Nothing quite says summer camping like sitting around the campfire at night – fingers sticky with marshmallow, clothes absorbing that delicious campfire scent, and the crackle of the fire slowly lulling you to sleep. Is there anything better?
In a typical summer month, about how many nights will you have a campfire? Will you have one often? Every night? Once a week? Maybe just once or twice? Or never? Please tell us by voting in the poll below. Thank you! And if you ever see us having a campfire at a campground, bring over some marshmallows (wine will do too) and we’ll surely become quick friends.
By the time the fire burns down, it is way past my bed time.
A campfire is almost MANDATORY when I’m out camping! And i have a small propane fire pit on my deck, so I can have a small fire anytime. I will go sit outside, have a nice cigar, and maybe some music, and a nice adult beverage. It’s the good things that make life worth living.
Absolutely agree, for us its also mandatory. We grew up as kids, hanging around a campfire in our neighborhood. (today no one would allow such a thing for neighbor kids of course). Lots of stories and comments to make about that, but also when we went camping, its like have a campfire was the major item. We still feel like something is missing if we don’t have a campfire, even if we have to bring out the propane one.
Whether we have a campfire or not depends where we are staying. If a NP or NFS sure we have a campfire if a commercial cg many don’t have a fire ring.
Being a snowbird we have a LP campfire maybe half the nights or 15/month. During the summer we only camp 3 or 4 outings and the campfire is a social event that getting together with friends allows the campfire to be a focus point for the evening.
Since a majority of the cooking we do while traveling is done over a fire, unless we’re going out to eat, we’ll have a fire – at least long enough to get the meal cooked.
Our family loves campfires. We own a recreational property where we have no neighbours..and have the fire going from morning til bedtime, each and every day if the weather allows. At home, we have an outdoor firepit in our yard and use it mostly 2-3 afternoons a week during winter, and then 2-3 evenings during spring and fall. Rarely have a fire in the backyard during summer because we’re up at our property having one there!
All of our kids also love having a fire in the backyard. We find it very relaxing. Often there is no one talking, just gazing, thinking, smelling, listening and relaxing.
My fires will be at home. With restrictions in place against bringing in wood[and I agree with that], I am not willing to pay what they charge for firewood.
I have hated campfires since childhood. I was the one, no matter where I was, the smoke came to me. Now, as I sit in my RV, it seems the guy next to me lights a fire and it blows directly into my rig. I don’t complain, but breathing smoke makes me sick.
We like the look of campfires, but between the time required to setup and maintain, we haven’t found it worth the effort. Even when we haven’t had a campfire at our site, it seems if there are a lot of campfires in the campground, we smell the smoke from others campfires late in to the night, inside our motorhome. We invested in a small portable propane fire pit that works well, looks nice, yet we rarely use it. The wife hates bugs and mosquitos, so after one bite, we’re inside.
I think this needs to be broke down into a two part question to get better results. I for one use a campfire to cook when camping. But then again I am not living in my RV full time. I think you will find full timers do not use or set around a camp fire as much as folks that camp for vacation get-a-ways. Just my opinion but would be interesting if you broke down the poll to see if I am correct.
I agree with you. We are full timers and whether or not we have a fire depends completely on where we are and what the temp is. But even if it’s cool, a campfire isn’t as big a deal to me as it might be for those on a weekend camping trip.
We probably have 50 fires a year and cook on 40 or more of them. But if we start full-timing that will probably change, fires and cooking over the fire would become less important.
We are rarely camping in the summer. It’s hot in FL in the summer and we don’t enjoy sitting inside in the A/C during the day. We can do that at home. Most of our camping in the other three seasons are two or three nights close to home. On those trips we will have a campfire once or twice. Cooking a steak over the fire and baking a couple potatoes in the coals is a requirement for every trip.
Here in Nebraska it all depends on the wind. If the wind is howling no fire, no wind campfire. Good way to use up all the bits and pieces of wood from my shop. Hate to throw anything away.
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I am assuming this means while we are out camping. The answer depends. If it is cool enough every night. Lately it has been warmer here in Colorado so we have not wanted a campfire.
Only gas fire pits should be allowed and wood fires banned in ALL private, state and federal parks!!!!!
Curmudgeons are the biggest issue when camping lately.
Too funny! (Get off my lawn)
Agreed!
We heat our sticks & bricks home 100% with a glass-front wood-stove. Having a fire while camping has zero appeal. Unless you build a zero-smoke wood fire, I hate your fire while I’m camping.
