Camping With Kids. Goldie Silverman
their self-contained bathroom, and now they’re having lasagna, hot from the microwave oven, and a fresh green salad. After they eat, they might wander over to the clubhouse to play Ping-Pong, or they might watch television or a movie.
Down the road, at a public campground, three other kids are crowded around a table in their pop-up tent-trailer. They showered at the bathhouse down the road, and now they are having a thick stew that was prepared at home, carried in a cooler, and warmed on a propane stove. After they eat, they might wander down to the ranger’s nightly talk, or they might just stay in their bunks and read by the light of the wall lamps.
Nearby, at the same public campground, three more kids are sitting at a picnic table under a rain fly, eating hot dogs roasted on the fire pit at their campsite. They skipped their shower. After they eat, they, too, might attend the ranger’s talk, or they might crawl into the sleeping bags in their tent, where one of their parents will read to them by the light of a headlamp.
If you were to ask any of these children how they spent their vacations, they would all give the same answer: “We were camping.”
What is camping? Here’s my definition: spending the night up close to nature within a beautiful natural setting. Is staying in a tent in a state or national park camping? Definitely. Is hiking in that same park and going home to sleep camping? No, because you’re not staying overnight. Is staying in a hotel or resort within that park or right next to it camping? Not if you have to go down a flight of stairs or cross a lobby to get from your bed to the park. Is sleeping in a yurt, a cabin, or an RV considered camping? If you can step from your temporary home directly out to nature, then yes, you are camping.
So, what kind of camper are you? What can you tolerate? If you need a really comfortable bed to sleep in every night, you should opt for an RV. If you can sleep on an inflated mattress or even on a tarp on the ground, you could camp in a tent. If you must start every day with a hot morning shower and a clean set of clothes, go for the RV. If it doesn’t bother you to skip your shower for a day or two or even three, and if you can happily turn your shirt inside out or backward to create a clean shirt front, you can be a tent camper or even a backpacker.
What about meals? Does cooking over an open, smoky fire bring out the caveman or cavewoman in you, the connection to our earliest ancestors, or do you prefer your built-in burners, oven, microwave, and exhaust fan? In the evening, do you eat or dine?
To discover what kind of camper you are, consider the amenities you might find in an RV versus the features of tent camping, and then take an imaginary journey in your mind to decide where you and your family fit best.
IMAGINARY CAMPING
What Kind of Camping is Best for You?
To find out what kind of camper you are, practice imaginary camping. As you go through the activities of daily living, brushing your teeth and combing your hair, for example, or getting the kids ready for bed, or preparing meals and then cleaning up afterward, think about how you would carry out those activities in a camp setting. Are you willing to discreetly brush your teeth at a campsite? Could you dress the kids in their pajamas while you were kneeling on the floor of a tent? Imagine yourself carrying out those tasks in the open air with a picnic table and a tent as your only furnishings. Ask yourself:How long would my family be able to live under those circumstances. One night? A week?
Next, try to imagine performing those same tasks, at the same campsite, but with a van or a trailer that provided you with beds and a solid roof overhead. Imagine the same tasks in an RV with a sitting room and a separate bedroom.
Now move your imaginary tent or van or RV from a primitive state park with a lake but no indoor plumbing or hookups, to a plush private campground with a heated swimming pool, a playground, and a recreation center with a game room and movies every night. Ask yourself the same questions:How long would we be able to live under those circumstances. One night? A week?
Which scenario do you see yourself in? Don’t answer immediately. Take several days to think about it.
RV Amenities
An RV can come with all the appointments of your home kitchen—a refrigerator, freezer, stove, oven, microwave, and exhaust fan. RV campers can dine on gourmet foods, cooked and eaten indoors at a beautifully set table. An RV has built-in couches and a dinette table with benches or chairs. There are lots of cupboards and drawers so you can bring along books and games and other toys. The dinette and some of the couches convert into beds, and there is often another bed in a room of its own, which gives parents a measure of privacy.
RVs usually have kitchen and bathroom sinks, a toilet, a shower (or sometimes a bathtub), and one or more television sets. On long drives, the kids can watch their favorite videos. Some motorhomes have washers and dryers, although many campgrounds do not allow guests to run these appliances because they draw too much current.
Quick Quiz
What’s Your Camp Style?
1. How many clean fronts does a T-shirt have? Circle the right answer: 1 2 3 4
2. A campfire is:
a. a place to cook dinner.
b. the center of a social circle.
3. At minimum, a comfortable bed must have:
a. an inner-spring mattress.
b. a thin foam pad.
c. a tarp to cover the bare ground.
4. I can’t eat unless I have:
a. a table set with cloth, napkins, and china dishes.
b. no flies or mosquitoes.
c. a chair or bench with a comfortable back.
d. all of the above.
Answers: If your T-shirt has four clean fronts, if you cook on a campfire, and if you eat and sleep on the ground, you can be a backpacker. If your T-shirt has only one clean front, if you socialize around the fire, if you sleep on a mattress, and if you dine in style, you should choose an RV. Anyone in between can be a tent camper.
Some models of RVs have walls that slide out, making the interior even larger. On another outside wall, most have an awning, creating a shady haven for lounging or cooking outdoors. Often there is room underneath for bringing along tricycles, bicycles, and scooters.
RV amenities might include a satellite dish.
RVs are self-contained, which means that they carry propane gas for cooking and heating, a water supply for kitchen and bath, batteries for lights and television, and a holding tank for waste from the kitchen and bath. However, most RV campers prefer to park where they have a complete hookup, which means they connect to water, electricity, and sewer. Some private parks have deluxe hookups that also include cable and telephone service, and almost all parks have a dumping station so the holding tank can be emptied.
Features of Tent Camping
Tent campers do not have luxury kitchens. They cook outdoors over a fire or on a one- or two-burner gasoline or propane stove. They bring long-handled tools for roasting hot dogs or marshmallows, and aluminum foil for cooking in the coals. Tent campers store perishable foods in an ice chest and dry foods in a tightly closed container. At night they must store their foods where animals can’t get them. Some campgrounds provide creature-proof storage; in others, the food goes back in the car or it’s hung from a tree. Tent campers eat at picnic tables, sitting on benches that have no backs. While some bring folding chairs for lounging around the fire, many campers sprawl on the ground.
There are no bathrooms in a tent; you either shower in a bathhouse, if there is one, bathe in a basin, or skip it. Some campgrounds provide flush toilets in the bathhouse, but more primitive camps have only outhouses. Some campers carry portable potties to avoid a long walk to the outhouse in the middle of the night.
Tent