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Acceptance that you may not get a peaceful night of sleep while camping may be the first step in actually enjoying your camping experience. There are nearly always roadblocks to sleep no matter where you bunk down. Take into consideration the following real life situations I have encountered that have inhibited my sleep while enjoying the great outdoors:

Thunderstorms: Hideous, middle of the night thunderstorms with gobs of lightening that leave you praying non-stop. Note: You really should get into your car during those type of storms. Of course, there is also the accompanying rain that has an occasion to flood the tent. Sleeping in a mildly damp or worse, sopping wet bag, is nearly impossible.

Heat: Ridiculously hot and humid conditions where there is no relief during the night and the only relief during the day is in your air conditioned car or a cold shower. Note: I have pretty much resolved to avoid these conditions in the future.

Tents: Early morning tent malfunctions due to windy conditions. Translation: Tent falls on your head whilst trying to sleep peacefully.

Terrain: Rocks and roots can obviously cause a bag camper chiropractic problems. But sleeping on any ground that puts your body at any angle other than flat (whether on a cot or on a bag) causes sliding and is just plain abnormal. More lost sleep.

Recognizable noises: Incessantly barking dogs, screaming children and soon after, screaming parents, late night boom boxes that play the same songs over and over (i.e. "Whoomp. There it is!"), and a man with turrets syndrome blurting all manner of speech all day and night. Yes. They are all real life camping experiences.

UFNs or Unidentified Flying Noises: Rustling that indicates possible bear infiltration or alien landing, footsteps indicating the presence of a psychotic killer, animal noises that sound more like velociraptors than friendly night owls. Any of those can leave this gal wide eyed for hours.

Incontinence: Aside from wetting your sleeping bag (yes, I wet mine back in my Girl Scout days), apparently there are people with small bladders that normally sleep-walk to the toilet at home. That gets difficult in a camping situation.

Dew: The drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip (you get the point) of early morning dew on the trees above the tent. Interestingly enough, rain also has the same effect.

Birds: Just birds. Early birds. Lots of birds. Lots and lots of singing birds. All manner of birds.

Bugs: Crawling ones. Flying ones. But, mostly crawling ones. I've awoken in the night to remove spiders from my neck. Of course, the real interruption to my sleep was the subsequent flashlight hunt to find the spider after I flung it across the tent and couldn't go back to sleep without finding it. And then there was the unexpected cicada migration. Two-inch long, red-eyed cicadas crawling all over everything inside and outside of the tent. And though I knew they weren't harmful, the thought of them crawling on me or my six-month old son was unnerving and enough to cause a bit of sleeplessness.

I know that some of you will still try, undeterred, to get a good night of sleep on your next camping trip. I'll try too. But when my eyes pop open in the middle of the night, I may not sleep well but I will certainly rest easy...filled with acceptance and the hope that a night of peaceful sleep awaits back home.

Learn more about this author, E. Banker.
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