Camp Bennett - Our Family Story

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Hey there! We're the Bennett family—Will, Meredith, Margo, Samuel, and Clark. 

Camp Bennett is our North Idaho family homestead. 

When we moved to North Idaho in 2021, we had already spent years building what we thought was our dream life. 

We lived on a remote 40-acre Christmas tree farm in Oregon that we transformed into our permaculture paradise. We grew our own food from seeds, regenerated the land, and poured ourselves into a life of isolation while working remote in an intense deep-tech corporate career to fund it all. 

Our life was a 24/7 grind to cultivate land we would never need to leave, all in pursuit of a vision of self-sovereignty. We thought we'd be buried on that land.

Everything changed in one weekend getaway to Sandpoint to visit family.

What moved us most during those few short days wasn't the lake or the mountain. It was our daughter. 

She spent the weekend running around with groups of other kids for the first time in her life and didn't want it to end.

Meanwhile, we found ourselves meeting all these like-minded young families making major sacrifices for their children. Leaving careers, starting businesses, moving across the country -- rearranging their lives around what mattered most, and trying to build something different. 

Not bigger. Not more impressive. Just different. 

We felt so seen and understood. 

That weekend, something clicked. We had spent years learning how to grow food, build greenhouses, build systems, and to someday become self-reliant. But we hadn't spent nearly as much soaking up the present. We always felt like we belonged with each other, but here was a place where we felt like we belonged with others. 

On the drive home, we asked ourselves, we're chasing this dream, but to what end? 

Within a week, we put the farm on the market.

Since we moved to North Idaho in 2021, we've focused on building a new life we genuinely enjoy living.

We said goodbye to the corporate career. We stopped prepping for a someday fear-based scenario. 

We started living joyfully in the present. 

We've grown our family. Had two more beautiful, healthy children. 

We've grown our friendships. Easy to do in a small town where every stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet.

We've sown roots metaphorically and and literally with a small hobby garden.

It's a slower-paced life than the one we left behind. And a much happier one.

Now, what to call this land that is our home?

Long before we were married, one of the things that connected us as a couple was our love of camp. We both spent our youth attending camps, working as counselors, and experiencing the primal sense of belonging that happens naturally around campfires, shared meals, long days recreating in nature. 

The songs. The games. the traditions. Those experiences stayed with us. 

Now we're raising our children on this beautiful property in North Idaho. 

Somewhere along the way we realized we've built our own version of camp. 

We activate village mode with our community regularly and this property has become a base camp for day-to-day family camp. 

A place where our kids run barefoot, their friendships growing naturally on the dirt pile, their dramas revolving around who sprayed who with the garden hose. 

A place where the moms laugh around the kitchen island, give their muddy kids a quick boo boo kiss, and send them back outside while we do our work of homemaking and brainstorming ways to help each other with our various family-owned businesses.

A place where the dads return for a shared family meal after a long day doing heavy-lifting projects on each other's properties -- sharing with each other their skills, tools, time, and thoughts on the world news of the day. 

We're bottling up these ordinary times to remember and enjoy when we're old.

All this is why we decided to name our property Camp Bennett.

Just like we bring our friends around the table, we want to warmly welcome you to enjoy all the goodness that God has done for us through this property.

Whether you're stopping by the farm stand, staying in our low-tox wellness Airbnb, exploring North Idaho, discovering local experiences, or simply following along online, we're glad you're here. 

Welcome to Camp.