Thornhill Broome Campground: Easy Beach Camping with Kids

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Thornhill Broome Campground is our favorite. It’s one of the few campgrounds where you can actually stay on the beach in a tent.

Most beach camping in California has the campgrounds up on a bluff or a short walk from the beach, but Thornhill Broom Campground has the ocean as your backyard- literally.

Getting to Thornhill Broome Campground

Day 1: The Car Ride with Kids

I’ll start by saying driving up Pacific Coast Highway 1 (PCH)  on a Friday after work meant that we ran into a ton of traffic. We definitely had to break out some car games to relieve the boredom of our toddler’s “are we there yet?” attitude.

Babies are typically easy in the car- they sleep most of the time unless they need food or a diaper change. If you weren’t in a car they would also probably be sleeping anyway.

Toddler’s start to require extra effort for distraction. Especially to a hungry little girl stuck in a car seat.

So what did we do?

Offered her cheerios and then started a game of “I Spy.” I love this game because it is so easy to play with little ones.

Our munchkin loves her colors, so we play “I spy with my little eye something [insert color here],” and then she will look around and guess what item I’m talking about. Then it’s my turn and we go back and forth like this for a good chunk of time.

She usually asks for “princess songs, please,” otherwise known as Disney Pandora. Depending on how focused she is we ask her to name a princess and we sing that song altogether. When that fails, we sing along to whatever song is playing.

I think my husband has learned lyrics to more Disney songs than he ever thought necessary- haha! If Cinderella’s song comes on, we ask “is this Snow White?” and she laughs and corrects us saying, “No, it’s Cinderella. You’re so silly!”

On this particular trip, Poppy’s song “Get Back up Again” from Trolls came on and I asked, “Is this Branch?” Right after my husband went for the opposite of what I said (since he’s usually the one to make that joke) and said, “No, this is Poppy.” I just laughed as our munchkin said “Good job, Daddy!” I don’t think she realized he got it right on accident.

During the last stretch, we used our walkie-talkies to communicate with our friends who were in a separate car behind us.

We played the license plate game where you take the letters on a license plate you’re driving by and create a sentence (in California this is typically 3 letters). HFN turned into “Hungry, Food Now.”

We followed this by going through the entire alphabet with the names of restaurants. We were all a bit hungry (hangry?) by this point and stopped at a Taco Bell not too far from our final destination.

Setting up Camp at Thornhill Broome Campground

Anyway, after traffic and food and car games, we finally arrived at our campsite just in time for sunset. GORGEOUS! Seeing the sunset over the ocean was a great way to start out a weekend of camping on the beach. We set up the 2 tents and got everything unloaded and unpacked. Our Base Camp 6 tent from REI has color-coded poles that make it super easy to set up, even in the dark. Once that sun starts setting, it sets pretty quickly.

Baby girl fell asleep for the night and her sister was ready for bed too after a bedtime story. We always bring a book wherever we go. OK, I’ll be honest, I actually sneak at least 2 books in the suitcase: 1 board book so the baby can “read” it without supervision (I’m a bit of a book worm so they learn really young not to rip, chew, or throw books), and a hardback with typical paper pages. This trip was a board book of “Hop on Pop” and a typical hardback of “Fox in Socks” by Dr. Seuss. Easy read and perfect length. Usually, this is enough since munchkin likes to re-read the same book multiple nights in a row before switching to a new one. Repetition is a great way for kids to learn, right?

With the girls asleep we heated up some chili my husband pre-made at home and ate it with Fritos. This was followed by s’mores- my favorite camping food- and then bedtime for the adults as well.

We were so close to the water, the sound of the ocean drowned out the sound of cars on the PCH 1. As my favorite, most relaxing sound and atmosphere to be in, it was great to fall asleep to the sound of the waves- until a 3 am wake-up call from baby girl. She was quickly soothed and happily awake. After 2 hours of her *almost* falling asleep, I passed her off to my husband so I could go use the bathroom. When I got back, she was peacefully asleep and we could rest for another 2 hours before getting up for the day. Life of a parent, right?

Day 2: Begin the Day with Ocean View

Waking up to the sound of the waves was amazing, but even more awesome was our ability to unzip the back window and have a view of the ocean. The girls loved looking out and I was able to snap a picture before the moment passed. You have to be quick with photographing those precious moments with kids as one second later they’re on to the next thing. “Recreating” the moment never quite goes as well when directing a toddler and a baby for some reason…

 

Right away we saw dolphins swim by and then some sea lions throughout the day. I kept running down to the water to try and take a picture. I was able to take a couple pictures and some video (sea lions make an appearance just after 2 minutes on our YouTube video), but the quality from the phone was not as clear as a camera with full zoom and focus capabilities would have been. Next trip, my husband is bringing his camera! Despite the lack of ideal pictures, I was ecstatic. If you know me, you know how much I love animals, and dolphins are my favorite. It was actually a check list item to see dolphins swim by- and I got to mentally check it off of the “list” on the first morning! How cool is that?

Some of the group opted for going to get and bring back McDonald’s for breakfast. No argument here. We also had bagels and muffins (the big kind from Costco) available. Definitely not lacking in the food department.

Hiking at Thornhill Broome Campground

We hung out on the beach for a bit then headed down the road for a hike. It was so beautiful! We hiked up the hill of chaparral (evergreen shrubs) and had a picnic lunch overlooking the ocean- and our campsite. The bright orange rain-fly on our tent was visible from our vantage point.

We packed sandwiches and chips for our picnic. Our toddler needed a little coaxing to eat anything more than just her Cheetos. Usually she is a great eater (unless it has sauce: Sloppy Joe’s aren’t a good idea), but she gets into these moods where she doesn’t want to eat something specific.The solution? One bite of sandwich for one chip. Usually we have a 3:1 or 5:1 ratio when she opts for the side dish instead of the main protein, but we gave her a “vacation break.” One friend helped her eat one bite of sandwich then another friend let her pick out one chip, then repeat.

