I just hope the author decides to get a proper air mattress and stick with a good tent rather than going with a camper, personally.

You know, I really like my “all,” too, but in reading this I realized that part of why I enjoy getting away from it is the renewed appreciation I have for it when I get back. Take the modern bathroom, for example, and its many conveniences, most of which are taken for granted in daily life. You sure appreciate that part of your “all” when you get back to it, don’t you?!

Anyway, read this post and the following comments, which are full of well-reasoned– well, reasons– to give camping another try. And my favorite comment includes this: “So, yeah, all of that you can totally get… without sleeping in a tent, but I love sleeping in a tent .” Me, too!

“We have brought millennia of ingenuity to bear on the problem,” of habitation, the author writes, “and, outliers notwithstanding, the structurally sound, safe, climate-controlled, cushioned, be-toileted, insect-and-dirt-free (at least as far as we are capable) have won the day.” This is someone who clearly cannot understand the desire to rid oneself of modern conveniences temporarily simply for the sake of doing so. I fall somewhere in the middle. I have never met a cat hole I liked, for example, and hereby state yet again, Dear Reader (you know my bathroom issues) that I intend henceforth to make my tent outings as “be-toileted” as possible. But I like insects and dirt, and escaping air-conditioning, and tents, oh, the tents!

For the most part, you either like camping (and hiking, kayaking, canoeing, whatever else you may pair with it) or you don’t. If you’re going to worry about “some lithe and enterprising spider… have[ing] its way with your ear-hole” while you sleep, no air mattress is going to make you comfortable. But there are ways to mitigate the experience if, for example, you are not a fan and you end up with progeny that go all Cub Scout on you, so I would encourage car camping and chillaxing at camp rather than ten-mile backpacking treks and cat holes, etc., at least to ease you into the whole experience. We have dads with the Scouts who are clearly more comfortable in their recliners watching the game of the moment, so we all know better than to expect them to build a fire, for example, but they have learned to enjoy spending time around it with their sons and the rest of us, I think.

I suspect that there will be times that I’mNotBobby, the author of this post, will wind up out in nature again. Here’s wishing him spider-free encampments– personally, I get freaked out by the prospect of bedbugs in even the most ritzy of “antiseptic hotels,” but I would never want to raise that specter to him…

This glorious photo is one among many in this post by Sankara Subramanian, who documents his travels throughout India by motorcycle in his blog, On the Road With Sankara. And yes, he tent camps, in this instance in the perfect spot with its own private beach, riverside. It sounds like he and his friends had the place pretty much to themselves, which must have been idyllic!

Winter is an ideal time to visit the desert southwest, as daytime temperatures are not as extreme as they are in the summer, but of course you have to be prepared for precipitous drops in nighttime temperatures, as usual. This website and its many pages will help to ready you for camping in the desert southwest of the United States.