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RSS FeedWhich provides for a better camping experience: RVs or tent-camping?
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| RVs | 31% | 157 votes | Total: 502 votes | |
| Tents | 69% | 345 votes |
RVs
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In the first place, "going" in an RV is not camping; it is transferring you house from one place to another.
For years, I "camped" with a large RV while lecturing at schools and colleges. My wife, who also lectured, accompanied me.
We covered most of the United States and made a great pleasure out of a dumb job.
We would take our maps and information, our CAMPERS PASSPORT, and pick a camping area near the city or school or college where we would work.
We towed a very small car behind the large 35 foot RV, and would go do our job, and stopping only to get food, would rush back to some extraordinary scenery where our RV was parked.
We liked National Parks best, and there are enough of them to surprise you.
Next after National Parks, was State Parks. You would be astounded to know that within 50 miles of workplaces across our nation, there were untrammeled beautiful areas, often having only my wife and I in the midst of their beauty, particularly in the off-seasons.
BUT, that bubble burst with the rising gas prices, and the great difficulty of keeping even the most expensive RV in good shape. Also, lets face it! All of RVs are dangerous on the roads and badly designed. Most are re-contrived from truck chassis and made of easily destroyed fibreglass.
SO we gave them up, and opted for TENT CAMPING. We are retired and no longer lecturing, so our camping is done for fun and relaxation. After years of it, we have some very simple rules and arrangements.
We have an easily erectible tent that is tall enough to stand erect in, and that has an inside space of 10 x 12. It has a waterproof floor and a fastenable door.
We also carry another tiny erectible tent for supplies and a porta-potty, in case there is no toilet facility nearby.
Our routine is to choose our park or campsite, and arrive before dark, or preferably in the a.m.
We choose a site with good views, perfect drainage, and as far from others as possible.
We then unload and set up both tents, putting food supplies and porta-potty in the tiny tent.
For sleeping, we have two very large sleeping bags with pillows and we place them in the large tent, along with an ELECTRIC lantern strong enough to read by, the type with 6 volt batteries. Also, we keep an extra battery or two.
In our supply tent, we have a very small two burner propane stove and a collapsible "table' for it and food. We carry a small 3 x 4 x 2 "ice box" that also works on small canisters of propane or the car 12 volts.
Our set up time is about one-half an hour, and take down fifteen minutes. Food we buy for the length of our proposed stay, and we don't go in for smoky grilling, etc. being very satisfied with bacon and eggs for breakfast with juice and coffee, and salad type lunches and dinners.
We abhor fast food and fast food places.
Most important is the choice of a place to camp. We stay away from professional RV parking places as there is usually no real "camping".
As an example, we describe to you OCEAN BEACH, in North Florida, a national park. It is our favorite of all of the places we have stayed across the nation.
It is 8 miles inward from Hiway 90, halfway between Lake City and Jacksonville.
There are several parks in the area and this the best!
The lake is beautiful, full of catchable fish, and the park is blessed with thousands of trees. There are probably 100 sites and the park is never filled. There are three shower-toilet facilities with hot water. The cost depends upon who you are and what you have. With our Golden Passport, we pay $5 a day in 2008.
Rangers are about and there is a Host person if you need help, but basically this park is perfect for tenting and being in solitude. ALL sites on the lake side have lake access from the rear of your site. An emergency telephone is at the gate.
One more kind of tenting!
You can find very remote government areas and pitch your tent at random and mostly without cost. But be careful!
We arrived in the middle of a dark night at a place in Alabama called the Natchez Trace and in the dark, pitched the tent from a small car, a Yugo. We had an inflatable mattress and a much smaller tent at that time in a Yugo trunk.
We ate sparingly and fell asleep at about midnight.' A storm came and very heavy rain pelted down for the entire night!
As dawn came and the rain stopped, my wife awoke me and said, "We are MOVING!"
It was true, the river we had not seen was just by us, and the rain had swelled it, and our air mattress was floating out of the tent!
But soon all was well, and a stop at the first city laundromat washed and dried our things!
But beware of midnight choices of tent sites!
Learn more about this author, William Cobbs.
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Tents
When it comes to camping, whether it's RVs or tent-camping, deciding which will provide the greatest experience is a matter of personal choice and circumstances. However, if you've never experienced either and need advice, I can help you out there because I have experienced the best and worst of both.
My story:
The very first time that Bill and I went camping was on our first anniversary. We were quite young and had never been camping a day in our lives. When we initially decided to go camping, we were undecided about whether we should by a tent or go into debt and buy an RV.
Being Christians, we took it to the Lord in prayer. A few days later, we felt that an RV at that time in our lives was a financial burden we didn't need and that Jesus had led us to forgo such a lavish investment and go with something more practical.
