Friday 1 November 2019

Lee Special - Camping Tips

Lee here, and I've got another Hints & Tips article for you, this time on the subject of camping.

Tent Camping
I've touched on this previously, but it's worth saying again. When Americans talk about camping, don't assume a tent is involved. In the UK camping always implies sleeping under canvas, but in the US this could mean any kind of outdoors accommodation, including staying in a camper or RV. In the UK, we'd call this caravanning.

We soon found ourselves using the term "tent camping" to make it clear to people what we were doing.

Booking
While it may not suit those taking a more laissez faire attitude to their trip, we'd recommend booking your pitch well in advance. A lot of the National Parks open up their booking windows 6 months in advance, but timings do vary, so make sure you check. For some popular campsites - for example, Yosemite - there is so much competition for campsites that they will typically sell out seconds after going on sale. Yep, hundreds of sites gone in a matter of seconds, literally. 

I think a lot of these sites still have a problem with bots - automated software that books up sites as soon as they go on sale, many for subsequent resale at massively-inflated prices. I don't understand why the Parks Service doesn't put some simple protection like a Captcha in place to stop this.

However quick you think the campsite is going to sell out, I'd recommend doing a bit of research as to which area of the campsite you'd prefer to stay in. I used a combination of the campsite maps, satellite imagery and online reviews to choose a pitch that we'd like. There are lots of things to consider, some more important than others for you. My criteria were as follows:

  • somewhere close to the toilets but not right next to them; I don't want to walk miles for my 2:00am wee, but I also didn't want to be kept up all night by flushing toilets and hand dryers
  • likewise for water spigots (stand-pipes), close but not too close; these can often get waterlogged and people tend to do their dishes in them, which is often prohibited as it can attract wildlife
  • whilst we were in the South and South-West in the height of summer, a pitch with shade gave you a lot of relief from the heat; tree cover also gave you a little protection from high winds and heavy rain
  • that pitch right by the water may look lovely, but be aware that you might get inundated with mosquitoes or sand flies
  • if there is segregation of tents and RVs, you might want to position yourself away from the RV section, otherwise you could be disturbed by the constant chug of generators (yes, even outside of designated "quiet hours")

For booking Yosemite, I actually took a day off work and had multiple browser windows up ready to book one of our preferred pitches. Five seconds after they were released, I only managed to get my 4th choice! This was all wasted effort in the end, as our plans for Yosemite were ultimately thwarted by nature.

Some campsites don't take reservations, which means you have to plan slightly different for these:

  • plan to arrive early
  • have contingency plans

Facilities
The US is far more set up for camping than we are in the UK. Not without the odd exception, your tent pitch typically contains at least a fire pit complete with removable grill for cooking, and a large picnic bench. You will have seen this setup in lots of our videos, and makes the whole preparing, cooking, eating and packing away process a doddle.

Having said that, it was obvious that RVing is much more popular than tent camping in the US. Campsites typically had a lot more large and hard-standing pitches for RVs than for tents, and the latter tended to be a little on the small side. 

An essential purchase we made fairly early on - after seeing many of our neighbours' setup - was a cheap plastic tablecloth from Walmart. Throw this over your picnic bench and you've protected your food and utensils from the bird poo and forest effluent underneath. A quick spray and wipe at the end of the meal and you leave the table all clean (or at least as clean as it was) for the next visitor. 

In terms of other facilities, there was a large degree of variation. With only one exception, there were always toilets - although these could range from smart, warm, clean toilet blocks with flush toilets, soft loo roll, hot water and soap, to unlit, smelly, fly-ridden vault (hole-in-the-ground) toilets. But when you gotta go, you go!

Drinking water was always available too, via spigots dotted around the campsite.

A few campsites had showers which you typically needed a handful of quarters for. These were few and far between, though, so if you're a two-showers-a-day OCD kinda person, maybe camping isn't for you. 

Wood
If you're planning on building a fire - and if you aren't, you should stop and take a good, long, hard look at yourself and ask yourself where your life is heading - then make sure you know the rules. Some campsites allow you to collect and burn downed wood, but most don't. Even then, unless you're in very dry conditions, downed wood will be either green or damp and won't be great for a fire. 

Often you will be forced to buy wood from either the camp store or somewhere in the vicinity. Despite this looking like a money-making scheme, it is often down to state jurisdiction that doesn't allow transfer of wood across state lines to prevent the distribution of invasive species such as wood beetles. So, even if you do head to the grocery store to get some cheaper bundles of wood, make sure you burn it in-state.

