Camping Out

What is it that makes camping out so appealing to so many different people?

As kids we’d drape sheets over chairs to create “tents” in the living room. A few years later we’d pitch a real tent in the backyard, and try to spend the night there. Some of us made it. And some of us, once the darkness fell and the owls began to hoot, decided that sleeping in our own beds would be better than the ground. Still, we’d given it a try. And there would be other summer nights.

To some degree, living outdoors brings out the kid in all of us. But there’s more to it than that. Camping draws us back to Neolithic times, when only our wits and a burning fire stood between survival and oblivion.

We need to live outdoors, for an hour, a day, a week. Think not? What is it that drives us to backyard cookouts? On the face of it, they’re stupid; cooking and eating in the dirt, heat, and humidity, surrounded by bugs when there’s a clean, air-conditioned, pest-free house only steps away? Logically it makes no sense. But logic has little to do with psychological needs.

Living outdoors—whether in a surplus Army tent or a megabucks motorhome---instills in us a sense of renewal. It rejuvenates us. It prepares us to better face the challenges of the day-to-day world.

The fact that it's fun doesn’t hurt, either.

But what, exactly, does it mean? The dictionary tells us it’s the act of living in camp; which hardly seems responsive. Until you look more closely at what that implies. It’s a collection of temporary or semi-permanent dwellings, in which a group of people live.

Any army unit on bivouac qualifies. As would a hobo village. But, in common usage, we are referring to people on vacation, people who have found that they can satisfy their need for outdoor living by using temporary shelters.

Many years ago I took one of my sons squirrel hunting. We stayed in a dome tent near the hunting woods. Next to us was a motorcoach. The blue light from their television reflected off the nylon of our tent. “Ya know what, Dad?” my son remarked. “They’ll go home and tell everybody about their trip. But they’re not camping. They’re just living in a motel with wheels.”

To some degree he was right. But he was young, and missed the actual point. Yeah, maybe they had the same amenities they’d have at home. But, so what! They were just as much living in the outdoors as we were. If it turns out that our temporary shelter had a single-burner stove and theirs had a microwave, well, that’s just a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

Another appeal is cost, no small issue in today’s economic climate. Here’s just one example. Friend Wife and I love the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Lodging isn’t exactly inexpensive, though. Last time we rented an efficiency unit our lodging costs for that trip were more than $1,800. A similar trip, staying in a campground, drops the housing cost to a mere $335. For many people, that would make the difference between taking a family vacation or not.

When our kids were young we were in exactly that position. We opted for camping, and for the rejuvenating effects of living, if just for a short time, in the outdoors.

We started in a tent. Later on we’d use motorhomes, and pop-ups and RVs. Recently, as these things go, we discovered the living history hobby. So now we’re back living in tents, and cooking over open fires. And the one thing we’ve discovered is that there is, essentially, not a wit of difference between a primitive canvas tent and a sophisticated motorhome. You gain the benefits to body and soul either way.