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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3 young girls -my father “supervised” the putting up of a 5 person tent! Then we got to sleep pretty much on the hard ground, and scratch mosquito bites all night! HATED tent camping! My husband & I started out in a tent with a Great Dane and a parakeet. We hated that, too, but quickly moved up to a trailer & then motorhomes. That changed everything!
Part of every summer was spent at a nearby provincial park. We started out in a popup and graduated to a small pull behind.
Only once.
I grew up in a single parent home with a total of 11 children. Our mom was always working to keep food on the table and pay the bills so we didn’t travel much other than a couple trips a year to visit family. Our “camping” experiences were makeshift tents in the back yard, sleeping bags on the porch in summer. I had my first real camping trip, staying in an RV with my best friend’s family when I was a teen, and fell in love with the campground atmosphere.
My parents built a fold out camper from plans in a Popular Mechanics magazine. Our family of 7 camped as often as we could from Maine to Florida and Virginia to Texas for many years. In the late 60’s, Dad “traded in” the fold out for a single axle Mallard travel trailer. By then my older siblings were out of the house and camping was with my younger sister. We traveled from West Virginia to the west coast twice, camping the whole way. I have many fond camping memories and have visited all but 4 of the states. Unfortunately, I was not able to camp as often or as extensive with my children, but they still enjoy camping and do so with their children.
No but I camped a lot with a group I belonged too as a teenager and young adult
Yes, in a tent. Many trips included backpacking for days at a time as well.
My father bought a travel trailer when we were young. Every year we took month long ‘camping’ vacation. We spent more time on the road than we did camping. 8-10 hours driving for 2-3 days stopping only overnight before we reached our destination. Then only stayed a few days before starting the adventure again. 2-3 days traveling just to stop again for few days. 2 Adults and 4 kids in a 24 foot trailer.
It took many years before I ever wanted to camp again.
We would go to state usually once a year. On a rare occasion, twice in a year. Our mother hated it so we didn’t go very often.
Was lucky enough to have always camped growing up! From a large tent to a truck camper to a cozy bumper pull, all were full of adventures. Favorite of all was the truck camper that my Daddy and Grandpa made for our epic journey from Louisiana to Yellowstone in 1973. They made “a bed” across the width of the truck, right behind the back window of the truck, that served as my brother and my seat by day (only single cab trucks back then) with a water hose covered chain as our seatbelt. Parents had mattress under ours, cook stove & supplies rounded out our kitchen, pulling over for a picnic lunch was the norm. Haven’t thought of it in years so THANKS!
At least once per year, we camped. At first, in a tent, then two tents (there were 8 of us). Later, my parents bought a used tent trailer – luxury! – and we used that plus a tent.
Traveled and camped with a travel trailer while still in diapers. did that for many years. Then my parents bought a motorhome. the trips became much more adventurous after that. We went on at least one trip every year. Great memories…
We would go to a state park once a year, occasionally twice. Our mother hated it but Dad loved it. Thanks Dad!
Vacation every year growing up. Camping every year at the same campground because my mom and dad drove back and forth for work. To this day I still camp at the same campground as growing up because I can do the same thing as my parents. Drive back and forth to work.
My parents didn’t start camping until I was in the Marines, my brother who is 9 years younger got to go camping and boating, my sister who is 5 years younger also missed out because she was a teenager and had a part time job and couldn’t go.
No, but we had a summer cottage on a lake, in the woods, where we went every other weekend and 1 full week during the summer. We swam, trekked through the woods and had several camp fires, almost like camping.
Weekend trips to local lakes were common all summer, and nearly every year there would be a week or so of canoe camping on the Missouri. The early years were in a canvas tent: it weighed about ten tons and “don’t touch the sides!”
Tent. We were basically out two weeks at a beach spot, two weeks home, repeating all summer. The occasional trip to Big Sur, Yosemite, and various music festivals sprinkled in. We’d show up in the VW bus or station wagon with my folks, me and three sisters, and 2 German Shepherds. We’d wait till noon when the parks would allow entry, first come first served. Never had an issue getting a site all along the Southern California coast. ‘60’s and ‘70’s – days long gone by unfortunately.
Hunting and fishing trips mostly. With extended family. And at least monthly camping during summer in the mountains near home.
