Camping - Narrowsburg, NY

Our family's first camping trip was August 2023 in Narrowsburg, NY at the Lander's River Day Trip campground...which included rafting with our pup!

We went on our first camping trip as a family in August 2023 with our dog squad.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. Traveling with a dog like G can be stressful even when I do have control over our environment. But camping with G was a whole new ordeal. There were things we had to think about that the rest of our dog squad didn't.

How close were the other camp sites? What if the other camp sites have dogs? What if they don't listen to leash rules? What if their dog is also reactive but their owners deem them "just friendly" and wanting to say hi? What about rafting? Would the raft itself scare G? How do we get to the rafting area? Is it a bus? How would G handle himself on a bus with strangers? If we muzzle him, will the rafting company not want him around their clientele? Is where we push off and land crowded? Would G even stay in the raft? Can he even swim?

All of these and more kept swirling in my head for months leading up to the event. It was even more stressful because our dog squad invited someone else to join us - someone we have never met and someone G has never met.

TLDR: it went f*cking fantastic; we had a blast and plan on camping again.

I cannot emphasis enough how important it is to surround yourself with people that respect you and your dog. And that is what our weekend squad addition did.

We muzzled G as a precaution, but she was told to ignore G no matter what and to avoid him completely.

G was so excited to see his squad, he didn't even notice her. And because she was so respectful in pretending he didn't exist, he was neutral with her the entire time we were there. I am always thankful for people like that - it honestly makes our lives so much easier.

For this specific campsite, each campsite is small and they are jam-packed right next to each other. A member of the dog squad was able to check what sites were taken right up until a couple nights before the trip and moved our site so no one was next to us. And thank god she did.

Even without direct next door neighbors, it was not the camping experience I had expected and have experienced in my Girl Scout years. We could still easily hear and see everyone. Picture a gigantic grass field, and its divided into squares (each square being a separate camp site).

G surprisingly settled well (yay travel crate and crate training!) and didn't seem bothered by the huskies next to us screaming all night long or the crowds walking to the bathrooms (which were by our site). I also made sure to bring extra enticing treats and chews to ensure we were more exciting than anything else around us.

Showers were located at a bigger bathroom section closer to the entrance of the campsite. We never went to check them out, but there were smaller bathrooms near us (3 stalls) with proper plumbing and they were well maintained. There was also an outside slop sink that was helpful in cleaning our cooking equipment. The entrance of the campsite also has a convenience store (we used it primarily for ice and more firewood).

Each camp site was given a picnic table and had a water pump nearby (3 sites per pump). There were no grills and no formal fire pit - instead we set our fire up on top of a bunch of ashes and sand/dirt.

We woke up with the sunrise and slept early, but people definitely arrived late (which means lots of flashlights as they set up their tents late at night) and stayed up to party. There are formal quiet hours at the site, but to be honest, no one enforced them (nor the obnoxious dogs barking).

For rafting, it was easy enough to figure out where each stop was. The particular rafting trip we paid for had it so that our trip ended at our campsite. Because of that, we skipped the bus and instead I drove the three of us up to the rafting site (and a member of the dog squad drove me back after to pick up my car).

I muzzled G in case there were rude unsupervised kids (or adults) and it was actually quite easy. The rest of the dog squad took the bus and checked in, so we waited by the rafts. We got our life jackets on and then lifted G onto the raft - which he was actually fine with! I do think that his excitability with water helped and so was seeing his friends get into a raft.

We used two separate rafts. The other two dog moms and our squad addition used one with their dogs, and we took one together as a family.

For the most part, G stayed inside without being held back. He never settled the entire time, but that was also to be expected. There had been a lot of rain leading up to our camping trip so the river was moving pretty quick with very brown water.

The one thing to flag would be that their warning sign right before needing to go ashore (some buoys hanging on a line across the river) is not as far from the landing area as we expected. And we ended up having to have quite a workout trying to cross the entire river to land.

G did great throughout the whole thing. We muzzled him when we got close to shore as a precaution, but he was busy looking for his friends.