camping etiquete where did it go??

[Roadwarrior]

The last time I had a problem was when I was backpacking to a local lake that was fairly accessible after a moderate climb. When I arrived, It was "Deliverance" relived with the 16 yr old 40 yr olds, and all of their 15-20 yr old spawn, drinking, cussing, rude talk, yelling, and more. I had planned on spending the night and fishing the lake, but spent a couple hours and left, along with the other families who made the hike with their kids and left in disgust, thinking that these tools were spending the night too.


Of course, 20 minutes after I got back to the trailhead and had all my gear stowed in the truck, here come these knuckleheads, drunk, stoned and all ready to get back on the road. My take on it was, as soon as they realized they didn't have an audience anymore, they got bored and left.


It was clear that these people had never heard the word "etiquette".

[Parcany]

It is not only Camping but look at the way people are now a days.

[NY RVer]

X 2 ^

[Hattie]

It is like the old saying "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all". My variation is "If you can't leave your site nicer than you found it, then don't go camping at all". It isn't just the current camping neighbors that can ruin your visit - it is frequently those who occupied your site right before you! At times I'm appalled at the way a beautiful spot is left ... spongy turf where they dump (or drain) water and who knows what else, a near-by tree they believe is a toilet - and this isn't even addressing their pet's droppings wherever, a disgusting fire pit where they toss non-burnables, and here-and-there where my dog finds their cigarette butts and tossed meat bones! Shouldn't we all leave a site better than it was when we arrived? It never hurts to sweep the pad and as we walk to the rest facilities or view spots to always carry a small trash bag to pick-up "stuff" that didn't make it to the disposal location. Now don't get me going on never-ending parties, speeding cars, or unsupervised munchkins ...

[Hattie]

On the flipside - one of our lasting memories was a tent camping trip in Austria. One campground on the banks of the Donau (Danube) was unimproved so we went to the local swim-park to "bathe" and upon our return found the park filled with the caravans of a gypsy tribe - who turned-out to be great camping neighbors. At another site the man of a family from an eastern block country and owner of a strange little putt-putt car asked if we had some wire to fix something under the hood. No wire but we did have duct tape and offered that; and sure enough it fixed his problem. He returned it and we told him to keep it, we could get more ... he was so excited. It is memories like these that we campers cherish!

[andrewe]

I had a little issue the last time we went camping. We booked late and ended up with a smaller site for our TT. We were eating dinner at our picnic table which was just outside our awning. This put it close to the edge of our site.

New neighbours show up to their very large site to start backing in their popup and it's pretty close to us. We're actually a little concerned for safety as we eat our dinner and have a trailer pulling in and out only a couple feet from us. Finally getting the popup sited where they want it the neighbours then pull out the slide. It is almost touching me as I eat. Here's a photo after I moved the table as far as I could away from their popup. They had about 40' of wide open space on the other side of their camper. But hey, I guess they got to enjoy my family's conversation as they tried to sleep.

[eldermike]

Many, many years ago back before cell phones and personal computers I made the decision to take the family (including my mother) on a tent camping trip in the mountains, back to nature we would go.
My mother was, well she was my mother and the only mother I had, so……..but my wife and my mother did not get along very well.
That is another story, so back to the camping trip.
We purchased a large tent in a box and put that box in the station wagon, (this is important). We then purchased many essential items for tent camping and stored them in the boxes in same station wagon.

The first day was spent driving short distances between rest stops and restaurants with rest rooms. It was dark when we arrived at our first campground. We found our site but could not find a flashlight. With the station wagon parked so I could open the boxes and find the instructions I began to lay out the parts per instruction. Upon counting the parts and checking for proper numbers of parts per instructions I discovered our first major problem……Poles, there were some poles in that box, but not all. In fact the one that was missing was the first one you use in constructing this tent.

My mother was explaining to my wife all the reasons why people who make things and pack boxes should be destroyed. She was explaining this while my wife was trying to deal with dinner for our 4 year old daughter and new baby daughter, who were both crying and wanted to go home.

So I was sitting on the ground in front of the station wagon when help arrived. But it wasn’t help; it was someone who wanted me to understand how we were upsetting their peace and quiet.

So, we went to a hotel. The very next day we resolved the pole issue with the same box store different town.

And, the rest of the trip was almost perfect.

Bottom line: Things are not always as they seem to be.

[Lodown]

On the flip side we just got back from our first week with our TT. We experienced not only friendly but helpful neighbors. They offered several tips to make our travel experience even better and we learned much from them.

