Bloemendaal aan Zee, Netherlands

Camping in the Netherlands is not like camping in the US. The Netherlands is such a tiny country that pretty much the whole thing is developed - there’s really not a lot of untouched wilderness. People here like to stay at camp sites with more accomodations and don’t really do “roughing it”. This is fine with me, because I am also more of a glamping kind of girl!

We were looking for a vacation to do before we were vaccinated last year and decided that a few days camping would be fun. We found this cool Airstream to rent near the beach that came with its own shower and sauna as well.

Campsite

The campsite we stayed at was Camping de Lakens. They have several different types of places to stay - we chose the Airstream but they had other little huts, an American school bus, and some pre-set up tents. The camp site is a quick walk over a hill to the beach and it also has its own tiny grocery store and a restaurant. Basically everything you need for a weekend! It is accessible by public transit but we chose to rent a car and drive there to make it a little easier.

Our campsite with the air stream had a picnic table and a hammock in addition to our air stream and shower/sauna. It was in a nice private little clearing as well but a quick walk to the store and the restaurant.

Day 1

The day we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was sunny!! The Netherlands had a very cold and rainy spring so we were thrilled to see the sun. We decided to make it a beach day and just sit in the sand and enjoy the sun. We watched the sunset on the beach and then got some food from the restaurant as takeout for dinner and ate it on our picnic table.

Day 2

The next day we woke up and went on a hike around the dunes. Our hike ended on the beach but it was a bit drizzly at this point so we kept walking back to our camp site.

We ate some sandwiches for lunch and then lazed around the Airstream and napped for a while. When it stopped raining we played board games on our picnic table and rented a grill from the camp site store to BBQ some sausages for dinner. It was very laid back and relaxing!