As we begin the sad process of closing up our seasonal site for another year, it feels like a good time to do a list of the reasons Shea and I enjoy camping so much:
- We both camped lots with our own parents growing up so we know how it can create amazing memories for kids, parents and now, grandparents since we camp in the same park as Shea’s parents and my parents usually make it down a few times a season (including a surprise visit this weekend!)
- Although it can be as expensive as you make it (hello $100,000 motorhomes!), for us, it’s a relatively inexpensive activity that provides an entire summer of fun and entertainment compared to a few days in a hotel visiting expensive tourist attractions and eating in restaurants (though we enjoy that too!)
- Camping a wonderful way to enjoy the great outdoors – probably one of my favourite things is simply sitting in a reclining lawn chair with a book, a beer and some tunes but I also love going for walks around the campground (see #6), sitting around a campfire (see #7) and gazing at the stars (see #8).
- Sort of related to the last point – I always find that camping makes my “normal” life of work, mortgages, cable TV news and everything else stressful – easily drop away.
- As I mentioned yesterday, you meet lots of new people – both those passing through and also the people you get to know who also have seasonal sites.
- Shea and I aren’t exercise fiends but part of what we enjoy about camping is we often do daily (and sometimes multiple times per day) walks around our campground.
- Nothing tastes better than a hot dog cooked over a campfire and eating 99% of your meals outside means they all taste better too!
- There’s a ton of things you learn while camping about everything from different aspects of the natural world (plants! animals! stars!) to basic repairs (lots of room for ingenuity when something goes wrong camping) to how much you enjoy the smell of bleach in a camp washroom as a sign that it’s just been cleaned! 😉
- (Slight) disconnect from our devices. We still take them, we still use them but the campground where we have our seasonal site has somewhat spotty Internet so we don’t spend a lot of time on our devices while camping. We also don’t have TV (no satellite and we can’t even pick up antenna channels) so much of our activities and entertainment are the old fashioned kind – reading, playing cards, scavenger hunts, going to the beach, buying ice cream, etc.
- And this is very specific to us but I could (and did) write a list of reasons we particularly love our rPod camper so much!