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Tents

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As the mom of four boybarians, I can assure you that tent camping offers the far superior camping experience.

If you have children, you will find yourself a lot less stressed out and frazzled using a tent when camping. You know how things are at home, the kids are in the house, now out, now in....ohhhh look, they tracked in dirt...oh look, junior put an orange down the toilet. Imagine this, in a smaller space, perhaps in a borrowed RV, or a rented one, or even one that you are going to have to pay to repair! If dirt gets tracked into a tent, you tip it on its side and shake the dirt out. There will be no running in the tent, unless your children are exceptionally small, or your tent is exceptionally huge.

Tent camping offers a smaller monetary commitment to camp in. The tent campsites cost less to rent of the night, and a tent is a fraction of the cost of an RV. IF you invest $200 in a tent, and decide camping is not for you, you are not out the thousands of dollars that an RV would run you.

When you camp in a tent, you can experience all of the outdoors. This can be good and bad. In my experience, it has been overwhelmingly a good experience. Let us get something straight here, I am not a granola chick, and I would never survive even one night on Survivor. But I do know that with a good tent, and a quality air mattress, tent camping can be just as comfortable and even more fulfilling than camping inside a house on wheels.

Last summer, our family camped for nine nights in Grand Marais, MN. Grand Marais is a gorgeous little town on the north shore of Lake Superior. Grand Marais is downright cold in June. We wear hats and winter coats at night. And we still sleep in tents. Why? Because we are camping. We cook outside, because we are camping. We sit out by the campfire laughing and telling jokes and eating too much food because we are camping.

It may be personal preference, and I may be a camping elitist, but I think that using an RV is akin to cheating. I see a lot of RVs in our camping travels. I rarely see their inhabitants. They cook inside, eat inside, watch some TV or movies before bed,
and then nestle down into king bed comfort. That is fine...but it is also what I do regularly at home!

Buy quality equipment, and then make a commitment to yourself to enjoy the great outdoors for all it has to offer.

Learn more about this author, Pam Thompson.
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