by Scott Freeman

Created on: August 19, 2009   Last Updated: August 20, 2009

Which provides for a better camping experience: RVs or tent-camping? The question might as well be which came first, the chicken or the egg?

The reality is that each of us needs to decide where we fall on the roughing it to luxurious scale when it comes to camping.

I have a brother, a great guy mind you, who I think is just this side of insane. He thought it would be fun to spend from March to September walking from Georgia to Maine while carrying everything on his back. He most likely would say that tent camping provides the better camping experience. I have other friends who think only having two flat screen TVs in their fifth-wheel trailer is camping. For them, the answer would be RVs give the best experience.

Myself, I come from a family of campers. My parents tell the story that the year I was born, they skipped camping. Not because I would have been 1-4 months old but because that was the year they bought their first house. I have camped in tents, pop-ups, trailers and motor homes. As a Boy Scout I slept in cabins, tents, under sheets of plastic and even backpacked. At the time, I thought it was the best!

When I had a family of my own, we would load the minivan up with 5 kids, 2 parents, three tents, stoves, lanterns, two coolers, chairs clothes and food and off we would go. We had a great time, the family was together and it was cheap. Do not underestimate the importance of that last item. For families of modest means, tent camping may be the only way to go. It certainly was for us.

Fast forward a few years, the kids are grown and married or at least out of the house and it is just my lovely wife and I. Down to one tent, one cooler, stove, lantern and each other. Still having a great time.

Well, except for sleeping on the ground is not fun any more. We do not have patience to sleep around stones and roots. Also, those middle of the night trips to the bath house have gone from rare to every night and these take longer each year. Wake up, get dressed, walk to the bathhouse, walk back, get undressed, back into the tent. Still, we are having fun.

Mornings are a bit cold, the old knees do not like this getting dressed on our knees as the tent is too short to stand up in. Still, we are having fun, right?

Damp or rainy days are not fun. Everything is just dripping, hate sitting on wet picnic tables. Darn bugs are annoying too. This is fun? Are we still doing this?

Finally we decided to "just look" at RVs. Sure, those big ones are nice but we can afford the pop-ups. Is that an RV or a camper? Hard to say.

Let me see, I have Heat!, Hot Water!, Refridgerator!, Electric Lights!, Inside Dining Area!, Inside Cooking Area!, Flush Toilet!, Shower!

My bed is comfortable with no rocks or roots. The bathroom is in my pop-up with me, no mid-night strolls. If it is cold, I turn on the heat, if it is warm, I hit the fans. Get up and walk around inside, sit and have my morning tea looking out at the lovely day. Raining, I'll stay inside until we decide we want to go out.

But is it still camping? I sleep under canvas, I stay in campgrounds, I hear all the birds and animals outside, I sit around the campfire at night, I sleep in a sleeping bag, I go the same places, I do the same things, I just do them comfortably!

Unless it is written somewhere that camping must NOT be comfortable, then is seems to me I am camping.

If I am comfortable camping, I figure I will do it more ofter and will enjoy it more and that means, I will be having a better camping experience!

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