I grew up going camping every summer and I just want to say, it was one of the experiences I am the most thankful for. It may seem random or simply not fun to many of you, but trust me it is so worth it.

Every summer, my family and I would drive up the coast to Cape Cod and all the way to Wellfleet. Even though we were only there for a week or two each summer, that place became a second home to me.

We would stay in this family-owned campground called Paine’s (no camping was not painful but it was Paine-ful…I’m sorry) and get a big plot where we would set up each of our tents and a screen tent over the picnic table for our kitchen/dining area.

This is usually where I lose people. Yes, we camped in tents. No, not an RV. No, not a cabin. Nope, there wasn’t wifi or our own bathroom or air-conditioning. I slept in a tent and when I was bored I played outside or I read a book. For some reason this confuses people.

Anyways, we did this for many years. We would go up and go to a different beach everyday. I would bike around the campground and become best friends with the other kids riding their bikes around. I even hung out with a kid from Canada who only spoke French and the granddaughter of the owner of the Campground who showed me the forbidden area where the cool older kids rode their ATVs illegally through the dunes.

After a while, my parents were getting older and were no longer keen about the idea of sleeping on an air mattress for a week and walking everywhere. So eventually we agreed it was time we rented a house for our vacation. We did this for a couple years and then last year we were debating what we wanted to do. I had been dying to go camping again and eventually my parents were worn down and agreed to spending a week at Paine’s again.

We arrived and I walked out into the same spot where we had always pitched our tents and even though our huge plot felt so much smaller, we all still fit. My brother and I took the walk to Duck Pond where we had always gone swimming when we were younger. I brought my camera with me and took pictures of the forbidden dunes as we passed. We walked through them, farther in than I had ever gone. It was a place that was made out to be so scary and off-limits when I was younger, but now here I was, standing at the top of a dune, between power lines and old lobster cages and not being crushed by passing ATVs. Who knew?

We went to the beach I used to call, “The Big Wave Beach,” which was just the one on the ocean where the tide was strong enough for surfing and boogie boarding. I went into the water and felt the pull of the tide and the impact of the waves strong enough to knock me straight off my feet. As a kid I would stay in the water for hours and ride the waves on my boogie board. I didn’t fear it at all then, but even now that I am much taller and stronger they still have the power to knock me down and drag me back in without warning.

My perception of that place has changed so much. I can drive a car now. I can walk to the pond on my own. I have a phone and a laptop and so many distractions in my life that weren’t there before. When I was a kid and camping with my family there was nothing other than the world around me and a book or two to entertain me and that was more than enough. I would sit outside in my camping chair and read the “My Weird School” chapter books (which if you didn’t read those as a kid, you were missing out) and write in my journal about all the fun things I did that day. When I was a kid I was more than happy to sleep in a tiny tent and stay up late making s’mores over the fire while wrapping in my blanket. I was so excited to get up early in the morning and get to the next beach on our list or head over to the flea market or stock up on junk food and ice cream on our way to the Drive-In movie theater.

Going back not just to that town, but back to that campground where everything was so much simpler made me realize how complicated life has really gotten. Some people may find camping and sleeping in a tent not to be the most relaxing thing to the world. But for me it was such a relief to forget everything about the world outside that little town and return to a place and a time where everything was easy and happy.