Tent a couple of times. My mother hated it. But camped a lot in the boy Scouts and a group of us growing up camped. Joined the military purchased my first 12′ tow behind and was totally hooked on camping with out bugs and raccoons
With 8 kids camping was about our only option for a vacation in the 60’s and into the 80’s. We had an all canvas top pop up camper, no ac, and 2 tents and one canoe. Can you imagine being the site next to us and seeing 8 kids roll out of a station wagon? We camped 80% of the time in the Adirondacks and that’s still my favorite place in earth.
Borrowed a neighbors home made popup camper and spent the most memorable week at Big Meadows in the Shenandoah National Park, c. 1960s.
My parents took us camping occasionally, but as a Boy Scout I camped with my Troop at least 3 or 4 times each summer. Also every summer I spent a week in Mammoth California at a YMCA Camp. Between the three I grew to love camping. In High School, we formed a group that would go at least once a month. We never knew where we were going, just that we were going. We would meet on Friday and each of us would put a piece of paper with a camping destination in a hat and draw our destination. This forced you to be ready for any kind of conditions, from the mountains to the beach. The best part was discovering new places each trip instead of going to the same campground all the time.
That’s a fantastic idea!
Yes, once. There are 10 of us kids. We went with my mom’s 3 siblings and their kids. Had a huge old canvas tent we borrowed from someone. We had a ball! Pretty certain the oldest siblings weren’t too happy about watching the younger ones (including cousins) off and on though! We camped at a state park on the water in Michigan. No idea which park though!
I started camping in the fifties in a tent at six months old. I spent numerous weekends and vacation weeks camping and fishing in Mass, New Hampshire and Maine as a child. We graduated to a pop up and then to several versions of 16′ trailers. Both the pop up and trailers were home made by my father and grandfather who were both carpenters. They we branded as “We Made”.
Went camping every month of the year in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. As I grew older, we slowly moved away from tents and backpacking into tent trailers and small motorhomes. Have camped all over the Pacific Northwest but nothing beats camping directly on the beach and waking up to the surf.
I’m lucky in that I now travel for work and can choose to stay in my RV rather than motels or apartments. Having my things with me is like like having my family when I’m on the road. The RV lifestyle is forever in my blood and I hope I have passed that onto my children!
As the 7th of 8 kids, I remember starting in a VW bus camper with the accompanying tent. We had 2 sets of bulk cots in the tent. When we all went, we older ones had to follow behind in the VW bug. As the older siblings went on their own, we upgraded to a Cox tent trailer. Great memories.
My parents didn’t ever take me and my 2 brothers camping but my younger brother and I did get to go a couple of times with an uncle and aunt.
My parents were avid campers since my grade school days. We went from a tent, cab over camper, Volkswagen camper bus and class C type. I’ll always remember in 72 the camping round road trip we took from S. CA to Boston in the Volkswagen camper bus with two adults, three kids, and a dog. I look back and still wonder how we did it. Doubt it if you would see any family of 5 today put up with those accommodations. 😁
Rather tha going to camp, my mother sent me to visit with relatives on the farm for two weeks every summer. Then, when I was 12, my parents bought a home-built trailer and we headed west. Not RVing as such, but the same experiences.
My folks had a Plymouth station wagon that we would travel in. We would tent camp or while traveling my parents slept in the back on an air mattress and I slept on the front seat. The dog slept on the floor in front of the seat. Dad loved to fish, so most spots were on some type of water. We had it all, the Coleman stove, cooler, lantern, camp chairs and it was great!! He was a master at packing and unpacking that station wagon. I loved it.
Ford station wagon and a Coleman tent. Pump style camping stove and camp light.
No reservations. Just show up and you could get a camp site.
I camped in a tent for 58 years and for the last 4 years in an RV. It was time to get off the ground. Last season I bought a fifth wheel and placed it on a seasonal site in NH. Love it, our fifth wheel is large and comfortable! The best part, I just turn a key, open the door to start our mini vacation. No more dealing with setting up or tearing down the camp each trip.
I’m much like you in that I’ve been seasonal camping for the last number of years. We got tired of dragging around the camper to sites that were getting harder to find and costing more every year. We love our seasonal campground and have no desire to go back on the road with the rv.
