TRAVEL | Our Perfect Family Holiday

Camping Blog Camping with Style | Travel, Outdoors & Glamping Blog

our family

We’re an unconventional family that’s for sure, but we’re bound together by love. Not just soppy, sentimental family love, but a mutual love that we share for the great outdoors, wildlife, snowboarding, exploring, adventure….and anything that get’s us up and active!

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Relaxing in the Maldives after a dive

There’s just the 3 of us in our immediate family; including my partner Alistair and daughter Shammie, who’s just come back to live at home with us after graduating from Uni. We live in Cheshire with 2 Persian cats and together we share an active, outdoorsy lifestyle and try to have at least one big family holiday and a couple of smaller weekend adventure breaks together as a family each year.

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Diving in Egypt

For those of you that don’t know; I started the Camping With Style blog after I had a serious snowboarding accident. I’ve worked hard to remain as active as possible and saw the blog as a way of keeping myself positive, and focused on all the awesome aspects of life. Over time I’ve found nature and the great outdoors to be a great healer.

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Family camping in Wales

My experience hasn’t put me off though and snowboarding remains one of our favorite hobbies as a family. I still hit the slopes whenever I can and I’m still as active as I possibly can be, and our holiday choices definitely reflect this.

So what makes the perfect holiday for us?

1) Quality family time

Holidays for us are about spending quality time together. With such busy lives, quality time together is rare and precious, and whilst our special kind of active-relaxation is always high on the holiday wishlist, right at top is the chance to spend time together.

Talking endlessly, laughing and sharing the joy of discovery and the exhilaration of new experiences is what makes a holiday for us.

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Family weekend break of wildlife spotting

2) Lots of adventure potential

We aren’t ones for sitting around, and a typical package holiday where you rarely venture outside the holiday complex isn’t our thing. Life’s too short to waste it sat on your bum baking in the sun, and though we do spend the occasional lazy day at the beach, we’ve usually got a football, kayak or power kite with us!

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Snowboarding in La Thuile, Italy

Snowboarding suits us extremely well, as it means we are up and active all day every day; and whilst this might not seem like relaxation to some, we like to think of it as active-relaxation, which we think can be just as refreshing, if not more so, than sitting around doing nothing. Whether it’s quad biking and diving with rays to kayaking and camel trekking; we’ve done a lot….but there’s still so many more adventures just waiting to be had out there!

3) Good food & drink

From sampling the delights of a Poutine in Canada, to Tartiflette in the French alps, holidays are all about indulging in good food and drink. Sampling local dishes and learning some of the fascinating stories behind their popularity is great way of gaining some insight into a region, and we can’t understand why people would go on holiday only to seek out British food…though the curried fish heads in Morocco last week was one local dish too far!

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Hearty food in the Alps

4) Great scenery to photograph

The first time I stood at the top of a mountain I cried my little heart out. Whilst not every place I’ve visited has left me quite so emotional, we all appreciate natural beauty, and there is nothing I love more than capturing the perfect picture.

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Raft building on an adventure break in the Brecon Beacons

The places we choose to go on holiday usually reflect our love of scenery, and is one of the reasons why we’re so attracted to the mountains and why we like camping so much.

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Quad biking in the Sahara desert

5) Places to explore

We love exploring, and all share a sense of childish wonder and glee when it comes to visiting somewhere new. As soon as we arrive at a new destination we head off out on foot to scout out the local area, usually before we’ve even unpacked!

We’ve recently discovered geocaching as a family, which gives us the perfect opportunity to explore a new location, wherever it may be.

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Weekend geocaching family fun in Macclesfield Forest

Holidays bring our family closer together, giving us shared experiences and a lifetime of happy memories.

This is our entry in the Mark Warner blogger ambassador programme, in the Adventure Junkie category, you can find out more about it here.

Shell Robshaw-Bryan
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