The Trouble With Camping.

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by Meagain, Sep 24, 2017.

  1. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Okay here's the deal....

    Pennsylvania has a great state park system. Beautiful parks and you don't have to pay to enter, like in most states.
    Socialism at its best, PA is a Commonwealth after all.

    But lately we've noticed that the camping sites are getting better, which is worse.
    It used to be we could go on a weekend and camp for about $4.00 a night. Now the sites weren't as nice as now, in that many times you had to pump your water: [​IMG] and now they have pressurized faucets everywhere. Also the ground was never flat and unrocky.
    Now the sites are all becoming completely level, usually with a special place to pitch a tent, instead of sleeping on roots, stones, and pine cones.
    The fee is now $15.00, I think another $4.00 if showers are available, and there may be a $5.00 processing fee.

    Electric sties are becoming the norm, hard to find a site without electric in many places...add another $4.00 even if you don't use any electric.
    Then we now have to kowtow to the dog people. Dog sites, which are overrunning all the other sites...another $2.00, even if you don't have a dog handy. We went to one park and almost all the sites were dog, electric or both.
    We don't use electric or dogs when we camp.

    Now they're starting to put in these huge mega motor home sites that you can park a tractor trailer on, complete with electric, water, and sewage hookups. And guess where they put them? Right beside the communist communal bathroom/restroom. Right beside it! I assume so they're close to the sewage lines.
    So all the "poor people" in tents have to walk a 1/4 mile to get to the bathhouse and the rich with their own facilities are right beside what they don't use. Go figure.

    I've always thought it was unfair that my site fee helps pay for their free sewage dump station anyway.

    So more and more of these over bloated monster RVs are showing up. We've already moved our site when one pulls up beside us with their Tiki lights, Chinese lanterns, Christmas tree light strings, golf carts, TV's (inside and out), generators, air compressors, and what not.

    [​IMG]
     
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  2. SpacemanSpiff

    SpacemanSpiff Visitor

    i hate those places...camping should be out in the wilderness....not crammed into some little park like sardines
     
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  3. YouFreeMe

    YouFreeMe Visitor

    I think they call it "glamping" these days, "glamorous" camping. As you noted, it's hardly camping at all, more like staying in a hotel in the woods.
     
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  4. tikoo

    tikoo Senior Member

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    I went west once , twice , trice . Gotta be free or not , and ya , free space is eventually down a bumpy road
    and you be psychic to find it at all .
     
  5. Jude96

    Jude96 Members

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    I know what you mean... I love "roughing it"... I'm totally turned off by manicured camping spots and any kind of element that makes it too "comfortable"... I have to get in at least 1 more weekend before the cold weather sets in
     
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  6. rollingalong

    rollingalong Banned

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    thrice not trice


    where I live there is crown land you can get a permit to go camp on and there is zero facilities....there isn't even a path.....just bush with a sign that has a number om it so you know you are in the right place....
     
  7. Noserider

    Noserider Goofy-Footed Member

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    Don't knock glamping.

    One of these days, I'm going to be able to afford a little Air Stream, I'm going to pimp it the fuck out and make it look fabulous, and I'm getting into the glamping scene.

    Everyone has a dream.

    That's mine.
     
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  8. Meliai

    Meliai Banned

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    I have a hard time bringing myself to pay $15 or more to sleep on the ground

    I have found some glamping sites on air bnb that are equipped with beds and other amenities for around $60 - $80 and I would happily pay the money to sleep in a comfortable bed in an awesome teepee or yurt or whatever. I like the glamping concept

    But for regular tent camping I would rather find a primitive wilderness spot for free
     
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  9. Noserider

    Noserider Goofy-Footed Member

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    Glamp with me, girlfriend.


    EDIT: Posting from my phone kinda sucks
     
  10. hotwater

    hotwater Senior Member Lifetime Supporter

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    Americans are becoming softer as each generations passes and they need those modern amenities
     
  11. 6-eyed shaman

    6-eyed shaman Sock-eye salmon

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    My family never raised me to be a fancy camper, or a glamper. The most glamping I've ever done with them was lay the seats down in the station wagon or SUV and maybe use electricity from a converter though the cigarette lighter of the car. Other than that, it was always hike a few miles away from civilization and pitch a tent. Never used a motor-home or air-stream trailer before.
     
