How old are the oldest DCs you take family camping?

[ampere]

I am beginning to wonder whether we might be heading towards the end of our family camping trips? DS1 is just 11 but is about to start secondary which will cause him to grow up fast!

I mentioned in another thread that sadly, the family we have camped with for the past 3 years' DD who is also 11 and my DS- always close friends, are naturally beginning to head in different directions in life, so they won't even feel inclined to get together to have a moan about how boring camping is!

There is another family with DSs, 10 and 12 who we can recommence camping with as those boys are (whispers) in a rather cloistered and protected boys private school and are way less 'cool'. My boys and those get on well; but the mother, though a close friend of mine, is a tad 'anal' and tends to spend the whole trip cleaning the tent and hollering at her boys to adapt their footwear for the fifth time that day....

When did you stop or feel compelled to stop?

I've camped with teenagers(mid teens), but not with just family. We have done lots of camping in large groups.....Yes we were the loud, annoying crowd who took the site over . They loved it!

As a family we have taken a 15 year old with little brothers and he has been fine.

Depends on the teenager!.....They don't have to tell friends where they went on holiday. I prefered to say I had stayed at home rather than admit to spending a week in Mabelthorpe! Some DC used to say they went to Mab-La-torpay....It used to work in the 1970's

We too go in groups. DS (15 today) loves coming, and we are hoping to fit a camp in before DD (19) goes back to Uni :)

We go for weekends with a group and my DS 15 still comes, but we go to France wherever the weather is hot! We were going to Switzerland this year which he really wanted to do, but the weather's been too bad, so we've changed our plans.

I carried on camping with my family until I was 17. Although I did blackmail them into taking me to ever more exotic places, otherwise I'd stay at home. The last one was near Venice .

Going with friends definitely helped - we did some holidays with another family I'd grown up with and we all still liked messing about outdoors, as long as our more sophisticated friends weren't around to witness it!

ds16,ds13, dd7 and ds5 now i tend pick site with a pool on not worried clubhouse but must have somewhere for swimming

though we also do a 5 day break to Cp or butlins in the winter

I'm off on Wednesday with...
two 18 yr olds (mine plus her boyfriend) a 17 yr old, 16 yr old plus her best friend and my 13 yr old...

We do always camp with other friends tho..more teens, which makes a difference, and mine LOVE it still and swear they will still come for years (GULP!)

Our 15 year old still camps with us.

My 15 & 16yr old still come with us & enjoy it. They tend to pal up with the other teenagers on the campsite (whoever is there rather than going specifically with other families we know ifswim) & go off en-mass in the evenings - probably best not to enquire too closely what they're up to.