Did you camp as a child with your parents? Did you head to the mountains or the ocean shore on weekends, or maybe even take long trips in the summer, perhaps visiting National Parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite? Maybe in the winter your family headed south, maybe to camp in Death Valley, where you could enjoy mild temps while back home your friends were dealing with snow and ice.
Did you camp with a tent, or did your family own an RV? Or maybe you started with a tent and then moved up to a travel trailer or even a motorhome.
After you respond to the question, would you please take a moment and tell us about your camping trips, or even why you never were unable to enjoy the experience of camping as a child. Did camping as a child contribute to your desire to camp as an adult?
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I joined the Boy Scouts at 11 and backpacked pretty much once a month with them until I was 17. That was where I got my love of camping. But on vacations with my Dad and Stepmother, it was motels. No sleeping on the ground for them. Around the time I graduated from high school, my dad did buy a trailer, and then after retirement, a motor home.
Grew up in central
California (please don’t hold it against me) and every summer we traveled north to the Redwoods for a week or two of camping. All three of us kids grew up appreciating nature and the great outdoors. Lots of great memories.
My family tent camped. My early memories are camping in an Army surplus heavy canvas tent that smelled of waterproofing oil in the summer heat. As kids we liked sleeping outside if the weather permitted. Great times.
A HUGE Ted Williams multi room canvas monstrosity for the 6 of us all over the east coast growing up. We had the station wagon with the rear facing seat and a large cargo box on the top of the station wagon designed by the engineer, my father. Saw many great things and stayed in national / state parks with a simple existence. I still have the camp kitchen, as designed by my father, the engineer, that we use and will be passing on to my daughter and son in law for their family.
I went camping once and hated it. We, particularly I, were ill-prepared and the weather did not cooperate. Went RVing with in-laws several times over 5 or 6 years before we bought our own. We travel, given all the amenities our RV has, not camp. So, only one time ever.
Almost every weekend in the summer. We tent camped or with a tarp over the back of a 5 ton truck. Trout fishing in the mountains. Loved it as a little one hated it as a late teen. Dances and girls were the priorty. After all us kids left they bought a travel trailer.
Camped with my sister and parents from the time I was born, did every kind, old cabin on an island, a lot in the country and a 13’ pull along camper then a 15’ to a 17’. Then a log cabin on a lake until I got married and started my own family on camping.
Started out tent camping but when I was about 8 years old, my parents bought a slide-in truck camper. It was one of the larger ones that hung out past the tailgate. Good thing, because there were six of us in there on multiple cross-country trips to visit family. We lived in California and the rest of our family lived in Massachusetts and Florida.
We took mostly water ski trips. We started with a station wagon & tent, then several truck campers, then a “mini motorhome” (before the class C designation). Now we fulltime in a large 5ver. That childhood experience made the transition to full timing far less intimidating.
Yes, but they were called “fishing trips” by my Dad, mostly to lakes in Arkansas. We didn’t have a tent, slept in sleeping bags on Army cots under the trees. And yes, I did learn to fish too. (This was in the ’40’s and ’50’s.)
We tented it and my grand father bought a small trailer it was great. Used both most of the time.
Northeast US travel, began as family of 4 adding 2 more over the years. Started with a large 2 room tent. My neighbor sold us the coolest used pop up with 3 beds on one end, dinette, frig & sink with the tail end dropping down allowing access while traveling at the back end that slept 11. Set up in our yard for sleepovers when we weren’t traveling during the summer.
My favorite memories revolve around the game room found in every campground where us kids would hang out (& cause some issue or another I seem to remember) and watching black bears in the Adirondacks on the trash dumps. Stars were incredible back then thanks to the dark skies….
I don’t remember a “first” camping trip. Until some time in the 60s we just put our sleeping bags on the ground, used lake or stream water for drinking & washing. We’d scrub the cast iron pan with sand from the creek/lake bottom. Then my mom made a teepee from a half parachute. I could locate our camp from anywhere – just look for the tall orange & white striped teepee
Not my parents. But my grandparents did. A childhood memory I will always cherish.
Yes, same here. I cherish my memories of camping with my grandparents in their small trailer. The experience imprinted on my several noble traits. First among them: “Leave it better than you found it.”
Nope they sure didn’t. But, me and my friends would go camping without our parents when we were teens. In a tent. Usually one tent for all of us.
Growing up in the seventies, small town Kansas, camping was about the only thing my parents could afford. They would buy a annual sticker for each vehicle (one for the truck and one for the car mom would drive pulling the old boat) and we would go to one of the nearby reservoirs about every weekend. They were first come first serve back then but always seemed to be plenty of spots available. The boys always set up tents since we didn’t want to sleep in the camper with my parents and sisters.
My parents got me into the Boy Scouts. I tent camped and roughed it under the stars. My Mother would not have been caught dead camping. She was a depression baby. She made sure I had real food. No hot dogs or marshmallows. I grew up in coal camps in Ky and WVa. So camping was often just a,hike over the mountain. It was a simpler,time.
Did a lot more tent camping with friends out in the woods surrounding our small town. I would also venture off on my own sometimes. Back then the local farmers all let us camp wherever we wanted as long as all gates were left as we found them.
That said my family also vacationed with a “primitive” 9′ pickup camper on Dad’s 3/4 ton Chevy pickup. It had a bucket for a toilet. No AC power, just off a battery to run lights. It had a small heater but no fan, just convection. There was a very small DC/gas fridge.
Dad hated cities so we always went West or S/SW from Minnesota. The Dakotas, Wyoming & Montana mostly, but as far south as San Antonio, TX where my Aunt lived. My brother and I rode up in the over cab bunk. There were sliding windows between the cab and camper.
Yep, watching the road from the cab-over bunk, great memories!
I grew up camping all over Northern California in the 1960s. We had a tent and a boat – fishing, waterskiing. My favorite childhood memories.
My parents camped before I was born. Once I came along, our first trip was Yosemite, in a cab-over rented camper. As the years advanced we camped in ski resort parking lots, and boondocked often. When my parents divorced camping did not resume until they got a used class-c. In ’96 they purchased a new class-a Flair. My family hasv since taken over the Flair. We have added 18K miles and covered 7 western States.
My parents and a few friends pooled some money, bought a 35 acre parcel of land in the mountains, and built a shack on it. We did have electric and running cold water if the stream was flowing. It was so much fun “roughing it”. My mother wasn’t fond of not having the modern conveniences but I loved it. Fortunately, I was able to have access to it well into my adult life as an escape from the rat race of everyday life. That’s probably why I like boondocking so much.