Outdoorithm Collective families gathered around a campfire under string lights at dusk in Kings Canyon

What to expect

What a trip is actually like

You'll pitch your own tent, and you won't do it alone. Dinner is at 5:45. Nobody is going to test you on your knots.

The most common thing we hear from families before their first trip is some version of: I want to come, but I do not really know what I am signing up for.

Fair. So here is the whole thing, without the marketing gloss. An Outdoorithm Collective trip is four to twelve family units, usually somewhere between twenty and forty people, sharing one big group campsite in a California state or national park for three or four days over a long weekend. Most of those people are families with young kids. A large share of them have barely camped before, or never have.

We haul the gear in on a rented truck and we bring all the food. What we do not do is set your tent up for you. We show you how, we stand there while you do it, and you leave knowing how to pitch a tent. The exceptions are if you are physically unable or you roll in after dark, in which case it will already be standing.

That is the whole balance of this place. One of our mantras is Nobody Solos, and it does not mean somebody does it for you. It means you will never be left staring at a pile of poles wondering what you have gotten yourself into. There will be more hands than you need.

Two minutes at Kings Canyon

Filmed on our Fourth of July trip. The campers do the talking.

How a weekend goes

Trips run three to four days, usually over a holiday weekend so working families can actually make them.

An Outdoorithm host holds a hand-lettered welcome board listing the five mantras and the camp job assignments, in front of canvas wall tents

Day one

You arrive, and you are not on your own

Pull in between 2 and 4pm and somebody walks over before you have your car door closed. Your canvas wall tent is waiting, and you are going to put it up — with someone alongside you showing you how, and as many extra hands as it takes. Cots go in, a rug on the floor, string lights overhead. It takes about twenty minutes and it is the first thing you will be quietly proud of. Your kids will find the other kids within about four minutes and you will not see them again until dinner. Around 5:45 we eat together and gather for an opening circle, where everyone says their name and how many times they have camped before. Plenty of people say zero.

A camper's car pulls into the group campsite at Humboldt Redwoods with an enormous inflatable floatie strapped to the roof
Arrivals vary. This one showed up at Humboldt Redwoods like this.
A parent and several children walking a fern-lined trail together through the redwoods at Humboldt

The middle days

Loosely structured, on purpose

There is always a hike, and there is always an easier version of that hike. A flat mile around the lake or two thousand feet up a mountain, both count. There is water most trips, and the kids will be in it longer than you think is reasonable. There is a craft table, a soccer ball, a fishing lesson, somebody reading a book with their feet in the creek. You can join everything or none of it. Nobody keeps score.

About twenty five adults and children gathered around a tall campfire at blue hour, string lights strung above the camp

Every night

The fire, and the part people miss most

Dinner is communal and it is a lot of food. Then the fire gets going and the string lights come on. Every trip has at least one s'more night, and it is reliably the highlight of the entire weekend if you are under twelve: graham crackers, chocolate, and a long argument about whether a marshmallow should be golden or on fire. The kids orbit until they crash. What the adults tell us afterward, more than the hikes and more than the views, is that the late-night campfire conversation is the thing they think about on the drive home.

Outdoorithm families gathered in a circle under the camp kitchen canopy for a morning meeting

Last morning

Coffee, breaking camp, and a closing circle

A slow breakfast, then we break down camp together, which goes fast when thirty people do it. Before anyone drives off we stand in a circle and each share one moment from the trip that stuck. It is consistently the part people say they did not expect and would not skip.

The part nobody believes until they see it

The brisket is smoked before we leave home

People arrive braced for hot dogs and instant oatmeal. What lands on the plate is brisket — smoked low and slow at home, sliced, vacuum-sealed and packed into the coolers, then reheated and seared in beef tallow on the flat-top at camp. It comes out hot, with a fresh crust, alongside mac and cheese and Hawaiian rolls.

A boy reaches across the camp kitchen table to scoop mac and cheese while an adult serves brisket onto a plate, with chafing trays of brisket and salmon lined up along the picnic table

Dinner is the anchor of the day. Breakfast and dinner are both on us, every day of the trip, with a self-serve sandwich bar for lunch. Brisket night comes with corn on the cob, a grilled green vegetable, and s'mores after — and the rest of the weekend eats the same way: tacos or burgers the night everyone arrives, pancakes and chicken sausage one morning, French toast and bacon the next, bagels and eggs before the drive home.

There is always more of it than the group can finish, which is the point. Nobody should be doing the math on whether they can go back for seconds.

The brisket is the one thing that arrives finished, because that is the only way to put real barbecue in front of forty people at a campground. Everything else gets cooked by whoever is standing around, which by the second night is most people. There is a job board, someone always needs a hand with the tongs, and a surprising amount of the friendship on these trips happens over a cutting board or a wash bin.

The full menu goes out about a week before every trip so you can read exactly what is being served and plan around any allergies or restrictions. If it does not work for someone in your family, bring what you need and we will make room in the coolers and on the griddle.

Nobody cooks alone, nobody cleans alone, nobody eats alone.