[DocBrown]

Trouble is that some people just don't care. The good part is that we encounter very few of them. Last year we went to our favorite private CG. They throw a benefit for the local volunteer fire dept every year, with a live band, tiki bar, and both a silent and live auction. It's a lot of fun and a good cause. The CG has "relaxed" quiet hours for the weekend that they do this.

Well this draws in all sorts of people. There was a group camped around us who thought nothing of tramping though our site during the middle of the night and any other time we weren't visible. This despite the fact that rule #11 states not to cut through anyone's site.

In close to 30 years of camping we've had very little trouble with other people. Most things I tolerate pretty well. What annoys me most are people who light up their sites like daylight, people with 50 strings of flashing lights, loud music, (especially country western. How would you like me to blast my progressive rock? ), cutting through my site when there are other ways to get to the shower house, and lots of loud swearing.

Most of the negative is easy to avoid though, just pick places that don't tolerate non-sense. Unfortunately that's a bit of a crap shoot, especially when you are just starting out camping.

[Ottawasteve]

I think camping etiquette has moved to the campgrounds further from the urban centres. We tent camped for many years before getting our first TT and learned to be tent quiet during quiet times and still observe tent quiet while camping. I have found that camp etiquette declines the closer you are to urban centers, particularly those in Ontario. The closer you are to the city, the more likely you are to have the 3 or 4 large box store tents per campsite with one small cooler for the hotdogs and 5 or 6 large coolers for the beverages and you know by 7:00 pm that quiet time without Ranger intervention is going to be a problem. After midnight, the noise gradually decreases as they pass out and they sleep fine and don't hear a thing and have no comprehension of what everybody else in the campground is complaining about. The most immediate cure is heavy rainfall the first night.

These are usually the people with the worst taste in music and insist on playing it the loudest. If Ranger station is closed or nobody is available to deal with it, the only cure for this is to make sure you have an amp speakers and subwoofer in your TV to drown out their music as quickly as possible so that everybody will be told to shut off their music so everybody can get back to enjoying camping more quickly. People like this are more likely to get belligerent or damage your stuff if you politely ask them to turn down their music than if you play your music loud because they don't see anything wrong with that. I have tried just sitting there for hours listening to the thumping base until the Ranger comes by and it ruins the entire evening. I would sooner escalate the problems for a resolution as soon as possible and get back to enjoying camping.

Taking a puppy camping in a provincial campground is not effective at discouraging uninvited guests to your campsite. We reserved late because we had a last minute cancellation and were meeting friends at a provincial campground. My "premium" site was near the shower/washrooms. DW couldn't go so it was just my 7 year old son and our 5 month old puppy for the weekend. While trying to level the camper, and get everything setup as quickly as possible as my son was anxious to go meet up with friends who were in a different part of the campground, in 3 and a half hours I had over 40 people walk into the middle of my campsite to pet the puppy without asking. What normally takes 15 to 20 minutes took over 3 hours because the puppy would still try to jump up and play with the kids coming into the campsite with their parents and I would have to stop set-up to make sure the puppy did not accidentally knock the smaller uninvited guests over and we were working on socializing him and teaching him not to jump up on people. After a couple of hours of unsuccessful setup, I put puppy in his crate in the camper for a nap. Then a mother and a couple of children walked into the campsite and knocked on the door because they had heard there was a puppy here and when I said sorry he was napping they asked if they could go into the camper and see the puppy. People like that do not take hints and just have to be as direct as possible so I said "No, and it is very rude to walk into somebody else's campsite uninvited. How would you feel if I walked into your camper or tent or the backseat of your car without asking first?" The weekend this happened, I thought it was just because of the puppy, but the next week we went camping in Northern NY for a week with the same trailer and the same puppy and people would stop and see the puppy while we were walking him in the campground which was fine. Twice during the week people said hi from outside the campsite and asked if they could come in and see the puppy because they recognized it as an Australian and they were thinking of getting one and I was more than happy to discuss the pros and cons of the breed.

The only real difference between the two campgrounds was that one was an extra hundred miles from an urban Center. I have camped all over Northern NY State, NH, and VT and have not run into a single disrespectful camper and the same is true of Northern Ontario campgrounds. When you are within an hour of a city there are too many "campers" who see it as a place to get drunk and stupid without annoying their city neighbors and without having to clean up their apartments or condos. I also find that the Park Rangers are far more tolerant of this inappropriate behavior closer to urban centers and will give warning after warning while all the reasonable campers in the campground suffer.

[Seann45]

It is called being LAZY.. + manors are a thing of the past..

