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In defense of car camping

July 9, 2012 @ 9:44 am (Updated: 11:16 am - 7/9/12 )

car camping

Is car camping really camping? Bill Radke doesn't think so. (97.3 KIRO FM Photo/Tom Tangney)

I just spent a glorious weekend at Mount Rainier National Park ... car camping with my family.

You know "car camping," right? It's when you drive up to a campsite and pitch your tent a few feet away, between the bolted-down picnic table, a steel-guard fire pit, and the great outdoor wilderness of old-growth forests (but always in view of a community bathroom just across the way.) Most notably, you're also experiencing the great outdoors a few yards away from another family who's pitched their tent between an identical picnic table, firepit and parked SUV. And that's just on the one side of you. On the other side, there's another family, unloading sleeping bags, bicycles, a couple of dogs, and enough groceries to feed an army.

It's easy to mock car camping. Sure, it's probably a purer experience to be "roughing it," to backpack into the high country and pitch your tent as far away from the rest of humanity as you can get, you know, to commune with mother nature on your own, without the convenience of porcelain toilets and such.

But I think car camping gets a bad rap. Some of my happiest childhood memories involve car camping. My parents would pack my 4 brothers and I into the family station wagon and head off for any and all state parks, national parks, and national forests we could find.

Once Dad got the tent up, my brother Steve and I would immediately find the nearest stream or river we could find in order to race random sticks we would name after our favorite hydroplanes ... while the rest of the family would go hiking on nearby trails. We'd cook hotdogs and marshmallows over a campfire, take nature walks with ranger guides, and finally squeeze into our old canvas tent and talk and talk and laugh and talk in the darkness until we all drifted off to sleep.

Sure, it may not have been the purest way to commingle with nature but, just by getting us out of our routine, it may have been one of the purest ways to commingle with family.

I repeated this same car camping ritual with my own kids, adding a few, maybe too scary, stories around the campfire (stories terrifying enough that my now mostly grown kids still talk about them). And yes, I still use the old canvas tent my parents used when I was a kid. My kids complained about the slightly moldy smell, but hey, we're talking family history here!

I've gotta say, I was really heartened when my 19-year- old, home for the summer, said she'd like to go camping again, after all this time... and with her family, no less.

Mount Rainier National Park was packed with family campers this weekend - and yes, we were very lucky to snag a campsite near the great Ohanapecosh River. No, my daughter wasn't interested in racing sticks with me, but we did a lot of hiking in the awe-inspiring forests, and spent even more time at the river .... and we all had great conversations with each other that we wouldn't have had in the big city.

There's something about being in the woods and sleeping in an old canvas tent that encourages good talks and good laughs ... even if your car is well within view.

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Comments (18)


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  • GloScot wrote...
    Sure it's camping
    July 9, 2012 9:20 am
    If it's with family and outside the norm of regular living, what difference does it make if you're at a state park or out in the wilderness. My family and I do both. We like the convenience of the state parks but once a year we also backpack into the middle of nowhere and rough it for a couple of days, too. Family bonding happens in both situations.
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  • Padre wrote...
    Radke owes Tom an apology
    July 9, 2012 9:44 am
    Speaking as an employee of a very-well known, three-letter acronym-ed outdoor retailer, I can say this: Car camping IS camping because you are still enjoying and sharing your passion for the outdoors with your family! Mr. Radke, you are now free to apologize to Mr. Tagney for your outdoor elitism.
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  • Citizen of Krazy Town wrote...
    We have four trips planned in the next six weeks.
    July 9, 2012 10:23 am
    One with Cub Scouts and three at various popular sites in the Cascades, all drive and park, or at least park and walk a little ways. For our family, the car camping sites are ideal as there are facilities that make the experience fun and convenient for everyone in the family. I'd rather have a happy family that wants to do it again 99% of the time, the other 1%, just us mountain men can go.
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  • jaysonoo7 wrote...
    Camping
    July 9, 2012 10:26 am
    There are three types of tent camping #1 grass camping in the back yard or large medow at a venue like the gorge the.... #2 Then there is camping spot camping like what tom was doing maybe a little further from the store on dirt instead of grass and a few trees inbetween each site.... #3 Then you have the kind of camping where there is noone around for miles and the only people you see is a forest ranger once a day or so.... the logical parent with kids picks one of the first two so no cougers try and adopt their kid and if they do they are closer to help...
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  • DesertRez wrote...
    Simple is better
    July 9, 2012 10:28 am
    One thing I have learned is that it's more fun and less stressfull to get out and camp if you keep it simple. When you have to prep an RV, trailer full of bikes, dogs, generator, etc etc it just becomes a PITA. I prefer loading a backpack, parking, and hiking.
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  • CH wrote...
    Are all those cars parked in Seattle with families in them . . . .
    July 9, 2012 10:46 am
    camping?
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  • Wree wrote...
    Another advantage
    July 9, 2012 11:22 am
    To car camping is to include disabled family memebers who could not otherwise participate. Being able to drive them up and settle them at the campsite allowed for us to include a family member before they passed away. Being able to bring her out even if just for an evening helped her and enrichened my children's life.
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  • Seattle Dad wrote...
    They're different degrees
    July 9, 2012 11:44 am
    I do both. But my wife doesn't and my youngest son isn't ready for the back country. My wife will go car camping. Our Scout troop teaches younger Boy Scouts the fundamentals of setting up a tent and cooking over stoves in a car camp setting. The older scouts go on week long back pack trips in the wilderess. Simply spending time away from electronics and the simple diversions of having to clean the house are enough of a reason to take your family car camping even if you're not getting them ready for the back country..
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  • gmckie wrote...
    City Camping
    July 9, 2012 12:13 pm
    I call this city camping. Part of going camping is to get away from your neighbors and people. Here you're just trading one neighbor for another.
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  • Derrol_o wrote...
    It depends
    July 9, 2012 12:22 pm
    on how you define camping. But I'm sure most everyone agrees that car camping is a whole different deal on many levels to camping upriver on the Skoke or the Dosewallips.
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