Camping Guide 101: Roughing It in the Great Outdoors

While the pandemic has some of us climbing the walls, why not get outside them and go camping?

A highlight of camping: good company around a fire. Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock

I remember the smell of grass and canvas, the songs of birds and cicadas, the dawn sunlight gracing the top of my tent as I lay there until the smell of bacon drifted through the campsite. I climbed out of my sleeping bag, pulled back the tent flaps, and ran the 20 feet to the back door for breakfast. That was camping when I was five, and I’ve loved sleeping outside ever since. 

I ventured a wee bit farther from home over the years, however. The edge of the Grand Canyon, the bottom of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, beachside on an island in the Andaman Sea, sandbars in the middle of rivers, or county parks right outside of town.