This may help me understand some of you better.

[CajunCamper]

Okay let me first start by saying that I understand that everyone has their preferred methods of camping and that everyone must do what works for them.

That being said, I read a lot here about people not liking their awning and or add-a-room because they are a PITA to deal with.

For us the awning takes maybe 5 minutes to set up and the add-a-room maybe another 10 minutes. But let me say that I tent camped for 30 years and my wife for 10 years before we ever owned a pop up.

Our decision to buy a pop up was based on the fact that we live in the deep south and wanted to camp 12 months out of the year. The pop up with A/C allows us to continue camping during the dog days of summer extending our camping to year around.

Being tent campers we were very accustomed to setting up tents, setting up kitchen areas and setting up bathroom areas in our primitive campsites. That being the case, setting up the pop up along with it's awning and add-a-room is a breeze.

Truth be known, we still tent camp when the call of the wild beckons.

My first question is this. How many of you that hate your awning and or add-a-room and feel they are a PITA spent years tent camping, and how many of you first entered the wonderful world of camping by sleeping off the ground in either a pop up, TT, 5th wheel or motorhome?

My second question is how many of you have never tent camped?

My last question is, how many of you shiver at the thought of having to do without hook ups at your campsite or doing without electrical gadgets?

Happy Camping!

CajunCamper

['tiredTeacher]

... Being tent campers we were very accustomed to setting up tents, setting up kitchen areas and setting up bathroom areas in our primitive campsites.

CajunCamper

That's us, too. I'll stay tuned.

[cndlzrus]

I don't mind the set up with our pup... the awning is a two person thing to set up, so if my hubby or kids are not there to help me, it doesn't get set up..... I would love to mod it out so all I have to do is hook it to the side of the camper and be done... I don't like staking it down with ropes.....  

We tent camped a couple of times, on our own and with Boy Scouts.. Both times my body was rebelling sleeping that close to the cold ground... Cold like 30 degrees and frost on the tent.  So I love my pup for that conveince of a bed with a mattress and heat in the pup! :-()

We have talked about moving to a hybrid, but I can't see pass the benefits of a pup over a hybrid...  and I think since we mostly weekend camp that a high wall pup would be a better choice.   But I really love my little pup, it a cozy for our family of four and our dog.

[Craigtheretired]

The only reason our awning does not go up every time is the high winds we seem to attract.  We do not have an add-a-room, but our screen house seems to be a huge bug trap, more on the inside than on the outside.  (  But my tent camping days go back over fifty years, backpacked hundreds of times, used to pride ourselves on how little we really need to carry/survive.  We still own four tents, two backpacking ones, one that fits in the back of our truck and one big 12 X 12 family tent.  But we really love the A/C, furnace, hot water, stove, fridge, shower, etc. that our pup brings.

[curryp]

I set up the add on screen room once and what a joke. There were so many openings I didn't see the purpose of the room. I don't even carry the add on room in the camper anymore. I do put up the awning each camping trip. We tent camped for quite a few years before buying a pop-up last summer. We dry camp a lot so don't have hook-ups much and rarely use electrical gadgets. But I bought a Honda E1000 in great shape for $200 a few months ago, so maybe some electrical gadgets will be employed in camping trips this summer.

[McCampers]

Tent camped for 15 years.  I like my A/C in the summer.  I like my heat in the winter.  I really like my electric light at night to read with.  I'm getting older and I like some amenities.  I really like the mattress the most.  The ground and I don't get along as well as we used to.  As for the Awning, it's ok as long as there isn't wind.  Wind strips it out.  I don't mind the bugs, so we don't do the screen room.  We never did a screen room when we tented.  We were strictly on the ground small geo/pup tent types.  We cooked on an MSR stove and washed the dish in the sink or creek.  I don't like alot of set up, but the awning is nice to sit under to get out of the sun.

[BootheBunch]

I don't mind the set up with our pup... the awning is a two person thing to set up, so if my hubby or kids are not there to help me, it doesn't get set up..... I would love to mod it out so all I have to do is hook it to the side of the camper and be done... I don't like staking it down with ropes.....  

