Sam Trelawney — Family Camping Editor
Sam Trelawney has been testing the limits of what a six-year-old considers an acceptable camping trip for the better part of a decade. Father of three kids (currently ages 6, 9, and 13), he has camped with them in state parks, national forests, private campgrounds, and one very ill-advised backcountry trip that produced a lot of content and at least one memorable tantrum.
Sam tracks state park reservation systems obsessively — booking windows, cancellation policies, which parks have shifted to permit-only for peak season, and the quirks of each state’s online booking platform. He maintains a personal spreadsheet of every state park he has camped in with the kids, rated across dimensions that matter to families: bathroom distance from campsites, playground quality, swim area safety, and whether the camp store sells decent firewood.
He writes about family camping, kid-friendly campground activities, and state park systems for At Campground. He is based in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and takes at least one camping trip per month from May through October, plus the occasional brave winter attempt.