Two adults and a teenager searing slices of pre-smoked brisket on the camp flat-top, a cooler of vacuum-sealed bags open in front of them and a canvas wall tent behind
The sear happens at camp, in beef tallow. The cooking is not a service performed for you — kids work the tongs too.
Overhead view of eight adults and children eating plates of brisket and mac and cheese together at a long camp picnic table
Dinner at 5:45, everybody at the same table, most of them strangers on Friday.
Five hand-painted wooden signs hanging at camp reading Camp As It Comes, Take Up Space, Dirt Don't Hurt, Leave Anyway, and Nobody Solos

Five mantras, hung on a tree

These go up at every camp. They are not rules, they are permission slips, and each one came out of a specific trip where something went sideways.

“The mantras removed a lot of pressure. They allowed me to just show up and take up space.”

— Outdoorithm camper, post-trip survey

Leave Anyway

The forecast said atmospheric river. We threw the gear in the van at 5pm and went. It rained, and the morning after was the stillest either of us had felt in months.

Camp as It Comes

A 50 mph windstorm hit Joshua Tree at 2am. In the morning, over pancakes, everybody traded their version of the night. You could feel that something had shifted.

Nobody Solos

A campervan slid into the river bank at Humboldt. The engineer, the doctor, the social worker and the actor all grabbed shovels. When it came free we celebrated like we had won something.

Dirt Don't Hurt

Let them get muddy. Let them eat the thing they dropped. Let them fall asleep in their hiking clothes. Small scrapes now build capable humans later.

Take Up Space

Eyes down and polite nods is the old habit. Lingering at the viewpoint, talking to strangers, existing without apology, that is the new one. These lands are already yours.

Five children in rash guards piled on a granite boulder, grinning and flashing peace signs
Two campers laughing together at the wash station, drying dishes over the blue wash bins after a meal
Children playing freely among the trees at camp, two balanced on tree stumps
A woman sits reading a book on the rocky bank with her feet in the stream
Kids and adults painting with watercolors at a long picnic table under the camp canopy
A group of children and adults hiking a trail together at Lassen Volcanic National Park
A teenager holds up a toasted marshmallow on a skewer beside the campfire
The Milky Way arching over a glowing canvas tent at the Spicer Reservoir camp
Two Outdoorithm hosts in aprons working the grill at the camp kitchen in Joshua Tree
Two people raising a canvas wall tent together among the desert boulders
A mother wades a shallow river pushing an inner tube carrying two small children in life vests
Families gathered in camp chairs around the fire under string lights at Joshua Tree
Adults and children eating dinner together at a long picnic table among the redwoods
An adult crouches at the pond edge teaching a small child to cast a fly rod while other kids watch
Two camp cooks flipping pancakes on the griddle at the El Capitan camp kitchen
Sunset over the Outdoorithm Collective camp at Kings Canyon, canvas tents lit by string lights

Hear it from the campers

Filmed on the trail and around camp. No script, no prompting.

Charmaine on the bear

Her biggest fear about camping was bears. Then the group watched one from the trail at Kings Canyon, and something rewired.

The kids review the trip

We pointed a camera at the kids at Kings Canyon and asked what they thought. They had a lot to say.

Michelle at Kings Creek Falls

Fifteen seconds, caught partway up the Kings Creek Falls trail in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Fly fishing at Kings Canyon

A morning on the water with the group at Kings Canyon. Rods in hand, most of them for the first time.

The practical half

Now the logistics

Everything below is what campers actually ask us in the group chat before every trip. Bookmark this part.

What we bring, what you bring

We provide

  • A canvas wall tent for your family, plus someone to teach you how to pitch it
  • Cots, a tent rug, and string lights
  • Camp chairs
  • The full camp kitchen: stoves, griddles, pots, utensils, wash bins
  • All the food for every breakfast and dinner — we buy it and haul it in, and we cook it together
  • A self-serve lunch bar (bread, deli meat, cheese, PB&J)
  • Firewood, and s'mores fixings for at least one s'more night
  • The campsite reservation and fees

You bring

  • Sleeping bags and sleeping pads (one per person)
  • Pillows
  • Clothing in layers, including something warm for the evening
  • Toiletries, medications, sunscreen, bug spray
  • Headlamp or flashlight
  • Closed-toe shoes, plus water shoes if there is a lake or river
  • Refillable water bottles
  • A snack or drink to share, if you would like to

Do not have a sleeping bag? Say so when you RSVP. We would rather lend you one than have you skip the trip.

The questions everyone asks

A young boy in a blue life vest beams at the camera on the riverbank at Kings Canyon

If this is your first time

You are the person these trips are built for. You do not need gear, experience, or a plan. You need a sleeping bag and a car with enough gas to get there.

“From set up to meal time, I felt more and more comfortable as folks connected, provided support, and helped with everything I didn't know, which felt like a lot. My favorite thing overall honestly are the late night camp fire chats. By the final morning I was ready for the next trip.”

— First-time Outdoorithm camper

“My first trip I was beyond excited. And also not very prepared! Thank goodness Outdoorithm Collective provides a comfortable tent for families, as the first time I brought a backpacking tent for two. IYKYK.”

— Outdoorithm camper

Still have a question?

Ask it. No question is too basic, and we would much rather answer it now than have you talk yourself out of coming.

Trips are free to families. See upcoming trips or read more in our FAQ.