We tent camped a couple of times, on our own and with Boy Scouts.. Both times my body was rebelling sleeping that close to the cold ground... Cold like 30 degrees and frost on the tent.  So I love my pup for that conveince of a bed with a mattress and heat in the pup! :-()

We have talked about moving to a hybrid, but I can't see pass the benefits of a pup over a hybrid...  and I think since we mostly weekend camp that a high wall pup would be a better choice.   But I really love my little pup, it a cozy for our family of four and our dog.

My husband took some plastic paint buckets, filled them with cement, and stuck some plastic pipes inside.  Now all he does is stick the awning legs into the pipes in the buckets.....no staking necessary.  It works real well!  What I would like him to do is do the same thing with plastic terracotta pots....it would be cuter.

Lisa

[jmaddox]

I am brand new to camping.  My wife hated camping as a child, but we decided to try it.  We love it.

That being said, I like my 'gadgets'.  Some people frown upon the way we choose to 'camp'.  We have satelitte TV, and bring the laptop....I don't understand why I should give up other things in my life that I enjoy to camp....I know that a lot of PUP owners are former tent campers that basically wanted to 'get off the ground', but we want our electronic amenities.

We put the awning up (unless its very windy) each time.

We have zero interest in camping without hookups- for numerous reasons.  It's just not our thing.

All that being said, I do appreciate the fact that we are all so varied in what we believe and what we enjoy doing.

[fallsrider]

Question 1 - our awning is kind of a pain, but we put it up because we enjoy the benefit of it. We set up a table under it for some of our food prep and for the coffee maker. We don't have an add-a-room.

DW grew up pup camping, I grew up tent camping. We tent camped the first 6 years of our marriage.

Question 2 - not me! Have tent camped many times.

Question 3 - So far, we've only camped in the pup with E/W. I would like to try dry camping some, though. My DW isn't quite as interested in trying it as I am.

[austinado16]

Didn't have an awning or screen room for last year, but did buy a used Famina in December and hope it will mount up and work.  If not, I may go for one of the bag awnings that Wavery has turned so many of us on to.

No plans for a screen room, or to ever hook up to shore power.

I've only done a small amount of tent camping, out of a car during a couple of 2 week long trips out across the US and Canada, mostly by myself.  My wife and I have tent camped a few times, but she's not big on the ground sleeping thing and by the time we were done off-loading and setting up the Taj-Mahal, it was sort of ridiculous.  

Figured a pup would be a whole lot more like what we were trying to attempt with a tent, but 10 times more efficient and 100 times more fun.  So far, it's been great.  Would like to add the awning this year for some shade.

[sacrawf]

We use the awning all the time, with the only exception of high winds or a one-night stay while travelling.  I have a add-a-room, but haven't attached it yet.

Now that we have the pop-up the large tent we used for family camping has been given away to my son.  However I keep my small tent for solo bicycle touring camping and backpacking.

Whether we desire hook ups depends upon the purpose of the camping trip and the time of year.  For holidays such as Easter and Thanksgiving when adult kids are camping with us, hookups and electrical appliances are desired for cooking holiday meals.  

We want to be active; bicycling, geocaching, hiking, fishing and boating, going to local garden centers and arboretums, visiting local historical sites & antique stores, playing horseshoes/tennis/basketball/frisbee/swimming, etc.  Having a crock-pot, electric coffee maker, etc., means that more time is spent doing these activities and less time preparing meals. Catching the local TV news alerts us to local events and weather. Air Conditioning or the heated matresses and furnace keeps us fresh so we can spend more time doing things and extends our camping season.

[SpeakEasy]

We use our awning almost every time we set up. We use the add-a-room mostly when we're going to be in one place for more than a couple of days. Generally I love the add-a-room and find it worth the time it takes to set it up.

I've been a tent camper virtually all my life. I still tent camp in a location that is a seasonal and doesn't allow trailers. It's our "summer home," and it is on the shore of a lake. We use our popup for travel when we're not at that summer home tent.

