Important Poll: What is camping to you?

[Overmydeadbody]

no, it's not really important, I'm just curious, and have a theory. Two questions really:

A) Is camping:

1. The event, the attraction, the activity and point of the holiday

1. Just cheap accomodation

1. A mix of 1 and 2

B) Are you:

1. Everything but the kitchen sink type camper (a tent with more than one room, table and chairs, awnings, carpet, cooking area, contents of playroom etc etc)

1. A minimalist camper

1. Somewhere in between

A 1
B 3 at festivals, 1 if just camping.

I am no spring chicken and there is NO WAY that I can sit comfortably on the ground, cook while squatting or kneeling etc. It is bad enough sleeping on the ground, takes me a while to lever myself up in the morning. I do try to compromise when we have to lug all the stuff for miles, hence the 3 for equipment when at festivals where you can't just park next to the tent.

Does your DH do a lot of whittling then?

The theory was just that if camping is the main event (i.e. A1) then you're less likely to be a minimalist camper, but if camping is just cheap accomodation while you do other things then you're not going to bother with making it a home away from home.

Not sure if this thread has proven that, but it certainly hasn't disproven it!

I'm looking forward to a camping trip with another family in the summer where the whole point of the trip is just camping, so it will not be minimalist. I'm looking forward to cooked breakfasts and the luxury of sitting in chairs etc

I'd say the opposite to your theory, for us the best bit of camping is the getting away from civilisation, communing with nature. washing in a stream, waking up in the middle of nowhere.

Even when we stay on campsites we still like camping for the outdoor aspect and we don't like too many facilities. I like my children having to play with sticks and pebbles and streams, no dvds or clubhouses.

I do have a good penknife for whittling though. But just one knife for everything.

Ahh... well that rather begs the question, what is minimalist camping to you?

A, not being able to heat up your hair straightners at the same time as your eyelash curlers

B, You can find leaves almost anywhere, why waste space on toilet roll?

A. 1

B.1

Camping, to me now, is the Devil's work. I have to camp for two nights in July for a karate thing and my tent has become something for everyone to guffaw at.

Last year my friend and I had to refuse a lift to anyone else as we'd filled my Ford Focus (seats down) with duvets, pillows, mattresses, a table, chairs, two stoves, food for a fortnight, three large bags of clothes each (ok so one each was for our gis), booze, torches etc etc.

Believe me, if I could find a hotel near enough that I could sneak back and pretend I'd slept in the tent I would.

A: 1, love it love it love it
B: 3. As I have got old and doddery I need more of me ole home comforts about me, but no carpet, sink, awning, separate cooking area, so still slightly minimalist.

Like Bear Grylls, PlumpRump?

A3

B3

I quite like camping but it's not my first choice of holiday but the dc love it so it's really for their sake.

We live in London and I think city kids need to experience it - in fact everyone probably does. It's not just about being in the country, it's about learning to live in a different way for a few days.

No tv, no pc etc.

A) 1; it is a major hobby for all of us, part of our family identity

B) somewhere in the middle, no TV / satellite crap but equally yes to a large tent and carpet- it has tro still be comfy and as we camped with a 5 week old last year the little things mattered

We ahve a specific camping buggy with its own bag that we can put on roofrack (only a Woolies Special but only used for camping LOL)

a) 3
b) 3

I'd sometimes choose other kinds of accommodation if money really was no object. I'd be less minimalist if my car wasn't so small. I would never go camping without the means for making a decent cup of morning coffee.

'I somtimes longingly look at the everything ut the kitchen sink campers on the campsite with but then I open the wine and it doesn't matter that we are roughing it any more '

Been there and done the hiking and stopping sorta vaety; but the difference is I woudln't do that with four kids LOL

A - 1
B - 3

A-1
B-3

A 1

B 3

It is an opportunity to seek solace with nature, be closer to DH and DTS and to just just relax.

hot sex!

oh, didn't see the OP, just answered the thread title

dh likes the smell of canvas, what can I say...

snap

(only we haven't got a canvas tent!)

A1 B2... though moving towards 3 now dc2 has arrived

1 and 1.

Couldn't do 2, tho used to in my younger days

A. 3
B. 1

First trip in 16 years starts tomorrow though so things may change!

1 & 1 for us. We even go camping when the children go to grandparents for the week in the summer. Still take the 12 man tent for the two of us and basically don't do much other than cycle to local pubs, read and mooch around.

1 and 1 for us - we even take a microwave now we have DCs. No carpet though - how does that work? I like that idea!

It depends what the camping is for. I used to camp when climbing. Was actually easier to stay in rougher places like bunkhouses then go climbing. When met my German girlfriend in Mongolia we were camping in "gers" on the steppe so it was easier.

I took her up to Scotland camping B4 kids. She had never seen horizontal rain till we got camping on Skye!.

Last year we tried camping on Corsica using a fam tent I found at the local dump recycle centre. Tent was great, apart from waking up in the night with my poor son's diarrhoea bum in my face in Restonica...