How did you get into Rving or camping?

Good, good question!!! Rookie Rver :C here! Many....many years ago while growing up in New York my mom (single parent)wanted my brother and I (never my two sisters)to experience things other than "the city". From age 10 thru 14 my brother and I always went away for the summer...to camp. From there it never left me. Fast forward and a few years ago while camping with my family in my pop-up I was walking around the campground one evening. I saw two nice Class A motor homes parked next to each other and I will never forget what I said, ".....wow, I wish I had a Class A...." Believe it or not two weeks later I stumbled onto a great deal. Been rving (motor home) every since.

How did I get into rving or camping?? we were renting beach cottages with the entire family back in the 80's & early 90's with parents, wife, brother & sister. then Lost both my parents to lung cancer, sister & brother didn't want to go anymore because their kids were much older, so we started camping....been doing it ever since

Mike

I grew up camping. First in tents, then in a tiny popup. It had two twin-sized mattresses and the floor. I slept on the floor! Then, as the family grew, a bigger popup. We were a family of eight, and we camped coast to coast every other summer all of my growing up years. Eight people, popup towed by a station wagon, and all of our gear stuffed everywhere. Nobody worried about WD hitches and tow capacity on the TV. Well, at least we didn't worry about it.

We stayed in a lot of state parks and KOAs. I remember bathing and washing my hair under a spigot in McGill campground in the Pinos mountains in California because there were no bath houses and our popup didn't have a shower. That water was too darned cold, but oh, well. At 13, clean hair trumped cold water. They don't have water available now...I wonder why.

Going forward, started with a tent with my kids. When I grew tired of sleeping on the ground we rented cabins. Now, with kids grown and gone and still having wanderlust, we bought our first camper, a TT, over three years ago. This year we moved to a MH, and we're planning to full time as soon as finances allow.

My kids are all tent campers, and they take their kids, so the saga and love continues.

Parents sold cabin, dad and I built from the ground up because sister needed money. Needed to do something, the cabin on the lake is still way better than rving. positive we get to travel but out of pocket expense is more w/ an rv and it's way more work. Sorry for the negative but I'm still bitter.

path1 wrote:
Is being out in the woods some type of gene or in the blood, what is with camping?


Other observations:
The shock of not being connected on-line 24/7 lasts only the first 3 hours for teenagers.
Can’t get a teenage boys to get behind a stove at home but in the woods they are right there wanting to help with something.



--Question-- did you get into camping/RVing because of upbringing or was your interest in camping/Rving sparked some other way?

My parents did not camp. I do not have a single memory of us going camping. I did camp with some friends once or twice. But we have always been a huge outdoors family with farming, fishing, and hunting so I say yes it is in the blood.

To your statement about the being connected, you are absolutely right. My 7 yr old DD received a new iPod touch for her B-day and won't put it down at home. I told her on our first camping trip after Bday that she could have it in the truck to and from but once we got to camp it was mine. She did not complain once.

DH and I used to spend our vacations and long weekends flying to different cities, renting a car, and driving loops around the area. We both love travel and the outdoors but we got tired of the airports and hotels. We also felt we were missing something by having to leave national parks and such to spend an evening in the hotel room. Since we live right near the Chesapeake Bay and boating is big here, we bought a boat we could spend nights on. For two years we spent almost every weekend from March through November on the Bay (we also spent two weeks in the Keys and one in the outer banks). We loved getting away from the city but the boat was very very small and had no bathroom, heat or a/c (22' c-dory). We decided we would explore on land for a while. That was 2.5 years ago. We have been all over the country and love it so much, we are going full time in five months. Neither of us grew up doing a lot of camping but we were both raised with a love of the outdoors.

Being raised in a family of ten, our family "vacations" were spent on my aunt's farm. They were a family of nine. Personally, I think my aunt just needed more farmhands. Nonetheless, my dad would bring this monster canvas tent for either all the boys or all the girls to sleep in. An extra bedroom. I grew to love tent camping.

Early on in our marriage, my husband and I enjoyed motorcycling around the state. We pledged to frequent the mom & pop diners and to avoid motels if possible. We bought a tiny trailer and packed it with all that we needed to be self-sufficient for a weekend - tent, stove, lantern, just the bare necessities.

We still frequent the mom & pop diners and avoid motels, but no more tents. We do keep a spare for visitors that prefer their own bedroom.

Old canvas tent, my folks had me on my first outing at 4 months old.
folks got older and got a truck camper to get up off the ground, I was still in a tent. other member of the family and friends would join us on trips or we them, when I got out on my own, tented it in a canvas tent still even though they were a dinosour thing. at 29 started my own business got real busy with unpredictable free timeand sleeping on the ground was starting to hurt, all combined with 3 rained out trips in a row caused me to buy an rv,,, got off the ground and made leaving for a weekend on an hours notice as easy as could possibly be. 17 years and 3 rv's later still doin it, altho getting a campsite on a summer weekend has become a challange.

All that neet family stuff,, I am sure most of us have done it, and try to get our kids to do it(some do and some don't) its an evolving passtime that changes a little with each generation, compare 100 years ago to now and see.

a little history

I can't actually remember. Way back in the early 90's either I or DW mentioned renting an rv and taking a trip out West. That's how we started and we've been going ever since.

Double Post. Sorry.