Hookups are a nice thing, but certainly not at all a necessity. We have dry camped for as long as ten days at time, and found it to be no inconvenience at all. Of course, we don't have A/C, and we don't bring a microwave or coffeemaker camping with us.

-Speak

[cyclone]

1.  We had a Carefree awning installed last year, because the other one was just too much of a pain to deal with; both because of the set up involved and also because the dog kept winding her leash around the poles.  Love the Carefree and the ability to take it down quickly if it does get windy.

2.  Camped in tents for years!  And, I'm very glad to be off the ground and also to be able to store nearly everything in the camper rather than hauling it all out to the car for each trip.

3.  We haven't dry camped since buying a pop-up, but nearly all of the state parks and COE parks here have w/e hook-ups.  Much of the time we don't even bother hooking up the water since we still cook/clean up outside, anyway.  But, I do like the ability to use the a/c and consider that a necessity when camping in the summer months in TN.  I still hate the RV park feel of some campgrounds and look for those which still have trees and some space between sites.

[MotherNature]

Great thread idea!  It's been really interesting to read all the replies.

Neither hubby nor I camped as children (always wanted to but our parents are NOT the type for various reasons).  We tented for about 5 years before children and about 7 years afterward - loved it, always had great times.  The boys grew too large to sleep with us in the tent anymore (but yet not old enough to sleep by themselves) and we considered buying a new tent and associated gear - a PUP wasn't even thought of then (plus we didn't own a TV-type vehicle at the time).  Then one of the cars got totaled (same accident also messed up DH's back) and we bought a (new to us) SUV to accomodate the future purchase of additional tent gear.  We couldn't afford to buy gear until the next season, so we stuck it out and crammed into the tent for that summer.  It was great until we discovered that DH's back no longer tolerated sleeping on the ground and trying to find something to do when stuck inside a tent in the rain with children of that age was becoming more and more of a challenge.  So we started researching PUP's (finances didn't really allow us to have much of a purchase choice but I think even if we had more money we would have bought the same 'level' of PUP) and the rest is history.  The boys are now 12 & 10!

We don't have a screen room and don't feel the need for one - citronellas & repellent has always been sufficient for the places we go.

As far as the awning, we always put it up.  As a child, I always loved sitting out on our dry porch and watching the rain; I still do that unless it's blowing in sideways.  The rest of the family enjoys it also and prefers it to sitting inside.  We never had a problem with winds until this last trip to the shore in April.  We never stake the poles - we tie the metal awning front rail to cinderblocks (one on each side) with a piece of mason's line.  In the middle of the night I heard the wind making a weird noise blowing against things but since the camper wasn't shaking/rocking (as it has on occasion) I didn't think anything of it.  Imagine my surprise when my son woke us to look outside and see one of the cinderblocks 3 feet off the ground (I am not exaggerating).  We went out and struggled to roll up the awning before it was torn off/acted like a kite.  The front metal piece (that the awning fabric is attached to) was bent at a 45 degree angle and it was hard to bend it back enough so that the awning bag could be zipped up (DH says he can rig up something to fix).  I checked online when we got home and found that there were 40 mph sustained winds with 52 mph gusts.

I highly recommend the mason's line if you keep string in your toolbag.  It's thin (smaller than regular string), lightweight, and withstood the above in spite of being used on those cinderblocks for the past 3 seasons!

As far as hookups, we don't care if they have them or not - we choose our campgrounds based on surrounding outdoor activities (like the beach).  We do NOT camp at places without bathroom/shower facilities (I don't have a porta potty or shower and have no plans on buying one).  That's just me personally; I don't mean to criticize those who go without facilities!

When we do have hookups, I find the water the most convenient.  When we do have electric, we use it for lights and sometimes take the micro if there's room, but that's it.

Again, great thread idea!

[jeezy]

Putting up the awning's not bad.

I have no desire for an add a room.  It's not the effort, I just don't think we'd use it or enjoy it much.  The camper is indoors.  Once out, we're outdoors.  But, we also have a covered deck at home which we have no desire to ever screen in despite having that suggested to us often.