Everything You Need to Know About Camping and Rv’Ing

By Ghislaine Bourdon

These are informative and entertaining lessons that teach the ways and etiquette of camping that will lead to a more relaxed and enjoyable vacation for everyone. Learn to organize, plan, and prepare with eagerness and excitement.

Camping is fun for everyone especially if you know how to do it right! Let me guide you to your greatest adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543430974

Ghislaine Bourdon

Ghislaine Bourdon has a bachelor's degree in studio art. She was a swimming instructor for most of her life and taught swimming for the school system in France for many years. Ghislaine bicycled across most of Europe including the Alps alone when she was sixteen years old. She has climbed many mountains and does extensive camping trips. Trying not to be hindered by a past mental illness Ghislaine has overcome many life long difficulties. She is an extremely diversified individual with talents that abound.

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WHAT ARE YOU CAMPING FOR?

Comfort

Relaxation

Electronic gadgets like TV, tablets, and laptops or the basic woods with no amenities except nature?

Do you want to be alone in solitude and peace and quiet, or do you want a site close to other campers?

Do you want the kids to be entertained with recreational facilities, or do you want the recreational things for yourself and your partner only with no kids?

Are you camping as just adults? Do you plan to bring your teenagers and/or babies?

Would you prefer an adult only campground?

Would the sound of kids bother you?

What about your pets? Are they coming with you? How many? Can you keep them quiet? You have to clean up after them, and they absolutely need to be friendly.

Dogs will need their up-to-date rabies certificates in many campgrounds. Is that okay?

Are you taking your whole family? Will your grandparents be comfortable?

What exactly are you looking for?

Dry camping or wet camping?

What about the amenities offered at a resort campground?

Hiking?

Biking?

Swimming? Pool, lake, brook, or the ocean?

Shopping? Restaurants?

A good place to meet people?

Parties, music, drinks?

All the above?

Is there enough room in the car for everyone and camping equipment?

Educational nature centers and museums?

Sightseeing?

Trails for SUVs and/or motorcycles?

Scenic views?

Camping in a warmer climate, the breeze of the ocean, or the chill of the mountains?

Close to home, or distant?

2 Do you want to visit relatives?

How much effort do you want to exert to set up your site?

Do you want to bring a lot of clothes? Do you have enough storage for it?

How much weight do you want to load on your car or towing?

Will you bring pets?

How much equipment do you want to bring?

Is it okay to have a few days of rain? Snow? Heat?

Concerts, amphitheaters, arcades, golf, hunting, birdwatching, photography, writing, or play musical instruments?

Do you want cell phone coverage?

Will you be expecting Wi-Fi in the campground?

Do you need water/electric/sewer hookups?

Will you want a dump station?

How far will you limit your walk to the restroom?

Will you need showers? How much will you be willing to pay for a five-minute shower?

Do you refuse to camp where others have generators?

Are you willing to follow the hours assigned for generators?

Do you expect to carry any weapons?

Can you refrain from setting off fireworks on the campground?

Sandy beaches or rocky gorges and seashore?

Surfing?

Fishing?

Campgrounds in the sun and fields, or wooded and shady?

How much room will you need for your site?

Setting up the site in the dark and/or rain?

How buggy is too buggy?

Bears and other critters like racoons?

Bug sprays? Organic, natural, DEET—what would be best?

How much am I willing to pay for a bundle of wood?

Cooking on a propane stove, grill, over the fire, or Dutch oven?

Split my own wood? Do I want to risk bringing wood with me to a campground?

Drink and smoke pot, get high, and vegetate?

Noises like those of dogs, kids, motorcycles, motorboats, planes, babies, loud music, campers with loud conversations after quiet time?

Do you want to be able to party late?

Bonfires?

Clean campground with plenty of restrooms, or are outhouses okay?

Guests? Friends?

How much alcohol do I bring? Or a campground with no alcohol allowed?

Radio?

Who’s going to do the cooking? The chores? Cut the wood?

Will I carry the wood whenever needed? Will I gather wood from the forest if needed?

Am I going to bring a grill? Propane or charcoal?

No socialization? Alone or together?

A retreat and meditation?

My clothes? Rain gear?

Test my physical abilities to extremes?

Loneliness, or fear? Will I deal with it?

Fatigue, or laziness? What do I do?

