A couple of summers ago, my family and I went camping at a place called Whatuwhiwhi in the beautiful Far North. We had borrowed our neighbour’s 1970’s pop up camper for the week, hoping it would be a little more comfortable than our tent – we were wrong. 

We parked at our site next to a stream filled with mosquitoes, and the rain began to fall. While hubby assembled the pop-up, I opened the boot of our station wagon to start unloading some of our gear. Out tumbled a box full of pots, pans and other kitchen things to announce our arrival. This was followed by the paper towels unravelling like a white carpet as they rolled across the wet muddy ground. 

An older couple (let’s call them Nan and Pop) who were setting up next to us had a similar camper, which led to a friendly chit chat about camping. They were seasoned pros and could see that we were struggling with our leaky gazebo. Pop turns up with a spare tarp and helps us waterproof our make-shift kitchen shelter. 

With the gazebo sorted, we stood under it and learnt that Nan and Pop had four boys, and the pop up was the original camper they all holidayed in while growing up. I can’t imagine how four teenage boys and two adults managed to fit in. Before they left us to it, Nan and Pop shared some great words of wisdom that have stuck with me. 

Their ideal holiday destinations had to change over time to adapt to their teenager’s interests. No more remote wilderness adventures for them. Now it was about the popular beach destinations of the Coromandel, heaving with teenagers, music and events. It was more important to them to have their sons with them on holiday than having the holiday they preferred without them.

So with that in mind, last year we planned something a little bit different. Thinking that maybe this would be the last year our older teen would want to holiday with us, we decided on a road trip from our home in Snells Beach to Wellington.

It would take roughly 19 hours of driving time (1,542.7 km). You might think that spending that amount of time together in the car is madness, sometimes it was, but for the most part, it was a fun adventure discovering parts of the country we had never seen before. 

I planned each day carefully, never travelling longer than three and a half hours a day. We stayed at eight different locations. Some of the motels were amazing, and some were a little nasty. That added a bit of excitement and humour to the trip. We never knew what we were going to get until we checked in.

To be honest, there were definitely a few moments of boredom, moodiness, and towards the end, a readiness to get back to connect with friends. But it was still a great trip. We had lots of quality time together as we didn’t have the distractions of everyday life.

Now it is October, and the summer holidays are fast approaching. Cue the family meeting. I would love to say that these go well and are very orderly and respectful, but they are not. We even tried to use a pepper grinder as the ‘mic’ once. Only the person with the ‘mic’ could speak, that was a fail. Too many rule breakers at the table. 

After a lot of talking over each other, and a bit of rubbishing of ideas, I have the almost impossible task of planning another holiday. And it seems that this year’s holiday couldn’t be further from what I had in mind for myself.

So I have taken the advice from our camping elders. I am booking a holiday at an insanely busy summer destination. Complete with free wifi, a swimming pool – for those who don’t like sand (good grief), in close proximity to skateparks, shops, fast food and the beach.