Honeycomb Campground - Guntersville, Alabama
I truly believe there’s nothing that can bring you together like your first time tent camping as a family. With a three and a four year old, I knew there would be challenges, but was up for the fun task! and let me tell you…we had the absolute best time. So many memories made! Here’s a little bit about our trip: where we stayed, what we brought, what we ate, and what we would change about our trip next time.
Choosing a Spot
When choosing a camp ground for our first camping trip, we wanted to find a place that was close-ish to home, had amenities like bathrooms and showers, and that would provide some entertainment for our children. In our research, we found that Honeycomb Campground would be perfect for many reasons. Honeycomb is located on Lake Guntersville in Grant, Alabama (about an hour from Madison) between Huntsville and Guntersville, The 141-site campground offers plenty of amenities including:
Number one on my list was the little “lake beach.” You can even enjoy this beach without camping/RVing! Use the Day-Use area including beach, picnic tables, and grills for $12 a day or purchase a season pass for $90.
General Store-This is great for those little items you might have forgotten at home: toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper. We had forgotten eggs for our breakfast and were surprised to learn they sold items like this at the store too!
Boat rentals (paddle and pedal boats)
Bath houses
Bathrooms
Showers
Pavilion
Playground
Boat slips
There are many different types of spots to choose from when looking for your specific camping spot at Honeycomb including RV hookups (there are 6 sites that include an RV for renting!), tent camping sites, and even cabins! We made our reservations pretty last minute, so we had to opt for an RV spot for our tent set-up that was not water front, but we were not disappointed. We stayed for two nights and the cost was $38 a night.
Our kiddos were so excited to learn that Honeycomb hosts little events on the weekends as well. Friday night included a kid-friendly movie! Originally planned to be shown on the beach, the showing was moved to the pavilion due to rain, but was just as enjoyable. They also hosted a mother’s day breakfast Saturday morning- so sweet.
Our Set-Up
Once we arrived we immediately began setting up our little home away from home. First, we chose a spot on our site that was semi-level and tucked away for our tent, removed any large rocks and branches, and laid a tarp. My husband then worked setting up the tent while I set out an outdoor rug in front of the tent, unpacked our chairs, cleaned off our table, placed our fitted tablecloth, and set-up our dish washing and hand washing station. Once the tent was ready to go, we blew up our camping mattresses and laid out our sleeping bags and blankets. We left our suitcases and bags in the car and pulled from them as needed.
Here are some things we loved for set-up (underlined links below):
Fitted tablecloth-This is a MUST. We will be bringing this on every single camping trip in the future. We were able to easily wipe it clean and it did not fly away in the wind/breeze. It folds up nicely into its little carrier so that you can use it again and again.
Outdoor rug-It was great to be able to step out of the tent onto something other than rocks! Here, we were able to put on and take off shoes.
Collapsable tub and water dispenser- this made washing our dishes a breeze. We filled our water dispenser at home, but they do have a water spigot near the playground area you could use to fill or refill.
Air Mattresses - Nothing would be worse than sleeping on the cold hard ground and I definitely knew my kids would NOT be about that life, so we grabbed these kid sized mattresses and these small ones for us! For future trips….I think I will plan to do something other than the small mats for us adults. The kids were definitely more comfortable!
Here’s our tent! It claims to sleep 6 and comfortably slept the four of us. We took the rain shield off during the day for a short nap in order to get some good air flow going. I am not going to lie…It got a little toasty- especially for a May trip. For our next camping adventure, we discussed bringing an air cooler or fan because it could definitely be warmer than it was outside!
Make it stand out
What’s to Eat?
I overpacked for food because I definitely did NOT want to go hungry. I started with a large ziplock full of my children’s favorites: gummies, applesauce pouches, cereal bars, and Slim Jims. It’s also important to plan each meal meticulously so that you don’t forget any important items needed. We put all of our food items in a large tub and had a designated “food’ cooler. We also had a drink cooler full of our favorites.
When arriving at the campgrounds you can purchase your firewood at the General Store and even have them deliver it to your site. We stopped by the store for check-in and ordered our firewood first thing. It arrived within the first five minutes of our set-up! Here’s what we planned for our late Friday afternoon arrival:
Friday Dinner-hot dogs, hot dog buns, chips, ketchup, fruit (I purchased a large fruit tray from Kroger, pre-cut, and placed it all together in a large ziplock for easy additions to each meal), roasting sticks for cooking hotdogs. We tried wrapping our hotdogs in crecent rolls too!
We ended the night with s’mores!: Graham Crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, roasting sticks.
Saturday Breakfast-Bacon, toast, fruit, bananas, pancakes (easy mix squeeze bottle), syrup, coffee, creamer
Saturday Lunch-Grilled Cheese: bread, cheese, butter, chips. We tried a “camping cooker” to make our grilled cheese over the fire, but ended up whipping out a skillet over our cooking stove. We liked that much better, but it would definitely work if you didn’t have a stove!
Saturday Dinner-Steaks (we put these in a ziplock with some marinade before leaving), corn (tin foil), butter, bread
Sunday Breakfast-Bacon, toast, eggs, coffee, creamer
Some other items we used in our cooking adventures:
Camping Stove -We found a really nice used one on eBay, but this one looks similar!
Camping plate, bowls, mugs, and utensil set
Camping pots and pans
Paper towel roll and/or wipes
Citronella candles to keep bugs away-oh! Don’t forget the bug spray too.
What’s there to do?
With two toddlers, you need something else to do besides sit next to a campfire for two days. Here’s what we did:
Playground-Our kiddos made LOTS of friends at the playground. They enjoyed the slides and begged to go every ten seconds-ha!
Cooked-we loved making this fun. We tried these “magical flames” that changed the color of the fire! It worked much better than we thought it would and was great entertainment for the kids.
Movie-We loved that they showed a movie under the pavilion. We should have popped out own popcorn over the campfire before!
Walks-We enjoyed walking to the park, piers, and around the campsites. We brought scooters for the kids!
Read-Bring books! This was a great way to wind the kids down before bed.
Beach swimming-don’t forget to pack swimsuits and towels
Ice-cream from the General Store was a great end to a day swimming in the lake!
Bug catching- We ordered a bug catching kit for both Owen and Hazel. They spent HOURS finding bugs, slugs, etc. to put in their kits.
Games- We didn’t end up using it, but did bring a yard game for us adults. We will definitely use on future trips.
Rent a paddle boat- We didn’t this time! But it looked like fun.
Fishing-We didn’t do this either, but saw lots of people out on the piers with fishing poles.
Some kids at the campsite had glow stick necklaces and I thought that was a brilliant idea. It gets super dark out and it’s hard to keep an eye on the kids as they run around. They were kind enough to offer both Owen and Hazel one and they were so excited to play with them in the dark!
We can not wait to go on another camping adventure. This was a great way for us to “dip our toes in the water” and see what we actually USED and what we may need for future trips. Looking ahead I think we will definitely be bringing some type of tent fan to get the air flow going at night and more clothes (I only brought two outfits per kid-shoulda known better!). We can’t wait to visit other campgrounds, but will be back to Honeycomb for sure-hopefully with a spot closer to the water!
Book your trip to Honeycomb or find out more information here!
