Growing up, a large portion of my summers were spent camping with my family. Some of my fondest memories involve sitting around a campfire at night, or relaxing in the woods in the early morning.
Bright sunlight would drape down through the treetops like an invisible vale, and that unmistakable smell of the forest was everywhere. You would hear birds whistling through the early morning, perhaps on the hunt for that proverbial worm.
Camping can be a truly amazing experience, and if I haven’t convinced you already, then read on for some more reasons why you should go camping this summer.
Simplicity
Camping is a great way to de-stress and escape from civilization and the problems that come with it.
Strange as it seems, going off the grid for awhile can do you wonders, not only in terms of mental and emotional health, but also in self-awareness. Nature, family, relaxation, it can be a spiritual experience.
Wherever we come from, however we look, act, or think, we all trace our roots back to the ancients, peoples who had none of the luxuries we do now. For them, religion wasn’t in a church, and the ‘proof’ was supposedly everywhere.
Whether you identify as religious or not, the world can still be breathtaking. We don’t have to find some great personal truth in nature to understand why others did and some still do.
S’mores
Yeah, I had to bring it up eventually. S’mores are a campground favorite, because it is the greatest thing that can ever be made using only a stick and fire, and may even be one of the greatest inventions ever.
Everybody has their own way to cook and eat s’mores, whether it involves just a slightly warmer marshmallow or one burned to a point that the inside is melted and the outside is…probably somewhere on the ground?
Personally, my recipe is catching the marshmallow on fire and then blowing it out as quickly as I can. This usually makes it so the marshmallow has hints of burned brown near the edges and is slightly melted inside.
As a child, my recipe was simply to hold the marshmallow out until it catches fire, then let it burn black and flaky, and…wait, was I supposed to be doing something with that? I kind of just wanted to watch it catch fire.
The Night Sky
This may seem like a strange reason to go camping, but I’ve always been mesmerized by the night. Only years later did I learn that there is a thing called light pollution, which basically means that the more light a place on earth emits, the less visible the stars become.
Stargazing is a pastime. It is one of the oldest, most humbling pastimes there is.
The ancient Greeks used to believe that the stars were like a mural or a historical record, and when an important hero died, the gods memorialized them in the stars.
Here we are, 3,000 years later and the real answer is no less fascinating. They’re suns, like ours, only countless light years away, with any number of planets and moons circling around each one.
Family
I’ve mentioned family in passing, but it deserves its own category. In this age of technology, it’s easy to take those important to us for granted.
That isn’t to say that there is no arguing or mistreatment while camping. Believe me, my brothers and I screwed things up pretty much every trip, and the arguments often ended with us apologizing profusely and begging not to cut the trip short and go home.
Even so, we bonded as a family, probably more there than anywhere else. We swam, we went paddle boating, we talked around a campfire. We made it one of our favorite places on earth.
Just think about all the subtle adventures there are to be had, listening to the crickets and the raccoons outside as you nestle in your 4WD Supacentre sleeping bag.
Just lying and listening to nature is amazing, like eavesdropping on some strange secret, except that it isn’t actually a secret at all. It’s just a normal conversation that most people dismiss as they carry on with their lives.
A lot of the best moments with my family were like that. Sometimes we whispered, and sometimes we just listened, smiling to each other as we tried to decipher the sounds of the world outside.
Reasonable Price
Camping is a go-to getaway for a lot of people, and one of the biggest reasons is the price. Even if it does mean saving up a bit of money, it’s something most working class families can afford.
Even though it’s no Disneyland or Smithsonian, camping doesn’t lose any of its charm. Love, nature, perspective, tradition, all things that humanity can never replicate. You can watch nature shows, read books on astronauts, trace your genealogy, but you will never get the same feelings as you will out in nature.
Those emotions, thoughts, and realizations are priceless, and the great thing is that anybody can afford them.
Summertime Simplicity
There are a lot of reasons to go camping, like the sheer joy and personal connection that comes with getting off the grid.
It’s a place where we can eat s’mores, watch the stars, and get closer to our families. It’s fairly cheap, so anybody can do it, and everybody should.
If want any advice on lifestyle, health, beauty, and the like, please visit our website. Maybe you like the idea of camping, but want to try something a little more luxurious. Maybe you want to look into other vacation options, just to make sure your heart is really set on camping.
Whatever it is, we’re here to help.
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