They where just helping kayaker.
Camping has changed so much. Used to just 4x4 in somewhere, find a good spot and set up. Make a nice fire to cook over and hang out at. Done.
Now the 4x4 trails are getting shut down. And there is nearly always a fire alert. So no campfires. I couldn’t imagine camping without a campfire.
I’ve done most kinds of camping, and the kind I like the very least is car camping, where you can’t get away from people, generators, asphalt, kids screaming around on trikes, and cars cars cars. Car camping’s only use – for me – is as a very cheap way to spend the night on the way to somewhere else. More trees than a Motel 6.
The kind I like the very best is backpacking, which is, yes, pretty arduous compared to what most people are used to, but it isn’t dirty because you are in the wilderness, which is clean in itself. What you get in return is beauty, pure silence, pure air, being completely surrounded by unmediated undamaged life itself. There is nothing superior in this world.
Glamping is for people who want to feel like camping without actually, you know, camping. There’s a place for that, and I could see myself doing it. But I wouldn’t call it camping.
Motel 6’s are usually so horrible that I’d rather be car camping. About half the time I car camp it’s because it’s cheaper than a Hampton Inn, or located near a place I want to be, but the other half it’s because it’s genuinely beautiful.
Then there’s the times where I expect it to be beautiful but it isn’t. Like the time I stayed north of Pagosa Springs and on the map it looked like there was a creek nearby, except there was a steep cliff that prevented access, and it was too wooded for a good view. The only thing special about the camp was some nice large boulders.
I prefer car camping to hike-in camping because when hiking I have to forgo proper bedding, entertainment, (and alcohol since I prefer wine rather than liquor). Once or twice a decade, it is nice to do to, as you say, get very far away from everyone and be totally alone for awhile.
Although Pepper Mill has camped in the past, she says that the closest she’d agree to go on would be glamping (I’m still up for “in a tent with sleeping bags” camping, which is now easier and uses much lighter equipment than when I was a Boy Scout).
The only comparable experience we had was “camping” in a stationary motor home several years ago.
It had beds.
It had a toilet
It had a shower.
It had air conditioning.
But we still cooked on a fire outside
Many years ago I camped at the Morro Strand State Beach Campground. That campground was pretty much just a parking lot with campsites around the parameter. I only camped there because it was cheap beachfront lodging for a couple of days in Morro Bay.
For me, the campsite was just a place to sleep and cook meals while I spend the days out hiking, or driving up to Hearst Castle, or other activities. But I noticed another group at a nearby site that never seemed to leave the campground, except maybe to head down to the beach for brief periods. I came to realize that for some people, camping is the main activity, and they treat it like an extended tailgate party but without the sporting event. They just hang out at the campground, play music, throw a football around, grill some burgers, etc.
Perhaps. I first read the term “glamping” over twenty years ago, discussing luxurious safaris offered in Africa or upscale yurts.
This will be my go-to term for glamping from now on. Thanks!
I regularly do glamping - there’s a range of them here. Often with wood-fired hot tubs.
I also just camp in the bush and desert with the bare minimum of gear. But my wife only does the glamping.
This is perfectly true but they have two advantages. 1.) faster. Check in, fall asleep in bed, wake up, throw duffle in car, pick up breakfast on the way out of town. 2). they allow dogs, the only chain to do so (some Super 8s but not all of them). One time my room was so skeevy my dog walked in and immediately pissed on the radiator, clearly not the first guy to do this.
I used to drive very long distances with dogs, and that was the way to make time on the road.
Well, that depends. We used to do a lot of jeeping 4-wheeling or what ever you call it. We would find a flat spot near a stream and set up - Tents, cook over a fire.
No people but us, certainly no asphalt or generators.
I consider that ‘car’ camping. A KOA is not camping IMHO. Once on a road trip, I didn’t have much choice but to set my tent in some sort of KOA type place. it was ridiculous.
Depends on the car camping.
What you describe is a public campground. (You also forgot trash, trash, and more trash along with the stench of various smoked substances and the occasional alcohol spill).
Where I went in August we drove in, but was private land. We were literal miles from any other group of human beings. No asphalt - we used an all wheel drive and a dirt track to get there. Peace and quiet and privacy. Lots of woods. Lots of critters in the woods that weren’t terrified into silence. Clean air. No trash.
We’ve car camped at Thanksgiving for 40 years. Even with restrictions there is still a whole lot of desert out there. For the last 20 years or so we’ve been going to the same spot. You don’t have to have 4WD but it helps. Closest habitation is Amboy. Three huge tents, 2 cook kits, 4 ice chests and we eat and drink well in the field. Full Thanksgiving dinner too - roast turkey, dressing, potatoes, pea salad, pies, wine flights, the works. Custom crapper set up in the dry river bed, complete with magazine rack, coffee cup holder and a great view down the valley. I think we’ve seen other people maybe twice in all that time, and they were just in/out quail hunters.