“At our peak we had seventy-five people; usually it’s around fifty-five. We have the same campsites every year. Some tent camp; others have pop-ups, RVs, or sleep in hammocks in the trees. When we get there, we start a campfire the first night and keep it burning all week. I always bring the rope swing, which I made myself. We hang it on a giant live oak and the kids swing on it all week long.”
— Kevin Fannin
As told to Jennifer Senator
Photograph by Brian Austin Lee
The Fannin family (pictured: patriarch Robert with a young family member, Kiai James) began camping on Jekyll Island with the family of Wink and Marie Smith in 1967. This past April marked the fifty-first Fannin/Smith camping trip on Jekyll.