Don't worry that's still camping...

[CajunCamper]

A good friend of mine just bought his first pop up and actually will take delivery tomorrow. He told some of his friends at work that happen to own TT and 5th Wheels that he bought a camper and they said great now you can go camping with us. They asked him what he bought and he told them a Stacraft pop up and they then said, "That's okay, that's still camping."

I got a good laugh at how stupid some people are that think for some reason that sleeping in a pop up is somehow not camping.

[Hoagie]

Wait a minute!!! They have 5vers and TTs and they were dissing a popup??!?!!
What's up with that??

[catworker]

It's amazing how folks define camping.   If you're enjoying the great outdoors, no matter what your sleeping in, that's camping.   Now I've seen folks pull up in their larger than life RV's and not come out during their stay.   That's not camping.  Just my humble opinion.  :U

[scificamper]

Last year at a state park in Ohio, there was a semi with a sleeper a few sites down.  They had all their camping gear, and looked like they were having fun to me.
Scificamper
2007 Jayco 1007
2003 Ford Explorer

[JaycoNewbies]

Our friends we camp with quite a bit have a 32 foot Bounder motorhome and they probably spend more time outside than we do.  Each to their own:U

[MotherNature]

It's amazing how folks define camping.   If you're enjoying the great outdoors, no matter what your sleeping in, that's camping.    :U

I completely agree with catworker - I think that, no matter what your portable living quarters may be, enjoying the great outdoors is what constitutes camping.

Camping isn't a contest to see who can survive the worst conditions; it's more like a celebration of the natural world around us.  Everyone has different comfort levels of what they find enjoyable (whether that be hookups vs. non, weather being too cold/hot, etc.).   I am certainly not trying to criticize that; I'm human too and have my own personal standards/hangups.

Regardless of personal comfort levels, I think that the essence of camping is enjoying your temporary surroundings.  Your temporary natural surroundings (the campground and its surrounding environment) are outside of your portable home.  I also realize that the weather doesn't always cooperate and sometimes you just can't bear to be outdoors.  

What I truly don't understand is that people will take the trouble (though not trouble to me, I guess the proper term would be 'work'?) and expense to haul a portable lodging unit and its related supplies to a campsite, but then they will sit inside the whole time regardless of weather conditions.  Why bother with any of that (and gas expense) if you're not going to, at a minimum, at least enjoy/explore the outdoor experience of your campsite?  I don't understand why people who stay inside their 'unit' the whole time just don't stay home and spare themselves the expense and work.  If one's intent is to spend all waking hours inside the 'unit', why not just stay in your own driveway or yard?

[CajunCamper]

MotherNature, I agree with you 100%.

[coach]

One of my favorites:

Hookups! Might as well stay in hotel!

personally, I enjoy camping more than you! :-()   :eyecrazy:  YMMV

[wavery]

This reminds me of when we first got our Coleman PU...... Some people were camping next to us in a tent. They came over to see our PU and one of them said,..."This isn't camping....this is RVing".

It's all a matter of perspective....:p

[Tiffany]

As many years as I spent sleeping on the ground before we got our first PUP, I'm very happy to borrow that slogan and tell people I "go RVing"!

[rgfalcon]

If you're sleeping under canvas - then it's camping.

[CajunCamper]

This reminds me of when we first got our Coleman PU...... Some people were camping next to us in a tent. They came over to see our PU and one of them said,..."This isn't camping....this is RVing".

It's all a matter of perspective....:p

I hear ya Wayne, my first camping experience was under a canvas with no floor while sleeping in sleeping bags as a young boy.We then moved to a canvas tent with a floor, windows and a door and I felt that that we had moved to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Then years later we moved to a nylon dome tent. Both of my boys cut their teeth on camping from the time they were in diapers in a dome tent. When we bought our Coleman Pop up, I was convinced that we had totally left the camping experience behind, but I was wrong. We don't like to sweat when we sleep so before the pop up with A/C we just didn't go camping. The main reason we bought our pop up was for the A/C so we could extend our camping season into the summer here in the deep south. Quite honestly, pop up camping still had the feel of tent camping to us because we spend very little time in our pop up while camping anyway, we're usually only in there at night when it's time to go to sleep, change clothes or take an afternoon nap. We don't cook in our pop up we enjoy either cooking over an open fire or by using our coleman campstove. We don't eat in it we prefer to sit outdoors when we eat usually sitting around a campfire, we don't wash dishes in it, we don't sit around in it during the day or night and we usually dry camp with the exception of summer camping. We have an awning and we're rarely in our pop up when it rains unless it's a really bad storm. When we are dry camping the pop up allows us to open up the entire pop up for incredible views while enjoying the sounds of the forest while going to sleep. For these reasons anything beyond a pop up would be wasted on us, because we just wouldn't have the need for all of the extra amenities. But that's just me and my family.

[Kristenamber]

How funny!  That repsonse of his friends was so backwards, lol!  I grew up tent camping and because I take my boys camping without my husband, and often go far away from home, I needed a sturdier tent to rely on in bad weather...hence the pop up.  I was worried it would take away from the whole experience, but our family is just like yours.  We cook outside, hang out outside, and we just use the pop up to sleep in, and seek shelter in during bad weather.  Matter of fact, my boys don't even know that the "little bed" is actually a table with two booths, HA!

[tplife]

Hey, it's still camping with a pull-through 50-amp site with full hookups, as long as we can get all 3 slideouts to fit, the wireless internet working and a signal on the satellite.

I considered an RV upgrade, but I'd be shut out of the best campgrounds since they don't have room in the spaces, or I'd be stuck hiking back and forth from the parking space to the fire ring.  I soon discovered that what I needed to do was stop buying cr*p equipment and open my wallet.  Now I sleep better in my dry Sierra Designs tent in my Marmot bag on my ThermaRest pad that I did in my mom's MountainAire!  And I saved $107,000! :-)