by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: March 15, 2008   Last Updated: May 12, 2009

The basic points to consider when choosing which provides the better camping experience, RV's or tents, lie within the realms of your financial situation, physical limitations and personal preferences. Is one better than the other? Ask someone in a campground, sitting around a campfire with their tents all set up and the stars bright in the cloudless sky, a pop (beer) in one hand, and friends on either side, and they will tell you that RV's are too much like home, and tenting is the only way to go. Ask another person and they may say that tents are useless and RV's are the only way to go.

However, talk to a retired couple, driving their brand-spanking new RV proudly along the highways and byways of the country, looking for the perfect RV site (usually one with people just like themselves, or friends and/or family). With their satellite televisions, microwave ovens, fridges, washer and dryer, dishwasher; and any other conveniences a nature-loving camper may want, the RV manufacturers will cram it into an RV if someone wants it in there. Now, almost all RVs are coming out with the expandable rooms, rooms that "grow bigger" as a portion is expanded out from the body of the trailer, be it by hand crank or the push of a button. With the travelling couch potato, the answer you get will be a resounding "RV'ing is the only way to go".

Basically, what it comes down to is creature comforts. How serious of a camper are you? Is once a summer, for a weekend, your kind of camping experience? Or, is a few months' worth of traveling, seeing different sites and experiencing different people who all enjoy basically the same creature comforts as you do the more likely to put a spring in your step? Do you have enough money for all of that gas to travel in the gas-guzzling ecological warriors? The tent-camping side will always say that they can camp for a month on what it takes to drive an RV for a day.

Well, if they are using nature sites, sites where you can camp on government land at no cost, the bring out what you bring in type of camping environments, that is about right; but not if you are using a campground (usually about $27 per night for tenting). Now, you had better be with good friends when you camp at these nature sites for longer than a weekend, because that cute blond really isn't so cute when the bugs are biting and the make-up is worn off. And when the alcohol is gone, and it will be gone earlier than previously thought, some people just get a little abrasive.

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