Our Bandcamp review

A few weeks ago we took the girls to Bandcamp at Gorai Beach, which is a one hour drive from Mumbai.  This was such a fun experience.  Karan and I used to be quite the rugged backpackers, then we had 2 kids in 2 years and that slowed our roll quite a bit.  Now the girls are 3.5 and 1.5 years old, and we’re trying to do some adventurous things with the girls … baby steps.

How it works
You drive to Gorai Beach and everything is set up for you.  Maybe you call this “glamping” instead of camping.  Bandcamp provides the tents, sleeping bags, nice clean bathrooms, and a bbq for dinner.  We took 2 tents — one for me and Leela, one for Karan and Rumi.  And we did something that’s probably never been done before – we set up a pack & play for Rumi inside her tent   She’s used to sleeping in a crib so we just didn’t think she could adapt to sleeping on the ground.  You can arrive at 4pm, and then there’s BBQ and live music at night. They also serve breakfast in the morning.

What we loved
Leela was beside herself with excitement about the tents.  They also gave us hand sanitizer, a small flashlight, Odomos, and sanitizer spray for the toilet … Leela freaked out with excitement about that too. They had these sweet hammocks everywhere, and a nice big swing. They had lots of board games to play. The kids were thrilled to run around in the grass and be in nature. Everyone was super friendly and we met some nice people, and there were a few other kids (not many). They were very accommodating about serving the girls an early dinner (rice, dal, roti types.)

The challenges with kids 
There were bugs and my girls got bites that did become pretty big welts. So wear your spray and long layers!

The whole point of Bandcamp is the live music, so there was definitely noise!  Not super helpful for young kids to sleep, but the girls did ok with it.  People were also partying but nothing too loud or crazy.

Again, the point of Bandcamp is to sit and enjoy the live music, but you can’t exactly leave your kids alone in their tents unattended, so we kind of took shifts for eating dinner and then sat outside our own tents and whispered.

Because of the barbecue, there were some stray dogs around, they didn’t really bother us but you had to watch them. And they were barking in the night too.

The terrain was a little steep and rocky, so I had to watch the kids.  But that’s ok, it was worth it to be in nature.

The showers were cold!  It didn’t bother me at all, but Leela was not impressed 

Overall we were so happy we decided to go!  Not the greatest night of sleep of my life but it was a fun adventure, and it’s always good to take getaways from Mumbai.  We will go again!  If you know of other things like this around Mumbai or India in general, please do let me know!!

xo

Kerry