Earlier this year, we went camping with a few other families – for the first time since kids – for a WHOLE week! And this time our daughter who has CP not only had a wheelchair, pureed food and allergies but also an ng tube.
We have done lots of long-distance travel before and when we first agreed even I was thinking no way – my minimum criteria for holidays is running water, electricity, bar fridge, kettle and microwave. I was looking into cabins nearby but my husband who used to go on this annual camping trip (before kids, before marriage) was adamant it would be different and the point was to camp together.
The more we talked about it, the more we realised we could actually do this. Thinking through the challenges and comparing it to what we have already done, we realised that our experiences with long-distance travel had already helped prepare us for camping without main power electricity. In fact, I found the challenges with packing for camping was akin to the challenges we faced with preparing for our longest overseas trip (Australia to New York) and our annual long-distance road trip (14 hours).
Like all our holidays we thought through our typical day, what we would normally bring for a day out and how we might adapt this to a campsite with no power or running water.
Normally my criteria for traveling is that we need to have
- Fridge – to store food, freezer if there for more than 3 days OR cooking facilities (like a rice cooker/ pot and blender to make puree food for my special needs daughter.
- Microwave – to heat food
- Electricity – to charge devices, power our Vitamix blender (to puree food and make our daily smoothies) and coffee machine (yes we bring our coffee machine with us on our road trips)
- Kettle – to boil water
However, when camping we would have none of these.
Travelling with a NG tube + floorcare pump
This was the second time travelling with a ng tube and flocare pump which we were using for additional overnight feeds. Thankfully the flocare pump is battery powered and runs a number of nights on one recharge. The pump requires the bottle to be higher than the pump for gravity to assist. When we travelled interstate, we were able to hang this from the cupboard off a hanger; for camping, we simply hooked it to the tent. my husband had borrowed a solar panel with a battery pack from a mate so we were able to charge this every few days.
Water
Thankfully there was a shower block where we could get water if we carried it in buckets and having our van meant we could pack it with things. So add 2 buckets to the list.
Shower – I worked out that our Rifton blue wave bath chair can be folded flat and can be brought with us to double as a lounge chair. We ended up *just* using it for bathing and as there wasn’t any room to bring the shower stand so we had to squat down and shower her. This is not ideal for every day as it’s back-breaking work but it made do for the week. We both assisted and drove the car up to the showers, my husband would set up the shower chair in the shower whilst I undressed her, covered her in a towel, he carried her and gave her a quick shower, covered her up and passed her back to me to dry and dress her. We have a van with a bench seat in the car and that doubled as our change table. This wasn’t great on our backs and she’s only 20kg so it’s ok. As she gets bigger we’ll have to look at other options – I’ve seen portable hoists that can be used for travelling to make this possible.
Shelter, kitchen, food
No Airbnb this time, just a patch of grass on a campsite. We’d brought our own tents, mattress, portable table (our kitchen), picnic blankets, clothes rack, portable gas stove, pots, pans, esky, picnic set for utensils, food meant we actually had less room for clothes than normal.
We brought a queen-sized air bed for us, mattresses for the kids and doonas for all. We found it so cold at night we had to put a picnic blanket under our sheets half way through the night as the warm air was being drawn away by the colder air inside the air bed.
Food – Meals for lunch and dinner
Our daughter normally has pureed food which we make in bulk, blend then freeze in portions. When we have travelled for more than 3 days in the past we’ve been fortunate to have a rice cooker at the Airbnb and had the ability to borrow or bring our own blender. However since our Vitamix requires high voltage it wouldn’t even run off a car battery for what we wanted, so bringing a blender and cooking there was out of the question.
An alternative is to bring frozen meals in an eksy with a bag of ice – however, this would only last 3 days.
I researched a few other options
- dehydrating food and blending it – too much time and effort
- freeze-drying – not feasible and only commercial machines are available
In the end, we decided to get some dry ice and an esky so that we could bring all our daughter’s meals for the whole week.
Electricity
For breakfast, we normally blend almonds, water, banana, calcium and oats. Then we would make a banana and avocado smoothie to thicken water for her to drink throughout the day. For both these, we still wouldn’t be able to mix with a fork as it would be too lumpy, so we’d still need a blender. However, if we couldn’t bring the Vitamix (as we do on our road trips), then how would we make her food?
After a bit of research, I bought the BlendJet, portable USB charged blender online and tested it out. It turned out quite handy even for when going out the whole day where there is no refrigeration, I can simply bring a banana and an avocado and make a smoothie fresh for her on the go. However, it is a lot more effort to clean compared to our amazing workhorse of a Vitamix so for effort vs output we don’t use this every day.
When I’m out and about for the whole day I also preheat and pack her food in a Thermos. My favourite is the Thermos King food Jar as it comes with a handy fold-up spoon that snaps into the lid and keeps piping hot for more than 5 hours. We also have an older Funtainer which only keeps warm for 2-3 hours which is helpful as a bowl in the mornings as the weather suddenly became a lot colder it kept the temperature warm for longer whilst feeding her (she is quite sensitive to the temperature of her food). We brought a gas camping stove and a pot to heat it up.
When doing our annual road trip, my hubby insists on bringing our massive coffee machine and doing the math it has saved us a few $100 in our morning coffees each holiday. First world problems I know. Given the lack of electricity, this was out of the question, so we did some research and heard about the Aeropress – which is a very portable not-as-good-as-expresso coffee maker but definitely better than instant or a French press/plunger. My hubby managed to get one-second hand off Gumtree and the coffee was alright. With the money we saved, we bought ourselves some very nice coffee ground at the markets which latest about a month or so after.
Most of the other devices were able to run off a battery.
My husband also was able to borrow a solar panel from a friend with a battery so was able to charge devices off this.
Fun
We found that camping was a lot of work spend cooking, cleaning and resting, the simple things in life. We did some day trips to near by towns/ markets and did some swimming in the river. Chatting and the nightly bon fires, made it all worth it.
We did bring a PODD book and a switch however as with most holidays with the busyness and constant feeding we didn’t get to practise much switching.
Next time we go camping we’ll be investing in some roof racks and potentially our own portable fridge.
Adapting our morning routine
This was quite similar to our normal morning routine, just adapted to optimise the use of the pot to reduce washing (having to live without a dishwasher) and the difference in equipment and space.
Every morning I would get up around 6.30am
- Boil a pot of water on the portable gas stove. Whilst waiting for it to boil I would get the Aeropress ready – assembling with the coffee and filter.
- Once the hot water is done I would use some
- to make our Aeropress coffee over my Keep Cup
- Pre-heat the 2x Thermos.
- Measure out the correct amount of water and cook the oats.
- Transfer the hot coffee to my Contigo Westloop 2.0 (my favourite leak proof coffee cup
- Once the oats were done, I would transfer this to one thermos, quick rinse and then heat up in the same pot, her frozen block of food for lunch. This would then be transferred to the second thermos.
- By then the coffees should be done so I would then heat up the milk (I take soy so that comes first, then milk) in another pot and then add them to the respective coffee.
Overall it wasn’t much different to camping normally and with some extra thought, planning and by God’s grace, we made it happen. It was wonderful spending time with friends, time to recharge and relax.
I would love to hear your ideas on how to make camping with special needs more fun and inclusive next time!
Super Needs Mum 