camper and enjoy a water feature to look at while drinking coffee in the morning (talk about ruffing it). If you stay on the ocean side, you can’t see the water due to all the protective sand dunes anyway so we figured there wasn’t much point. We also rented a golf cart that enabled us to zip around the camp site, as well as to and from the beach with ease. The camp ground also has some great amenities such as pools, miniature golf, game room, bike rentals, etc., but admittedly we didn’t check any of them out – partly because of Covid, and mostly because I didn’t want to be anywhere but sitting in front of the ocean listening to the waves.
And that’s exactly what I did for the entirety of our stay. It was wonderful to hear the crashing waves again and wiggle the sand between my toes. To my delight, Olivia, my kiddo, enjoyed the beach right along with me (quite possibly because I never mentioned that there was a pool…). And she singlehandedly collected BUCKETS of shells (and not small buckets either). It was comical because she insisted on showing me each and every single shell she picked up – seriously not joking. Apparently, I was the official shell inspector, haha. She was so enamored with every find and so proud to have snatched the perfect shell (they were all perfect) just before the waves could claim it. It was, in fact, adorable. I even helped her shell hunt a little, and on our last day we made a sand turtle (because that’s more my skill level than elaborate castles). When I tried to suggest we use some of her horde of shells, she insisted we collect new ones for our project, only to have her keep more than half of what we found, haha.
Indeed, it was an amazing trip. Which is why I’m so looking forward to going back again this year. If you’re a camper too, check this place out. Maybe I’ll see you there!
PS: Outter Banks is one of our favorite beach destinations. Be sure to click the icon above for recommended places to visit during your stay.
PPS: The very large, engraved brick-type things you see on the ground in one of the pictures above, are the original foundation stones of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. When the lighthouse was relocated in 1999, the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society engraved the stones with the names and service dates of all the lighthouse keepers. Then they made an amphitheater with them near the lighthouse. How cool is that?!
