Try A Simple Overnight To Fall In Love With Camping

Ready to fall in love with camping without the stress of a full-blown trip? We break down our favourite microadventure formula: a single midweek overnight at Ontario Parks within an easy drive of Toronto. Think quick packing, simple meals, and all the magic of a campfire, minus the overwhelm. Whether you’re testing the waters or introducing kids to the outdoors, this is a repeatable plan that builds confidence and joy.

We walk through how to choose parks within one to two hours of the city and why midweek bookings can turn crowded hotspots into calm escapes. You’ll hear our top picks—Presqu’ile, Bronte Creek, Ferris, Emily, and even Sibbald Point when timed right—plus the specific perks that make each place shine. From Bronte Creek’s farmhouse demos, indoor barn playground, and massive pool to Presqu’ile’s trails and shoreline, there’s more than enough to keep curious minds engaged and screens out of sight.

Meals stay easy and delicious with our go-to foil-pack method: frozen fish and veg thaw en route and hit the fire on a clean foil layer over the park grate. Pancakes in the morning, hot dogs and s’mores at night, and a compact kitchen bin to keep everything organized. We also share practical checkout rhythms, small Leave No Trace habits that matter, and how short trips help you learn what you actually need. Start small, build momentum, and let these one-night adventures stack into memories your family will talk about for years.

If this sparked a plan, subscribe for more trail-tested ideas, share this episode with a friend who needs a nudge outdoors, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Mission
• 0:12 What Microadventures Mean
• 1:00 Midweek Camping Strategy
• 1:29 Parks Within Two Hours Of Toronto
• 2:25 Simple Setups And Easy Meals
• 4:29 Kids’ Programs And Park Activities
• 6:33 Bronte Creek Highlights And Quirks
• 8:16 Other Park Picks And Cautions
• 9:35 Seasonal Timing And Final Tips
• 10:09 Connect With Us

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and good day, eh? Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

And we are from Supergoodcamping.com. We're here because we're on a mission to inspire other people to get outside and enjoy camping adventures such as we have as a family. Today we wanted to talk about micro adventures. So especially if you're just dipping your toe into the water as far as camping, you might want to just plan something that's kind of light, kind of easy, to see whether your kids like it, whether you like it, and make it easier on yourself, just so it's not a really ambitious endeavor, first of the first time out, especially. So we did this as when our younger son was little.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

By by we she means she did.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

That are well, you helped because you would set us all up. I wouldn't just uh say, well, okay, we're gonna go, and Tim would set a bin all up for us to load in the car and go. Uh the so Tim was a facilitator.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

That sounds like it's a bat.

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

Well, you're the enabler. I'm the enabler.

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

If it's camping related, I will do that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00

So the way it worked was I I would not be in the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays. So those were days usually I would catch up on administrative things. And but anyways, because over the summer we had the luxury of me not being in the office on Wednesday, Thursdays, so it was perfect because you could go midweek camping. We didn't have to plan things like five months out. Uh, you could just book like if we decided on Monday we were gonna go a Wednesday overnight to Thursday, I could just book it like that. Uh, and so we chose uh campgrounds that were within about an hour to two hours from Toronto, which also makes it when you have younger children a little bit more feasible to load them in the car and not have them be, I'm bored, when are we gonna get there? Although an hour or two is still pretty long. So we uh would choose like the ones that we did most often was Preskeel Provincial Park, uh Bronte Creek Provincial Park. So Preskeel's down towards Coburg kind of area. The Bronte Creek is the other direction, more towards Oakville, um, Ferris, which is also east, and Emily Provincial Park, which is I think not terribly far from Peterborough, no, Bob Cajun, not terribly far from Bob Cajun. It's up that neck of the woods. Um so, anyways, we those are the ones that we did, and they were like doable in terms of like a short drive and not too crazy to try to get there, especially we didn't want to eat the whole day Wednesday, just driving to where we're gonna get there. We get set up with our tent and our sleeping bags and our air mattress, and then we'd often then go tool around and explore the park, and then we'd be ready for come back to the campsite, be ready for dinner, um, make something that was relatively quick and easy, wasn't too ambitious as far as food goes, have a campfire, which we loved that, just kind of sitting around the fire and and s'mores or marshmallows or whatever, and then the next day, because we'd have to leave the site by noon, I think, right? That's the checkout for we'd have the morning to go do something, go maybe go for a swam, or maybe go also do some exploring, and then uh get back to the campus site, get packed up like around 11-ish, get ourselves all packed up and out of the site by noon, and then back home. So though these were some of the my favorite memories of with the younger one. Like he probably was some between about the age of six and ten or so, I'd say, when we did those. So the other things just to mention around that is that we did kind of make kind of quick and easy meals. So I remember one meal specifically where it was like frozen vegetables and frozen fish. And so because it's all frozen, we packed it in a small cooler, and just by the time we got there, it'd be thawed out enough that then we threw it in foil, threw it in the fire, and just cooked it in the fire. So quick and easy, super uh simple to do, and not a lot of pots and pans and dishes and whatever to deal with afterwards. Pancakes were always popular, so that would be the following morning, it would be breakfast. For over the campfire might be hot dogs that we roast over the fire, or it might have been um s'mores or marshmallows. And uh, if you are like trying to travel late, you can use the grate that Ontario Parks provides over the fire, but you might want to bring your own foil to put it over top of that filthy, dirty rust. It's gonna be pretty filthy or something. So, anyway, you can use that, and it saves you having to bring your own grate, but you just probably want to put some clean foil down over top of that. And then, as far as as entertainment, especially if you are with younger ones, um, Ontario Parks is great for that because a sometimes when they're young, they're just happy to be out in nature and looking at bugs and picking up sticks and roaming around somewhat more free range than they might be able to at home. Uh, and they also provide programming at Ontario Parks. So over the summer months they do. So you can go and they'll have a kids program, and our kids did so many different parks programs.