After some more photo ops and “eating” a butterfly (seriously her imagination is highly entertaining), we headed back down. Two of our party wanted to hike a bit more, so they took a slightly longer route. Since it was just the two of them it meant they could go at a faster rate and meet us around the same time at the bottom. That’s the beauty of traveling in larger groups- you don’t have to all be together every minute of every day. Figure out what you are doing and if it lines up, great. If not, we will meet up for more fun later. 

Nap Time at Thornhill Broome Campsite

When we got back to camp, munchkin went down for a nap. Baby girl, however, was so tired but not wanting to fall asleep. She really doesn’t like to miss out on anything! I used the baby carrier and went for a walk along the beach with a couple friends while the rest stayed back and camp and rested/played some games. The tide was starting to come in, but the sun was warm so the cold water felt refreshing. We honestly would have brought swimsuits to splash around a bit more in the water if we knew the weather was going to be this beautiful. The high was supposed to be 65 degrees Fahrenheit, but it felt like mid to upper 70s. Beautiful view, beautiful day. Baby girl finally fell asleep while walking back to camp and I was able to lay her down in the tent. I thought for a minute that her sister would wake her up by trying to hug her, but she just curled up by her baby sister’s leg and kept right on sleeping. It was adorable. 

Camping Food, Fun, & Food

Burgers and leftover chili for dinner, then we finally got to give Lina’s kite a try. She had never flown a kite before and was very excited to fly it. The wind gave us some trouble at first, but we figured it out and she had a lot of fun. We definitely want to invest in a sturdier kite at some point. 

Another beautiful sunset…have I said how much I love the west coast? I am not a morning person, so the sunset to me is waaay better than sunrise. Such special moments to share with our girls.

Time for popcorn and some more s’mores! Jiffy pop is so fun and the perfect popcorn for camping. Just make sure to continuously move it once it starts popping or it will burn. Oh and- side note- Reese’s Pieces Hershey bar is the perfect amount of peanut butter for a s’more!

Day 3: Enjoying the Location

Point Mugu National State Park has so many different campgrounds both on the beach and across the street. We were at the Thornhill Broome Campground and really took this morning to relax and enjoy the ocean view. We laid out our picnic blanket (Costco!) and brought some of the chairs over to the edge of the campsite right before the beach starts to slope down towards the water. Munchkin colored for a while before joining the adults down by the water to skip rocks. Rather, she attempted to skip rocks. It was more of a “plop.” Baby girl enjoyed playing with sand until that privilege got taken away for trying to eat some…I looked away for 1 second. Babies are quick. Totally worth letting her play with the sand for a few minutes though, she was amazed at the texture and just kept lifting it and dropping it down again. Endless entertainment.

A few of the adults starting playing with the Frisbee and munchkin decided she wanted to try. She actually caught it a few times and had a couple good throws! She got so excited when she succeeded in catching the Frisbee and when her daddy caught her throw. I was holding baby girl and soaking in the moment- while taking pictures and video of course!

Hanging Out at Campsite

The afternoon brought about an exciting game of Disney Code Names. I love code names and adding a Disney theme to it just makes it that much better! It isn’t a great game to hold the attention of a toddler though. Once she realized she couldn’t grab the cards, she got bored and asked- I repeat she asked- to wash dishes. Well, I’m not going to argue that point. I asked my husband to get water in the dish bin (fun fact: the dish bin is actually my book bin from elementary school) and to get her a sponge. We played the rest of the game while she washed dishes and baby girl napped.

Dinner was an amazing creation by a couple of our friends: meat and potatoes with cream of mushroom soup wrapped up in tinfoil heated over the fire pit. Well, we actually finished heating it on our portable grill so it could cook faster. The girls went to bed and we broke out the s’mores fixings again. It was not on purpose to have the s’mores after the girls went to bed 2 out of the 3 nights camping, it just happened that way. Plus if you’re too full to finish dinner, you’re too full for dessert.

Day 4: Goodbye Ocean

The girls and I hung out by the water one last time while others started packing up things. I’ll be honest, sometimes I’m great at multitasking like a super mom- helping do things while holding a baby and herding a toddler, and other times I need to split it up a bit and narrow my focus- I’ll watch the girls while you start packing, and then we’ll switch. This was one of those non-multi-tasking mornings as I needed to give the girls an outlet of playtime before buckling them into the care for the long drive home.

We saw a sea lion and munchkin “made me dinner” with some sand and the rocks. Baby girl just kept looking around soaking it all in with her little eyes. It warmed my heart to see them enjoy the beach so much as that is one of my favorite places

After letting them play a bit, we headed back up to help finish packing and loading the car. Our friends are amazing and helped us with the girls while my husband and I took down our tent and loaded everything remaining onto the rack on our car. A roof rack bin was a great investment for our Subaru, especially with all the extra items needed when you have a family of four. Pile it on top and bungee cord it down. We also have a water-proof bag that attaches to the rack, but it wasn’t necessary this trip as we had beautiful weather.

We stopped half-way-ish for lunch at Lucille’s BBQ with our friends and then headed home. It was a delicious end to a great weekend, although I think I am still catching up on laundry…

We can’t wait until our next camping trip. To answer the title of this post: yes, go camping on the beach with your kids. It is an amazing experience and a fun family bonding adventure. Just be prepared for a lot of sand. Anything holding you back from camping on the beach with your kids? Let me know in the comments.

If you could go camping anywhere in the world, where would you want to camp?  

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Check out our Point Mugu Beach Camping video on YouTube, and the full photo album on our Facebook page.