We were too poor and my parents never took vacations. Fortunately my grandparents lived on a lake 45 minutes away so we “vacationed” there often.
Emphatically no! Family of 9 kids, although age range never had us all together. Most was 5. Dad self employed tailor. Parents from Italy. Mom at home, parents also from Italy. So never a part of their lives. Also, Mom didn’t…and at 94, still doesn’t, like dirt! You could eat off the floors in our house. How she did it all with all us kids is beyond me. We did take year trips for 2 weeks from CA to CO, where both my Dad and Mom were from. Didn’t do much stopping, it was an express trip to maximize visiting, but I loved everything I saw out the window. We did take different routes…north, south. When my Dad’s days were coming to an end…at 97…I thanked him for at least taking those trips. That’s why I/we RV today.
We didn’t start camping until I was a teenager after we moved to Montana. My first camping trip (in bear country) was a real eye opener! That was the beginning of my love of the mountains and for camping. I’m still at it 60 years later!
“Camping” was spending a week with my dad hunting in the fall and staying in a tent. Otherwise we had a cottage at the lake we went to every weekend.
In a station wagon and tent. Mostly in Southern California on fishing trips both in the mountains and the beach. Was always lots of people but never any crowding… Far cry from today.
Yes, often, sometimes whole family, sometimes just my father, my brother & I. My father was troop leader for a scout troop in MD when I was young; my 4-yr older bro was in the troop. We often went on week-long trips along the Adirondack Trail. Later, they generally but not always were fishing trips + camping. After he retired from USAF we moved back to Colorado, his home state, and as a young … then not so young … adult, it was fishing and hunting trips, 7-10 days each for the next 40+ years. Great times.
In the 60’s in a station wagon and a big ol’ canvas tent. My mother complained, years later, that the only one not having fun was her. lol She was the one who had to pack the car (while Dad worked), organize clothing and food for 7 people, cook over a Coleman stove and do dishes in a washbasin outdoors…and then unpack everything when we got home (done on the Monday while Dad was at work). She said it was awful. Must be why we stopped tent camping and began renting a cottage for a week each summer instead. It cut down on her work load substantially!
As an adult I now realize that my mother had to do all the work while we played or sat around watching her. My dad did not help her prepare meals or clean up. But he did all the hard work of setting up and tearing down the tent. When I point out to my mom that she must have hated camping for that reason she replied that she loved it. She never felt like it was unfair for her to work that hard.
I said occasionally but it wasn’t my parents but my (16 yrs) older sister and family. In 1964, 5 of us took a trip from NY to the west coast and back with a non-airconditioned F85 station wagon and a very basic tent trailer. Great trip to many national parks and historic sites.
I was 6 mos old on my first camping trip. My parents had a 1959 Terry travel trailer. They had other truck campers and motorhomes after that. At 17, I bought my first RV. an 8’ truck camper, then a 12’. Then 3 trailers, and 4 motorhomes. After 60 years of camping I think we’ve found our ultimate RV. We bought our 40’ 2018 Tiffin 5 yrs ago and love it. We’re in it every chance we get.
My Mom loved camping and my Dad hated it. As a result I never did as a kid. That’s ok, as soon as I could drive I always had some form of camper.
My camping began with the Boy Scouts (1950’s). My parents were not campers – but did encourage my Scouting activities. A couple of school friends and I would camp along the river about two miles out of town -we would walk with backpacks and a tent or two. Great memories – but no more camping in a tent!!! Motor home is much better especially on the old bones!
My parents started out renting travel trailers towing with our station wagon. A few years later my dad bought a pick up and put a camper shell on it. It only had seats and a table. That’s where we (me and my 2 brothers) rode while he towed the new Airstream he bought. Years later, mom and dad divorced and dad became a full time RVer. Years later than that….I,m retired, a full time RVer myself, and find myself revisiting the same spots I did as a kid. My husband never did any camping as a kid but loves the life now. I’m so lucky!
Tenting since before I was born! At 66, I still tent camp in the summer with my 16 year old kids and our friends without an RV! BUT we do have and had RVs – took some great long road trips, too. Started driving my parents in their RV in the 1980’s (my dad got a brain tumor & could no longer drive) After his death, I drove my mom in her rig until she could no longer go (in her 90’s)!
