Best experiences camping

[jpgale]

I read the worst experiences camping as a newbie and find it enjoyable and useful, but I have only just completed my first camping trip since I was a kid and we would family vacation in a static caravan (think destination trailer and your there). However as much as this is a great learning chance it can also be a downer, so I decided to start this thread and ask you all to put in an experience that sticks out as the best you have either someone going above and beyond to help, or show appreciation to you when you have help them, whatever really I just want feel good type things.

For me the only camping trip I have was a great experience, I consider that lucky as we changed plans a couple of weeks ago due to the wildfire that shut Yosemite down. Most places we looked were fully booked but the KOA in Petaluma had space and we loved the place to the point we will go back there again.

I know it is nothing much but hey it is all I have.

[Marcm157]

For me it would have to be a trip we took to the Outer Banks for my DW's 50th birthday. Her entire extended family all have RV's and we were all there in 11 different campers.

Additionally all 4 of my children ages 18 to 30 were with us which never seems to happen anymore. We camped at a KOA literally right on the beach for 10 days.

Everything that could have gone right on that trip did! Absolutely perfect weather, great food NO family squabbles and not one mechanical failure with any of the campers present. Smooth travels both to the campground and the return trip as well...

[Camper_bob]

Hard to choose a "best" as I'm fortunate enough to have had SO many good ones.

I backpacked the collegiate peaks in CO with my dad when I was in HS and had an absolute blast. Caught and ate fresh rainbow trout from a pristine mountain lake. Canoed the boundary waters in northern Minnesota; water so clean, you could dip your cup and drink it right out of the lake, but the flying insects needed FAA registrations! LOL!! More hiking trips than I can count all over the state and beyond. When I was a kid, our family kept the trailer at a "seasonal" spot on a local lake for years. Since the four of us were the only family that lived in TX, that's where we went as often as we could and where we spent most holidays. We had more than one Easter or Thanksgiving eating ham or turkey around a campfire or catching sunfish out of the roots of some pine tree on the bank. I remember when my dad installed a TV and VCR in that trailer for my mom; she was SO happy!

I'd say my favorite RV trip in recent history was when we went to Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado year before last. We had a wonderful time seeing Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs, Pike's Peak ... We had so much fun, DW wants to do the EXACT same trip again! That trip is one of the reasons we bought our motor home; multi-day treks to the far corners of our travel radius are easier in a MH. The other one was to see the eclipse near Carbondale, IL last year (epicenter of totality for that particular event). We spent over a week on the road and saw parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma. We watched the event from a family friend's soy bean farm, it was amazing. We got stuck in Tulsa for an extra couple days because of Harvey making landfall along the TX coast, but overall the trip was absolutely fantastic. Memories of those two trips are some of my most cherished...

[Campingteacher79]

A nice idea for a thread, thank you.

I'm a single teacher up north, and I love my camping season each summer. I really look forward to heading south and picking up my trailer and going on with my adventures. Life, especially when I'm in larger southern centres, can get a little dull at times in the summer, and seeing happy families and couples camping can cause me to feel a little left out. I often go for walks up and down the rows of my campgrounds, and I remember one retired couple chatting with me, inviting me to their site for pie and ice cream, and generally just chatting with me about life, experiences, etc. Maybe I looked a little down to them, but it made me feel a whole lot better, and I still think about that little visit.

My other, bigger one, was last August, getting to my camper after finally beating cancer. Cancer forced me to miss most of a school year, go through two surgeries and 21 shots of chemo. When I finally beat it, getting to my trailer last August, even though it was for only a couple of weeks, was wonderful.

thanks!

Kevin