[wags999]

Reading through these posts, it reaffirms my choice to typically stay at private campgrounds, rather than state or federal ones. Not only does price have a tendency to weed out some of the undesirables, often due to enforcement of one tent/rig per sight, but they also are better at enforcing rules. Typically you will have many more campground "workers" than at state parks, which may have a ranger covering multiple parks.

[Parcany]

One of the best camping trips was in 1977 in Germany. Got to a great campsite and set up our tent and everything else. We went to bed about 10 pm and when we woke up the next morning we had German campers all around us. They came in and set up and did not make a sound. That morning everybody was out side and we had a good time interacting with them. Very good weekend.

[Diesel Donnie]

Your situation is a sign of the times- A result of the "me first" and "rules are for others" selfishness that seem to be so prevalent these days- We seek more secluded sites and are always present when we have youngsters with us- There is no reasoning with such people so we avoid them whenever possible- JMHO- DD

[bucko]

Interesting thread. I have found that most campsites place "longtime or semi permanent" campers in an area away from a path that would lead to the common areas, such as showers or playgrounds. We simply have to expect that this is going to happen, the closer your site is to these common grounds.

I do agree with folks here in that a certain amount of manners should and could be expected, but with kids, that just won't happen. I can only suggest that if you want to camp for a long period of time and want some privacy around your site, choose a campground that provides sites away from common areas, or has trees around your site.

The ideas of placing fishing line sickens me; you'd enjoy watching a child trip and hurt themself, just because you wanted your spot to be private? Camping is supposed to be a fun, relaxing event for all; especially the kids.

[edatlanta]

A couple of years ago I was hosting at a state park in Florida (actually 4 years ago and I'm going back in May for year 5) and a large group checked in for 3-5 sites adjacent to each other and they must have had 30-35 kids. I figured this wouldn't be good and they were there for a week. As it turned out I was completely wrong. This group is a church group that brings kids from their community every year. The kids included are orphans, abused/neglected, etc. The adults that supervise this group were kids in the same group as youngsters. So this has been going on every year for a long time.

Now how did the kids act? Yes they were active all day, bicycles being ridden all day, running around and having fun, but.......They weren't overly noisy, did not run through other camp sites and did not litter. Yes there were a few times when driving by their sites the road was a bit crowded, but they did move out of the way. I would say this large group of kids acted much much better than some other campers with 1-2 kids. Why the difference? Parenting and supervision in my opinion. A lot of parents check in, set up camp, and ignore the kids the rest of the time. The responsibility for poor etiquette by the kids is directly the parents fault.

Off of soap box.

[DocBrown]

Originally Posted by wags999

Reading through these posts, it reaffirms my choice to typically stay at private campgrounds, rather than state or federal ones. Not only does price have a tendency to weed out some of the undesirables, often due to enforcement of one tent/rig per sight, but they also are better at enforcing rules. Typically you will have many more campground "workers" than at state parks, which may have a ranger covering multiple parks.

Our experience is just the opposite. At least in WI and IL state parks, as well as the couple of USACE parks we've camped at. The rangers in WI don't tolerate non-sense, while the only thing many private CGs care about is that you paid. In WI SPs, break the rules, your name gets blacklisted from the entire park system. There are many private parks in WI that are known for being party parks, some of which are a pretty good drive from cities. That's not to say that all private CGs are bad, it's just that we've found it hard to find ones that have the same level of patrolling and decent clientele that the WI state parks have.

Our biggest reason for frequenting private CGs is that I don't need to make 11 month in advance reservations.

[Crabman]

Originally Posted by DocBrown

Our experience is just the opposite. At least in WI and IL state parks, as well as the couple of USACE parks we've camped at. The rangers in WI don't tolerate non-sense, while the only thing many private CGs care about is that you paid. In WI SPs, break the rules, your name gets blacklisted from the entire park system. There are many private parks in WI that are known for being party parks, some of which are a pretty good drive from cities. That's not to say that all private CGs are bad, it's just that we've found it hard to find ones that have the same level of patrolling and decent clientele that the WI state parks have.

Our biggest reason for frequenting private CGs is that I don't need to make 11 month in advance reservations.

I have found this to be true here as well. For one thing alcohol is prohibited in Virginia and Maryland State Parks and if they see you with a container you will be approached and possibly written up. Rangers patrol regularly in season, less often off season. No golf carts in the SP`s either. Some of the private parks become a beer and party fest and have an abundance of golf cart traffic.

[mk4ever86]

Originally Posted by Gibby3275

Try stringing some fishing line about a foot off the ground! :hihi:



.

Too funny!

[gloryb]

For some reason I don't see the humor. Would rather just be an example of good camping behavior than stir up trouble. IMHO!