This is precisely what we do too, Irv. We had a new insert installed last year and it is wonderful. Three or four hunks of firewood keep the living room end of the house warm while the bedroom is cool. Oftentimes when we find ‘leftover’ firewood, I grab it to take home. I know I’ll get some pushback for this, but that’s what we do. I now look at campfires as heating wood going to waste. 😄
I was going to write a similar response. Since we heat by wood all winter, I have almost zero desire to have a fire during our very dry summer season when we go camping. I do love our warm winter heat from fires during our cold wet winters.
I grew up in the 50s and started camping at age 5 and things were different then. Back then we didn’t have cook stoves. I learned how to start a camp fire and to cook over it. I also learned how to build a fire that minimalized smoke. This is something I continue to do but it is becoming a thing of the past because it takes time to do it right. We live in an Instant society.
Campground campfires are like loud music. They belong out in a remote site.
My wife suffers from breathing difficulties and smoke is not good for her whether from our fire or the neighbors as it drifts into our rig.
Campfires should not be allowed in an RV park where vehicles (containing tanks of fuel) are parked within 50 feet of each other. Then there is the issue of the smoke…subjecting anyone to unwanted smoke is extremely rude.
Stay in a motel then !!!
Seldom, but we do enjoy a campfire. The last couple of years in CO there have been fire bans due to the extremely dry conditions. We did purchase a small propane fire pit that we have yet to use, but are looking forward to trying on an upcoming 2 1/2 week trip.
I answered “almost never” because we like to have a campfire for cooking our hamburgers (and sometimes marshmallows) in the early evening, once or twice during a 3-day camping trip. We put the fire out after that and don’t sit around a campfire at night (like we used to do when we were tent campers.)
A sign at a small mom & pop campground read:
“We are just a campground
We are not some kinda resort
Don’t bitch about the campfires
Instead go stay at a resort.”
I guess they got tired of people wanting to stay cheaply and expect the everyone to comply with their desires. They also sold firewood.
Where is this campground??? I want to camp there. Tell it like it is !!!
Unfortunately they went out of business when the park flooded.
The DW is highly asthmatic. She can’t tolerate any avoidable atmospheric pollutants. We hide inside when there is campfire smoke. Many have gone to propane campfires for this reason. We understand that it is our problem, not others’. When asked to join in, we politely explain our issue. Some will accommodate us, some won’t. Such is life. I will not get offended and call “The Authorities”.
You sound like good people!
We’ll have a campfire every night if possible and use it for cooking and ambience. If a neighbor comes to tell me they have a health problem with the smoke and is nice about asking, we’ll switch to propane. When they do it with an attitude, well….. that’s a whole different story.
We average 30 to 40 nights of camping per season which include a fire if the weather permits and also have fires at home on many off weekends.
Campfires seem to be de rigeur for most RVers. I suspect that is because most began as tent campers. I came to RVing from a lifetime of sailing. I never build a campfire because no one has a campfire in the cockpit of a sailboat.
Campfires are a camping tradition for cooking on and toasting marshmallows.
Maybe they could have smoking and no smoking sections in campgrounds.
I’m a full-timer and use my gas bbq a lot, but almost never have an open fire. I think they are too much trouble and the smoke is bothersome to so many people. I like being a good neighbor.
I can’t answer the poll because it doesn’t have a choice that fits what we do for fires when camping. So I’ll explain, that we do propane fires not campfires. There’s no smoke to worry about and they are allowed usually even when campfires aren’t. We do them every night when we’re camping. Thanks!
Lately every summer we have a fire ban- so no campfires, even in designated fire rings. I may have to get a propane campfire to have my marshmallows!
zero times. we don’t travel or camp in the summer.
When I weekend camp in my camper I have a fire every night if I can scrounge the wood from the woods. If I’m camping for 4-6 weeks in my tent I don’t.
I said rarely, but let me expand. I will do charcoal fires for cooking but rarely just light a wood fire for ambience. The hassles of hauling wood (many areas have restrictions), fire bans, and other growing issues just made it less interesting. When I was younger it was fun, but now all I want to do is relax with a good drink, a good book, and a quiet evening.
Dad’s dutch oven cooking interest got passed to me. That includes cooking over an actual campfire. I also enjoy sitting around a small fire with family and friends, talking, not talking, contemplating the stars, and watching for the bats that come after bugs the fire attracts. I never build one of those campfires that leave the inhabitants of Pluto wondering what blew up on Earth. I also don’t have fires when it’s slightly dry and/or even a little bit windy. I’ve seen the horizon at night looking like the flaming edge of hell because of a range fire–unfortunately, more than once. That’s something I never want to be cause of.