Finally, don't expect the existence of a fire pit means you can have a fire. On a couple of occasions, I was excited to leave the city and head to a campsite where I could do my man-make-fire act, only to find that there was a fire ban in effect due to the risk of wildfires. Sad times indeed, but I wasn't going to breach the rules and be the next idiot responsible for the next catastrophe. 

Camp Hosts
Many campsites didn't have a camp store to buy wood or an office to check in at. Even if they did, campsites often had a Camp Host. These were typically seasonaires living in an RV on site for an extended period of time. They had a variety of roles, including checking guests in and out, selling firewood, doing patrols of the campsite, restocking toilets and so on.

I'd recommend always searching for your host (their pitch number is often advertised at the entrance) and going to say hello. They are invariably friendly, full of useful information, and appreciative of you visiting their campsite of which they are very proud.

Note that although they often sell firewood, don't expect them to provide the facilities of a camp store. Do your research in advance and plan for getting supplies en route if need be. 

Neighbourly Interaction? Not so much!
This is a strange one... One of the things we were most looking forward to was meeting and socialising with our camping neighbours. You know, taking our camp chairs and tinnies over to the pitch next door and chewing the fat around the fire late into the evening.

We had loved chatting to people at bars in the towns and cities, but it seems that outdoorsy types in the US keep to themselves. There were a few notable exceptions which we are grateful for, but people tended to just go about their business on their own pitch and not really interact. This was especially true with RVers, who often locked themselves up in their motor homes watching satellite TV. This whole situation was totally perplexing to us, and made us feel a little sad.

Washing Up
I mentioned people washing dishes in the water spigot earlier. Although you shouldn't resort to this, you shouldn't expect hot running water, or facilities for washing up. Right from the outset, we found ourselves boiling water on the propane hob and washing up in a small plastic washing up bowl we had bought on Day 1.

For campsites with toilet blocks, there is often a dump station for waste water. Failing this, we flushed washing up water down the toilet. Don't be tempted to just dump it - not only is it ecologically irresponsible, you may inadvertently attract wildlife to your campsite. You definitely don't want the likes of Phil and Grant ransacking your campsite - and even less so a bear.

All trash should be disposed of properly. If you're in bear country, there will be bear-proof dumpsters to use.

Bear Lockers
Whilst on the subject of bears, you'll have seen in quite a few of our pictures and videos, bear lockers. These should be used to store anything that has an odour - not only your food, but also toiletries. Bears will be attracted to any unusual smell and leaving your toothpaste in the tent could end up in disaster. I won't go into the details of what we were told about ladies on their monthlies...

Even locking stuff in your car was not permitted in some places. Apparently the bears know how to get into cars, and would even be attracted by the look of things even if they didn't have a smell. That innocuous cylindrical object on your back seat shouts "PRINGLES!" to a bear.

We only had one (alleged) bear/campsite interaction but weren't prepared to take the risk and so, if there was a bear locker, we used it. 

Sleeping
Tent camping doesn't mean you have to have an uncomfortable night's sleep. What you sleep on generally depends on two things:

  • the ground
  • the temperature

We bought good-quality but reasonably-priced folding campbeds (which they call "cots") at the start of the trip, and made extensive use of these on hard or stony ground. They were very comfortable and, Sam's snoring aside, I always got a good night's sleep on them.

On soft ground or sand, we tended to sleep directly on the floor of the tent, on top of a thin blanket and in (or on)  our sleeping bags. Creepy crawlies stayed out of the tent - as far as we know - so sleeping on the floor also resulted in a good night's sleep.

The final scenario was when the temperature dropped. Anything below 5C (59F) and we started to feel really cold at night. In these situations, irrespective of how comfortable the ground was, we dispensed with the camping cots and opted for the floor. The reason being is that we could zip our sleeping bags together (at some times, double-layering them) and snuggle up close to each other in an attempt to pool body heat. It was romantic, sure, but let's make no bones about it, self-preservation was the main objective!

Since returning to the UK, we have invested in some roll-up foam beds. These compress to small rolls but when opened up, the foam sucks in air and results in a mattress a couple of centimetres thick. We have tried them once so far and they were very comfortable, so will definitely be an option for our next epic road trip.

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