We bought a secondhand tent, two sleeping bags and all the gear that went along with camping. Bill and I loved to fish so we headed for the Great Smokey mountains.
The scenery was breathtaking as we made our way along the parkway, looking for a good campsite. We finally found one we liked and eased our way along the narrow road down a steep hill to the campgrounds, which was full of tents, and pop-up campers. It was a nice campground complete with bathrooms and showers.
It didn't take long to set up the tent and before long, we were on our way to the trout stream just a few feet away from our campsite. I couldn't wait to get my line out and hurriedly pushed four kernels of corn unto my hook and cast out to the rock-fall. The line went down the short fall and circled the pool when, BAM! Got a hit!
I was jumping and squealing like a teenager when I reeled it in and when I pulled it out of the water, it wiggled right off the dang hook! At first, I stood with eyes and mouth wide open then I stomped all over the place. Bill laughed till he cried. I'm glad somebody thought it was funny because I sure didn't.
As it turned out though, we ended up leaving the stream a few hours later with a right fine stringer of trout. The evening sun was sinking slowly over the mountains as Bill started the campfire and I got ready to cook dinner. A little more than an hour later, we were enjoying fresh trout, corn and hush-puppies. When dinner was all cleaned up, we got in the tent and played cards. It was almost like being kids again, hiding in our own little private world.
Darkness had long since fallen along with the temperature when we laid a blanket out and spread the sleeping bags.
The next morning it was still a bit chilly when I came out of the tent and started the campfire, preparing the coffee. Bill came out of the tent as I slipped off to the bathroom, which was way too far away and I almost didn't make it. Campers were slowly coming out of their tents, starting their campfires as I made my way back.
The forest was spectacular. The smell of earth and trees. The sound of the rushing trout stream and the call of birds made me feel so close to nature. I could smell coffee in the air as I approached our campsite. Bill was wrapped in his sleeping bag, sitting on a folding chair, sipping coffee when I came around the tent. I got myself some coffee, opened another chair and joined him.
We fished all morning and went to town for the afternoon, visiting the Cherokee exhibits and arrived back at the campsite late that afternoon. I cooked the trout we had caught that morning and we headed back to the stream.
That evening, our tent experience wasn't as pleasant as the night before. Our blanket was full of dirt and leaves. We had never been camping and didn't realize how careful you had to be about taking off your shoes before entering the tent. Also, it started raining about dark and it was around midnight when the tent began to leak, which is why we got it so cheap. What a mess it was.
It rained the whole time we were there and we had to cut our vacation short. Everything was wet and muddy. Our clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. The cooking pots were black with soot and we got the soot all over everything. Needles to say, our last day wasn't very pleasant at all. On the way home, we wandered if perhaps we didn't pray earnestly enough or prayed "amiss" as the apostle James put it.
Eight years later, we bought a RV and headed for the mountains again. We found a nice campground, hooked everything up and drove to the trout stream. The RV campgrounds weren't as close to the streams as the others, but at the time, we didn't mind. The convenience was worth it. We had our own bathroom, sink, and a clean, dry place to eat and sleep.
Late that morning, we arrived back at the camper and I cooked the trout. We sat at the table and watched the other campers as they grilled by their campers. We played cards for a while and went to bed. We did that for a week and had a rather nice time.
However, we talked it over and agreed that we were inexperienced in camping the first time and if we had known better, it might've been a better experience. We both liked camping near the stream in the tent and cooking on an open fire. We knew to camp closer to the bathroom and to bring extra blankets.
We knew to keep the cooking pots wiped off after each use and to make sure we took our shoes off before going into the tent. We also learned to make sure the tent didn't leak before going camping.
Also, the gas for the RV and the higher priced campground cost us much more than camping with a tent. It also took us a lot longer to get there and back, which cut our vacation time. So we decided to sell the RV and buy a good tent.
On our next vacation, it rained on and off the whole time and we had the time of our lives. We knew where the best camping spots were and how to keep a clean, dry campsite. To us, it doesn't matter whether it's tent-camping or Rvs, they're both nice. But Rvs are slow and very expensive along with limiting your activities unless you tow a car to get around, which adds even more expense. Tent-camping puts you right there with nature and it's much less expensive.
Therefore, in our opinion, if you learn how to do it right, tent-camping is the best way to go. And by the way, as it turned out, Jesus had led us in the right direction in the first place. Just three months after that first vacation, Bill was out of work for almost a month. We would've lost the RV, had we not listened to him.
Isaiah 29-32- Blessed are those who wait for him.
Learn more about this author, Pat Lunsford.
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