Hunger, appetite, food intake?

Cold or hot weather—is that tolerated?

Will I want to bring games?

How will I keep busy in between the daily chores of camping?

There are many, many decisions to make once you decide that you’d like to give camping a try!

You might want to start out with just yourself and maybe one other person. You make a team and work together.

EQUIPMENT—TENTS

Once you have decided what type of camping you want, then you have another big decision: equipment. Tenting is closest to nature but a lot of work, especially in bad weather or in the dark. Of course, you don’t need to set up a whole lot of stuff like screenhouses and tarps. Each piece of equipment should add to your comfort, but it can easily be overdone. If you want to go tenting, try it out in your backyard first. If you don’t have a backyard, try out a campground close by if possible. That way, if you forget something or you need first aid, or you just can’t put up the tent, you won’t be too far away. At least, try to go somewhere where there might be someone who could help, such as a ranger or other campers.

Check out your sleeping bag before you go to see if it’s warm enough and also to make sure the zippers work good. If the zippers are sticky, you can rub them with a bar of hand soap; this helps a lot.

When purchasing a sleeping bag, the zippers should be extremely heavy-duty; steel is the best.

Make sure you have an air mattress inflator along that either plugs into the cigarette lighter of your car or is a battery- or foot-pump-operated one. Of course, the foot pump is the most reliable, but it is a lot more work. Battery-operated pumps and pumps that plug into the cigarette lighter are noisy, and you don’t want to bother your fellow campers at night, especially after quiet hours. Your mattress shouldn’t be too full of air because it’ll leak with your weight on it all night. Cheap mattresses will give you nothing more than a bad night’s sleep. Don’t use plastic air mattresses meant for water recreation; you’ll end up wet in sweat from the nonbreathable plastic. First, you better try out sleeping on the mattress at home in the backyard as I mentioned earlier. If you’re rolling a lot on the mattress, it’s probably too full. You should try to buy some extra air mattress plugs; they’re easy to find in a sports store. Oh, don’t let the kids jump around on the mattresses; they’ll pop and/or start leaking. There are self inflating and deflating mattresses available on the market which are quite popular, but can be pricey.

If you don’t want an air mattress, you can place ferns or tall grass or leaves or pine needles underneath the floor of the tent; it’ll make for a much more pleasurable night’s sleep.

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Screenhouse Possibilities

CHOOSING A SITE CHECK IN TENTING

Try to choose a site that is large enough for all your equipment and also has trees to hang tarps if desired. Consider privacy, shade, exposure to the sun and wind, the view, the direction of the tent from the front door of the tent, accessibility, and avoid slopes. Ferns are a sign of dampness and bugs, so keep that in mind too. Drive or walk around the camp first, and check out the empty sites, but give the other campers their privacy too. Find out where your nearest water faucet will be from each site and, even more important, where the nearest restrooms are. You don’t want to be too close to either the faucet or the restrooms because of congestion in those areas. You don’t want to hear flushing toilets or slamming doors. Your dogs might bark at campers filling up their water coolers at the faucets. Be aware of where you want to be in the campground. Is there a pool or lake that you want to be close to? How about kids playing close to your site in the playground? Do you want to be close to it for your own kids? Make sure you have room for all your equipment such as a few tents. Check before you leave home to confirm the number of tents allowed on the site and the maximum amount of people. Often you’ll have to pay extra for pets and/or extra campers.

Okay, so now you have chosen your site. Check in immediately. Place a conspicuous piece of equipment on the site, such as a lawn chair, to hold your spot. Now you’re ready to set up your camp. Visualize where you want the picnic table to go based on the tents’ position. Do you want to face the fireplace? The tent should be far enough away from the fire to avoid sparks flying onto it. I’d say at least twelve feet away, but if you’re going to have a bonfire, it should be much farther away. Also, consider the wind blowing sparks in the direction of the tent. Give yourself plenty of room to unload everything onto the site.

Make sure you follow instructions to put up the tent; they can be hard to get up, especially the first time. A good rule of thumb is the cheaper the tent, the harder it is to put up. It’s a good idea to take photos of the tent each step at a time so that you’ll remember how you put it up for the next time and what it’s supposed to look like. I put my photos in a plastic bag and keep it with the instructions. Before you lay out the tent, check the ground for