  12. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    You can do that around here also if you go to certain places.
    The Appalachian trial runs behind my house on the ridge to the south.

    I used to backpack an awful lot but haven't in about 3 years now.
    We wimped out a few years ago and bought a used Bunkhouse motorcycle camper that we pull behind our car or minivan, we got tired sleeping on the ground.
    It looks like this folded up:
    [​IMG]
    and this fully deployed:​
    [​IMG]
    We can actually stand up to put our pants on and sleep on a king size bed.​
    I can unhook it from the car and push it to where I want to set it up.
    So after all my bitching, I'm coming clean and admitting to being a glamper!
     
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  13. YouFreeMe

    YouFreeMe Visitor

    Fair enough, ladies. I'm not saying I wouldn't do it or enjoy it, but I wouldn't quite call it camping.
     
  14. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Yeah, fully agree ^

    Glamping has become a thing here too. I don't mind it because its even called glamping. But it shouldn't be called or confused with camping!
    I personally make a divide between nature campings and festival campings as well. Very different experience :p Overall I did festival campings the most and am getting at that point that i don't fully recover in a crappy hot tent on an annoying air bed after a day of 'festivalling'. I could be seduced to go glamping style there
     
  15. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Ah the 'drag cabin'! They were very popular in the Netherlands. Whole families went with one to camp 3 weeks in France
     
  16. SpacemanSpiff

    SpacemanSpiff Visitor

    must be a provincial park of some kind?

    up here any crown land is fine...no permits needed ...you just can stay in same spot for more than a certain time (maybe 2 or 3 weeks)...after the whatever time it is your supposed to move a certain minimum distance i think its 50 or 100 meters

    dont know the specifics because im not a camper and no one really enforces it anyway








    i do own a large 5th wheel hardsided camper but its only used for rest area at a friends house where i sometimes store cars that i am dismantling ..gives me a place to rest and/or escape the rain if it rains....plus if i ever wanted to go camping i would need hard walls due to a bear attack phobia....i could never sleep knowing a piece of canvas is all that separates me from a hungry bear family

    never "camped" per se as a kid....separate cottages and camps (buildings) are a normal thing for people to own here..my close family never owned one but many of my uncles and grandparents did so we never really needed to rough it too much
     
  17. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    "they took all the trees, and put em in a tree musium,
    and charge the people a dollar and a half just to see um,

    don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till its gone,
    they paved paradice and put up a parking lot"

    dollar and a half plus inflation = fifteen bux.

    any campsite you can drive to is too close to "civilization".
    (but it doesn't have to be further from the end of the road then you can walk in a couple of hours
    it can of course, nothing wrong with any place you can only get to with a days walk either,
    just be real careful with fire and whatever you leave behind.)

    i don't mind solar power to run the lap top,
    but i do wish people could learn to be quiet enough to not chaise everything else away.

    i mean the lap top to MAKE pictures on, not to watch some stupid move or sports bullshit.
    bring a camera, or a sketch pad and pencils, brushes, art supplies,
    but please leave the damed televisions (or anything else that makes a lot of noise) some place else.

    and don't be shooting at anything you don't intend to eat, unless you absolutely have to chaise it away.
    (odds are it already knows about humans and guns and will try to avoid you anyway)
     
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  18. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    i could live in something like that, but i'd still want to be a long way from where anyone else was doing so.
    i haven't done any serious hiking in more then ten years, but i haven't owned a car for almost 20 either.
     
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  19. I'minmyunderwear

    I'minmyunderwear Newbie

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    most of my camping has consisted of a tent in the dirt, but then most of my camping has also involved enough alcohol to not care where i sleep. i think sleeping in a nice camper with amenities but still generally in nature would be pleasant.
     
  20. 6-eyed shaman

    6-eyed shaman Sock-eye salmon

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    I take that back....


    I go glamping whenever I stay the night on the pot farm where I work.
     

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