SPEAKER_01: 5:00

So we did tie-dyed shirts, and they'll they'll do, you know, like some kind of a uh treasure hunt.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

Um we made bookmarks using shaving cream and food coloring, like the swirly kind of bookmark things.

SPEAKER_01: 5:15

Um, often put on at some kind of thing at the amphitheater where they've got you know a performer or somebody giving a talk on bear safety or things like that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:23

David Archibald came one time as a performer, and we still like the songs will still come up that we heard. That was probably also like billion years ago. Uh anyway, so stuff like that. It's really fun. The kids enjoy it, gets them outside, it gets them away from screens. And Bronte Creek is really great for that, too, by the way. So Bronte Creek is the one out by Oakville, and they have a farmhouse, and at the farmhouse they do a lot of programming there. So we made candles, we uh learned how to make rope, we watched them use a treadle. I don't remember what she was, she was sewing something with this treadle sewing machine. Uh, so all kinds of things like that that we learned, and they do have a scavenger hunt through the farmhouse as well to look for different things. They have farm animals at Bronte Creek, they have uh a barn that they've converted into an indoor playground inside the barn. So kids love that too. Like it's so much to do at Bronte Creek for kids. There's a uh they don't have a lake to swim in at Bronte Creek, but they do have a swimming pool. The only to me drawback of Bronte Creek was the fact that where you camp is separate from where all those activities are. So you have to load into the car, get back in the car, back on the highway, and get off at the next exit in order to get to where all the activity stuff is. Uh so anyway, that's the only kind of drawback of Bronte Creek. They're kind of where we camped at least, we're kind of unique campsites, though. It was uh this big savanna, like really tall grass out all around the back of the campsite. So it was kind of isolated. There wasn't like anybody right next to you because it was all just this big tall grass all behind us. And when we went to on a Wednesday, Thursday, it wasn't that terribly busy. Anyway, so we loved Brondi Creek. We loved Preskeel, that was our other very favorite one. Um, and we've been since two, I don't know, like a long weekend to um Preskee, like a July long weekend. We've gone to Prescuel as well. But there's also lots to do. Yeah, lots to do also at Prescuel. So, anyways, those as far as Toronto-based, those would be really highly recommended for me, the Brondy Creek and Prescule. And they're really like nice little getaways, good change from the ordinary. Uh, you don't have to pack a ton of stuff. So we would take a tent, we would take an air mattress, we would take sleeping bags, and then we would take a bin that Tim would put together of just like kitchen camping gear. Uh, and then we would take a little bit of food. So we would take the sometimes we'd have lunch on the road on the way there, and then we'd cook dinner there, and then we'd have uh snack at night, and then we would have breakfast the next morning, and then sometimes lunch on the road on the way back. So, anyways, it was fun little outing, and for me it was lots of good memories.

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

I would throw in uh one other uh uh anybody that's followed us for any length of time has heard me say I'm I'm not a huge fan of Sybil Points, because I'm not we we had a not wonderful experience, but parts of it were quite good, and I'm sure that midweek be a different story. It wouldn't be way less like it just insanely crowded on the weekends because it is an hour and a half from Toronto, two hours tops. Um so you know day passes are gone. Everybody is just it's it's crazy, but but you know, on a Wednesday or Thursday, I'm sure it would be fine.

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

We did do a Wednesday, Thursday at Civil Point as well, and it was too, and the programming was also really awesome there. So that's where the kids made the tie-dye t-shirt. Um went around and picked up all the uh Yeah, they had a challenge to see who could collect the most bottle caps, and we had tons, but somebody had way more than we had. So given how much we had, there must have been an off.

SPEAKER_01: 9:07

So this is me wagging my finger at you. If you take the cap off your bottle, put it in your pocket, make sure it comes back for recycling, do not just chuck it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

Leave no trace. That's true. Um but at Cybil Point 2, they had uh there was an old an old house there, and they did a haunted house thing in the evening when park staff uh just got sort of dressed up and uh the younger one again, Brandon and I went around and did the haunted house there. So that was also very fun. Uh anyway, that's it as far as I can think in terms of microadventures things that you might want to do. Uh, we're unfortunately we're recording this now in October, mid-October, towards late October. Uh, I don't know that you'll be able to do much of that this year, but maybe you can plan ahead for next summer.

SPEAKER_01: 9:50

Still pretty stinking warm out there, so it's 24 degrees today. It's nice.

SPEAKER_00: 9:54

Uh yeah. Anyways, uh for micro adventures, like, do think about it, especially if it's something like you're not too sure about camping. Uh or especially if your kids are starting to show a bit of an interest in the outside, it might be a really good way to cultivate more of that. Uh, that's it for us for today. Please do check us out on all the social media. We'd be happy to talk to you anywhere, anytime. And if you want to email us, you're welcome to email us at hi at supergoodcamping.com. That's H I at Supergoodcamping.com. And we'll talk to you again soon.

unknown: 10:24

Bye.

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

Bye.