Camping With Kids. Goldie Silverman
$100, $120, $150, or $190. Larger tents from Campmor that sleep six to eight are $260 and $330. Your local outdoor store or warehouse outlet will often have deals as good as or better than these.
If you’re a garage sale or thrift shop fan, you can often find good deals on a used tent. Some communities hold gear swaps, another good source for a used tent, but remember it’s buyer beware when you buy a used tent.
Sometimes a friend is willing to lend a tent, so you can try camping before you spend any money. Some people are reluctant to share their outdoor equipment because it requires good care.
In that case, you may have to rent. (See the section on renting.) Rental fees for tents will vary with the size of the tent and the season; expect to pay more if you rent over a holiday weekend. My most recent REI price list gave the fee of $28 for the first day and $14 for each additional day for a five- to six-person tent. Prices may have gone up since then. In addition to REI, many of your local sporting goods and outdoor stores will rent tents and camping equipment. Wherever you rent, don’t expect a lot of choices; you have to be content with what’s available. If you rent for your first trip and plan to continue camping, it might be wise to put your rental fees toward your purchase.
A spacious three-room tent sleeps six to eight.
Regardless of the size of the tent you plan to take, or whether it’s rented, bought, or borrowed, you should practice setting it up outside on your lawn or in a park before you go. In fact, it’s a good idea to put it up and take it down several times, so that you won’t get into a situation like Maggie did on her first trip. Her family arrived at the campground late, and they had to set up an unfamiliar tent in the dark, trying to read the instructions by flashlight.
Tents are fine in the summer, but if you’re planning a camping trip in the fall or early spring, you and especially your children might find the tent inadequate. You may need a more substantial home away from home, like a motorhome or a camper with a heater or at least some protection from the wind.
Some years ago, my husband and our youngest son went off to the mountains in early autumn for a father-son weekend with Indian Guides, a program of the YMCA. They were guests in a camper truck. During the night, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the groceries in the truck—bananas, oranges, bread, sitting outside on the counter—froze solid, but the milk, inside the well-insulated cooler, remained liquid.
On another, longer vacation some years ago, my family rented a travel trailer that we hitched to a station wagon. When we stopped for a few days, we unhitched the trailer and left it in camp while we went off exploring in the wagon. We found the trailer cozy during the rainy nights on the Oregon coast, but when we cooked inside on the propane stove, all the windows ran with moisture.
That was a long time ago. Today, there are many more options for shelter, depending on what you require for comfort and what you can afford to pay.
RV Camping
An RV can be one of several kinds of rolling homes. The critical component is that all have wheels. 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, microwave and exhaust fan, and a holding tank for waste from the kitchen and bath. Some have a “dual fuel” refrigerator, which runs on electricity or propane. Others have slide-out walls that zoom out to create more living space when they are parked.
The most luxurious of RVs is the motorhome, a small or sometimes not so small, bus or van where the driver’s compartment is open to the living space. But an RV can also be a trailer or a living unit—a camper mounted on a pick-up truck.
CHECKLIST
Questions to Ask About RVs
In a motorhome, passengers ride in the living areas. Sometimes there is a second set of swivel chairs, with seat belts, behind the driver and co-pilot. There is more leg room and “wiggle room” in these spaces than there is in a conventional automobile, and children who tend to poke each other in the car can be separated more easily. Motorhomes have one or more television sets, which some parents find useful in keeping the kids occupied during long drives.
When you stop for the night with a motorhome, you don’t just park it. You have to level it, with jacks or ramps, so that all the appliances will work properly. On some models, the jacks are part of the frame. It’s easier to do this leveling if your campsite has a concrete pad, but in more primitive campgrounds you may have to park on dirt or gravel.
When the RV campers stop, they prefer the kind of park where they have a complete hook-up, which means they connect to water, electricity, and sewer, although some sites have only water and electricity. Some private parks also provide phone, internet, and cable TV connections. If the RV campers must take a campsite without a sewer or water hook-up, they can use the park’s water and bathroom facilities. Some campers pull out portable generators that run on gasoline to power their motorhomes when there is no electrical connection. Other campers sometimes complain that these generators are too noisy, but I was assured by the dealers at the RV show that the new models are quiet. Still, most parks have hours when the generators can’t be run.
Many motorhomes have luxurious interiors.
Because they are self-contained, RV campers are also able to stop in areas with no facilities at all. They call this kind of camping “dry camping,” which means that they are totally dependent on the gas, water, and batteries that they carry to supply all their needs. I once saw an RV, obviously occupied, parked on a street in San Francisco early in the morning, but most dry campers are like my friend Deborah. Deborah and her family are hikers. They like to park their RV at the end of the road where several trails lead off into the mountains. Every day, they hike up to a different destination, and then come down again to spend the night in their RV.
Dry campers must calculate very carefully how they use their resources. One long shower could empty the water tank. Too long a stay without a stop at a dumping station might overload their waste-holding tank. Deborah carries a water filter so they can augment their water supply by pumping water from a lake or stream for cooking and drinking, and showers are strictly limited.
When you stop for the night with a motorhome, your vehicle stops with you. You can’t take off to go exploring unless you are towing a second vehicle. Our friend Henk refers to the small sedan he pulls as his “dinghy,” likening it to the little boat attached to a big cruiser. On steep mountain grades when the motorhome is working hard, they detach the dinghy and his wife drives it until they reach more level ground. Like most drivers who tow a small car, Henk prefers to camp at a site that is a pull through, meaning that he can drive straight ahead when he leaves. It’s hard to back up a big motorhome, and even harder with the dinghy attached. Henk warned that not all