Waiting for the Last Gasp – Adam Overland

I’m glad that my parents took us camping a lot when my brother and I and 3 sisters were growing up. We didn’t have much money, and so any vacations we took were local, and included a tent (although at some point when I was in grade school my dad purchased a truck camper). My brother and I would ride bikes and catch frogs and collect worms for fishing (we let the frogs go). I didn’t travel via an airplane until I was 21 years old. We also drank a lot of powdered milk growing up, and I recall that as being the bad part of not having much money. 

I think there’s a psychological hurdle to becoming a “camping person,” in much the same way that there is a hurdle to boat ownership if you weren’t raised in a boat family. If you’ve never camped before, the odds of you just deciding to go out and give that a try on your own are not good. The logistics seem overwhelming (where to go, how to cook, how to stay warm and dry), and there is of course some upfront equipment costs associated with it. Plus, the first time you set up a tent, you will inevitably feel like a fool. The whole idea might not even seem like it would be fun. “You’re going to do what and poop where? Why?”

But there’s something incredibly liberating in camping. You set aside your worries and leave the distractions behind (although you can take many more of them with you today than say, 20 years ago). You pack lightly, with fewer clothes, and fewer people to see you in those clothes. You have overall fewer choices to make, and it follows that you’d have fewer overall cares. Your days consist of challenges such as finding the right trees to string a hammock between, going on walks or some other activity, and cooking food. Getting a fire going is a key task. Pretty soon you start to notice textures, like tree bark, and flowers and other foliage and the associated smells, and animals, squirrels and birds and other local critters, because that’s what there is to notice. 

My advice if you’ve never been camping is to find a camping friend and latch on to them, make them take you into the woods and trust them to ensure your survival. You won’t regret it. My advice for boat ownership is to find a friend who has a boat and borrow it often so you don’t have to pay for that shit.