Asheville Glamping

Last week we went GLAMPING! For the longest time I have been following Asheville Glamping and am obsessed with their domes. So when a one night stay unexpectedly opened up for Dome 3 I snagged it right away and anxiously began counting down the days till our trip…

Thursday we arrived in Asheville just in time for BBQ sandwiches at Buxton Hall, one of my favorite lunch spots. Afterwards we let the kids run around the lawn at New Belgium Brewery for awhile, filled up our growler and headed to camp!

When we arrived it was so surreal to see the dome in real life after following it on Instagram for so long.

I’m not even going to try to guess how many times our kids went down the slide from their upstairs loft. The first two hours after we arrived they slid non-stop, taking no breaks in between. And the slide is SO fast and fun — I can personally vouch for it.

Upstairs is the loft where we intended to have the kids sleep. They were really excited to sleep together in the loft but it got too warm for them. So, then we set up the pull-out couch for them to sleep on. After another failed sleeping arrangement attempt, Thomas and Matt slept on the couch and Caroline and I shared the bed (and the fan).

The views from our tent were absolutely gorgeous. We could also see almost all of the other camp sites in the distance from our perch and at night it was so cool to see them all lit up.

A few hours after we arrived a huge thunderstorm rolled through the area and over our dome. Not only did this tremendously help cool down the temperature, it was sooooo cool to watch the storm from inside our dome.

We spent our evening playing with glow sticks, sliding, grilling pizzas, sliding, enjoying our view and sliding.

The next morning we were up with the sun, packed up and headed to breakfast!

Final Verdict? The dome is absolutely perfect for families who love actual camping. The experience is just like camping outside but with a few amazing amenities like comfy beds, couches, a refrigerator, coffee machine, propane grill, porta-potty, driveway with parking outside the tent and electricity! However, there are bugs — inside and outside the tent, it’s hot (as I mentioned earlier) and there is no running water. So again, you have to go into the experience expecting to CAMP. But if you love camping outdoors like me (have I ever mentioned I spent a summer living in the NC wilderness?!?) then this is an adventure that you’ll never forget. And neither will your kids.

Will we be back? Well, we had plans to come back! We booked 10 months in advance and had to unexpectedly cancel a few months out (for a family emergency — medical issue with my dad) and were really disappointed with the cancellation experience we had with AVL Glamping. So as much as we enjoyed our first trip, I’m not sure if we’ll return again.

We made one last stop before leaving Asheville — breakfast at Sunny Point Cafe. This cafe has been on my list forever to try and it definitely lives up to the “award winning” hype. Matt had “the best shrimp and grits” he’s ever had and I had a pimento cheese stuffed omelet and the amazing cheese grits.