Summary
Glamping Adventures with an Infant
At four and five months old, we took our baby girl on two glamping adventures — one in a tiny cabin near Big Bear, California, and another in a platform tent resort in the Adirondacks.
“We’ll keep doing everything we love with the baby,” my husband continually insisted in the months and days leading up to my delivery day. “She won’t change anything about what we do.” Any parent reading this is probably laughing. But as avid, frequent travelers and nature enthusiasts, we’d fallen in love over dates that involved rock climbing, surfing, hiking, and camping in Joshua Tree, the latter a two-night excursion full of scrambling just three weeks after we met. He impressed me with his organization and forethought, plus tent-erecting, fire-building, and camp-cooking skills.
Thus, I was all in for adventures with a baby. When Eddie Bauer invited me to test out some new gear in a tiny cabin in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains, I thought, why wouldn’t we go glamping with our infant? After all, I was savvy enough to know that our very first time in the woods with Indah Sage, our baby girl, should probably not be in our two-man tent with sleeping bags. An actual bed, plus somewhere to put her bassinet, would make for a much more pleasant toe dip into camping — and it would still be an adventure.
Around the same time, I discovered the new Huttopia Adirondacks, a 275-acre, French-owned tented resort by Lake Luzerne. Since we would already be in the Adirondacks with my family, it felt like the perfect progression into Indah’s outdoor immersion. I’ve glamped in tents across Africa — including the hot sand of the Sahara Desert and in safari setups from Rwanda to Namibia — as well as Costa Rica and Australia. Many of these experiences were so plush they hardly seemed related to my notion of camping, ingrained as a young Girl Scout. In recent years, glamping — in highly curated, very luxurious canvas structures — has become ubiquitous, especially since COVID. Today, wide-open spaces and fresh air are in high demand, alongside a desire to disconnect.
Getaway Big Bear Cabin Experience
And that we did, happily, immediately upon discovering our slick black Getaway Big Bear cabin, named Willard, after the two-hour drive from Los Angeles. Inside, we found the cellphone lockbox; disconnecting from my all-consuming device felt like a weight lifted — cheesy but true. (Plus, it was far more enjoyable taking photos on my Canon DSLR for a change.) Besides being incredibly photogenic, the cabin’s giant picture window reflected a confetti of leaves dangling from surrounding trees. It was delightfully and intelligently designed, with all modern amenities for a mountain escape.
At around 140 square feet, every minimalist inch was used incredibly well with a mini fridge, two-burner electric stovetop, shower, toilet, fluffy queen bed, dishes and pans, and even a few books on stargazing and trees. We moved right in, stashing toys, clothing, and new packs in abundant nooks and crannies, hanging our hats on hooks, and setting up a diapering station on the wooden counter. With walls on three sides, the bed proved to be an awesome place for our wide-eyed little baby to bask in bountiful natural light and watch the swaying branches and aerial stylings of bright blue birds on the other side of the glass during tummy time — safely away from mosquitoes. (In retrospect, I should have treated her clothes with Permethrin ahead of time.)
As temperatures neared the 90s, we had packed incorrectly, so we laced up our new Eddie Bauer hiking boots for an early morning walk around the property’s almost 60 acres, Indah strapped to my chest, sweaty and dozing. Later, we spread out a blanket on the pine needles and read books in the shade while the trees waving above captivated her. We took turns napping inside with Indah, the AC unit blasting. (The AC was a lifesaver those nights; pre-baby, we would have grinned and borne the heat, but there was no way we would have made it with a little one.) We grilled burgers and corn on the cob for lunch, composed a cheese board to munch as the light grew golden, and played cards before my husband built one of his roaring fires to cook dinner and s’mores, Indah intently watching every peak of the flames.
It was the perfect time to introduce her to the great outdoors and its pure, natural beauty — she had just reached the point of noticing and truly seeing, her vision apparently sharpening to 20/40. As we watched Indah wake up to the big green world around her, it was impossible not to see things differently, too, tracking her gaze and trying to decipher what had caught her attention.
Huttopia Adirondacks Experience
As some of the earliest guests at Huttopia Adirondacks a month later, fortunately, that was not a problem. It was a saving grace there were no other guests staying near our spacious platform Trappeur tent, as much as Indah was enchanted with her lush surroundings by day, she was not a happy camper after dark. We’d booked the resort’s baby kit, which included a high chair, baby bathtub, and Pack ‘n Play for our 425-square-foot tent. Our tent came with a wood-burning oven and two additional bunk beds, making it excellent for families with kids, but she seemed all of a sudden allergic to the latter and made it known every time her body touched the mattress, even from the depths of a milk-induced sleep.
We faced a different problem compared to Big Bear — it was downright freezing at night. Or, at least it felt that way to this Angeleno. For this reason, the resort is open from mid-May to mid-October each year. We reluctantly closed the screened tent “windows” and bundled Indah in several layers beneath her sleep sack, hoping for the best. For the first time, we co-slept, our five-month-old secure and warm between us and the stove going until we ran out of wood. This slightly sleepless setback did not kill the vibe, however, and the three of us spent lazy mornings on our big wooden terrace, playing and enjoying the fact that we had nowhere to be. (That said, there are a slew of beautiful moderate hikes in the vicinity, a Six Flags, and attractions in Lake George.)
Take Glamping to the Next Level With a Stay at Huttopia
Huttopia is famously family-friendly, featuring a plethora of games (both board and activities like foosball and pétanque), a canteen selling supplies such as s’mores kits, and a forthcoming large, heated freeform swimming pool. The so-titled “camp animator” provides robust programming, from candle-making lessons and scavenger hunts to magicians and live bands. The food offerings at the counter-service restaurant — sweet and savory crepes for breakfast and lunch, wood-fired pizzas for dinner — appeal to little ones or anyone who, like me, loves cheese above all else. We cooked juicy rib-eye steaks one night on our gas grill, under a string of bistro lights, enjoying them with summer corn and local artisanal cheeses from an afternoon visit to Nettle Meadow Farm.
At the creamery’s animal sanctuary, Indah saw her first goats, plus some mini-horses, peacocks, and a cat. I’m under no illusion that she’ll have any recollection of the cute creatures or our verdant FernGully-like hike along the resort’s snowmobile trail, or the way her eyes lit up while practicing sitting on our tent’s deck. But we will, and I believe that the more time she spends outside, the better off she’ll be. Perhaps by next summer, all this glamping will prepare her for an old-school camping trip, sleeping bags and all.