My parents took us camping all the time. We continued the camping tradition with our daughter. Her first trip was when she was about 8 weeks old. We took a trip to Grandma’s in California.
Yes, we went camping. Tents, ground cloths, Coleman stove and lanterns. Camp fires, and living in the outdoors, enjoying nature. Quiet places, where the animals visit your tent to see who’s inside.
They have running water, but you must know how to operate that pump, by hand, or fetch the water from the stream.
You chopped that fire wood with an axe, using your own energy.
Yes things have changed, it’s a new world today, automation and all that noise comes with you.
And then some complain about all that noise in that RV Park.
Now they call them resorts, with attractions and of course more noise.
We had a VW bus and tented, then a Willys Jeep, my dad put brackets on the outside and inside for shelving on the inside and a table on the outside. We camped with tents and jungle hammocks. 2 adults and 4 kids, and a dog. It was wonderful.
Well different but camping just the same. I went to Camp Appalachia, on the Jackson River, in the mountains of Virginia for 2 months every summer from age 8 till I became a counselor there at age 17. Stayed in cabins with bunk beds, no electricity and the pit toilets were 500 yards away! Loved it. Still camping but in an RV at 82.
Back in the mid 1950’s My Dad converted an old 1949 Dodge Box truck into our “camper” He painted it a deep Robin egg Blue and we called it the Blue Goose. He built cots that were connected by chains and could be lowered for sleeping. We had an ice box, a 2 burner coleman stove and an old sink that he installed and we could pump water through. Going up hills in this, he used to rock back and forth as if he were trying to coax it up the hillside. My brother and I had a blast in it. Everyone laughed at the “Blue Goose” but it worked for us.
We had a 1982 Dodge Van that my dad had an AC install in the back window. It was converted so it had a jack knife couch. We would camp in it and even drove from Texas to Canada on one trip. Guess I got the bug from that. 😃
We started out with a ‘Penta tent’ all canvas tent in the early 60s, and graduated to a Phoenix TT in 65. Mid 70s my parents bought a 5th wheel. My wife and I went camping on our honeymoon at the Straits and also went over to Mackinaw Island. We still enjoy camping. As do our kids and grandkids.
My father worked in the hills. Almost every weekend, from the time I was old enough to remember, I would go out there with him to camp in a canned ham, built in the 1950’s, to work with him. Many times we just had sleeping bags. When it rained we would trench around the sleeping bags and put a tarp under and over us. After I married and had kids we also went camping with either sleeping bags and a tent or just sleeping bags. One time while sleeping several skunks woke us up sniffing our hair at 2AM. And came back more than once.
We looked forward to the summers when dad had vacation time. We tent camped in National Parks. The most memorable experience was when a Yellowstone bear pulled our folded tent off the other items packed in the trunk (The lid was down but not latched bc of over load.) My mom and younger 3 year old brother came out of the restroom to see the bear sitting on the folded tent and eating a cheese loaf and eggs. When my brother and I returned from a fishing hike with my dad, we found my mom sitting in a locked car with some large rocks for ammo! This was in 1953 and I was in elementary school. My brother still has the tent with the claw tears in it!
After hearing other children describe what is now considered “wilderness camping”, I asked my parents to try the same. They had no idea and took me to a small campground where we pitched a tent among many others in an assigned space. Very disappointing, I wanted to be out atop a mountain, which they never did. As soon as i got to college, I started on my own, tent and bare bones small van but all in remote natural areas of course.
My dad said after serving in WW-2 he was done sleeping outside. He never talked much about what he did and saw but I do know it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Although he was an avid hunter before the war, he never picked up a gun after it. Therefore I never camped or went hunting with him. He did encourage me to join the Scouts and was always on hand to transport kids and supplies.
I put occasionally, but my child mind thot it to be often. Dad bought his first canned ham in the 1950s. We went out for summer vacations and every long holiday that Dad could get off. And a little Boy Scouts on the side.
my folks started camping the year I got out of high school just when I started working in a shop
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.
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.
I grew up camping all over Northern California in the 1960s. We had a tent and a boat – fishing, waterskiing. My favorite childhood memories.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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
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….
We tented it and my grand father bought a small trailer it was great. Used both most of the time.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.