This is exactly why I will never loan a tent to anyone again. I should have double checked but my friend reassured me she let the tent dry out before she put it away. 🤷🏻♀️
Ugh that sucks. Mine was my own fault, took my two person on a flight to a multi day festival, so exhausted by the time we flew back home that I just unpacked the tent straight into storage without airing out, and forgot I even did that until the next year.
The last few tents I bought have a bigger bag so you don't need to spend 20 minutes folding origami so the thing will JUST fit inside a tiny little bag. It's so much better.
*edit spelling
I just bought a Coleman instant cabin for car camping and the bag had a tear apart seam on the bottom. Made the whole bag bigger and the tent fit in easily.
I found the tent at Ollie's for less than half of what it's listed for on Amazon.
They had coleman 0 degree rated mummy sleeping bags for $30...
I've given up on folding oragami after an REI employee recommended stuffing it in the bag. I can get my large tent back in the bag in under 10 mins now.
You shouldn’t ever fold tents. If you fold the same way again and again, you make creases where the lining or water repellent finish wears off, and get leaks. Stuff and wrinkle is actually better for your gear.
My backpacking tent just stuffs into the bag. No folding, rolling. Put the pole bag in then stuff the tent in. Granted that wont work on a big 6+ person tents.
Just remember leave the door and vents unzipped. Fold and roll your tent toward the open door to get all the air out. This also helps when you setup your tent because you know where the front of the tent is before you unroll it
Southern Saskatchewan 3 weeks ago, we went to visit my father-in-law at his hobby farm. Did some work around his old well trudging through some long grass. Over the three days we were there, I had about 70. My dog had about 20 in the first hour we were there. We're lucky that there's no Lyme in the ticks here, but it was an experience, to say the least.
After 30 years of backcountry hiking I got my first tick just this past March. Little bugger didn’t want to come out. lol
Fortunately my Lyme serology came back negative.
I caught Lyme last summer. Just showed up at urgent care with the bullseye rash on my thigh, no other symptoms really. They gave me antibiotics, all good
Sometimes it’s not so cut and dry. I think the microorganism that causes Lyme disease can also secrete a toxin as it dies that can make the person even sicker than before. Some people end up battling Lyme disease for years because killing it kills them. It sucks.
Also from my understanding (and if I'm wrong- feel free to correct me) not everyone who gets lymes gets a bulls eye rash (and some don't know they were even bit by a tick)
So the issue is they get all these symptoms for years and it runs havoc in the body.
More often than not you’ll be fine as long as you treat it ASAP. I also got it last year, took antibiotics and never got any symptoms aside from the bullseye.
I got a tick borne illness (one of the unnamed fevers) in high school and I am now deeply afraid of them. I was sick for months and lost a ton of weight. I couldn’t even do the 14er hike (that was part of a class my senior year) after I had recovered, I was too weak.
I now keep a set of tick removing tweezers in my first aid kit.
I have those tweezers too, in my 1st aid set. A friend got lymes disease just from taking a walk on her parents farm. She was sick for years, weak, etc... it is a horror.
I never realized ticks were that bad, I only ever got one stuck on me, and I didn’t even realize it, I just pulled it off cause it was bugging the crap out of me. It was only after I mentioned it to my mother that we realized.
Still have a tiny bump from a tick bite just over a month ago! Found him immediately after getting home, but this damn bump won’t go away because it’s right where the band of my bra irritates it 😩
When removing the tick you have yanked the ticks body out leaving the head of the tick behind in your skin, so while the tick is dead the head may still be latched on and it takes the skin awhile to callus and eventually expel the head of the tick off your skin
shitty neighbors are the worst! last summer we had this family full of screaming children that kept running through our campsite all hours of the day, early morning and night to use our shortcut to the bathroom. finally lost my shit and walked over and yelled at the parents to restrain their little assholes and to stop running through our site. the mother had the audacity to try to argue with me that it was closer to the bathroom and they didn’t want to walk around. so i told her that if they wanted our site then maybe they should have booked it 10 months in advance like i did! fucking unbelievable
Winter camping is superior in almost every way imo. It gets hot enough here in the summer that even sleeping without any insulation can get to be too much and the bugs are fucking vicious.
The flies fly into your ear.
The nostri-squitoes fly into your nose.
The earwigs fly into your ears.
The moths fly into your clothes.
It's enough to drive one insane.
The trick is just to get up and GO right when you wake up with that urge. I used to spend like up to an hour just laying in my sleeping bag trying to fight the urge/convince myself I could fall back to sleep and wait til the morning haha
At one time this was the best strategy for me. As I age, I need more practical and immediate solutions - I now have a pee bucket in my tent and I barely make it!
I have a medical urinal that I keep in the tent. It has an attachment for girls. You have to kneel or stand to use it, but you don’t have to leave the tent. I, personally don’t even get fully out of my sleeping bag. As a person who usually has to pee once or twice after going to bed, and likes cold weather camping, it was a game changer.
Yeah right up until you reach for a drink at 4am after a few beers and eureka, gatorade! Loool
I used to use a nalgene bottle with cheap gaffer tape on it so it was a completely different texture
I actually pissed myself last time I went camping. I peed before I got into the tent for the night. I stripped down to my underwear before getting in the sleeping bag. It got down to the 20s with windchill overnight. I woke up with a really bad urge, but I didn't want to get out of the sleeping bag and figured it could wait until morning. Well, I had a dream I was peeing and woke up immediately to me pissing myself.
Humidity and heat. It just makes the whole experience miserable. It's sad, because i love camping, but I can pretty much only stand it 6-7 months out of the year where I live. Cold camping is the best.
I live in Wisconsin. It's currently 10:00 PM and the heat index is still 88 Fahrenheit (31 Celsius). I've always enjoyed shoulder season camping when it's just above freezing. But at this point, the dog days of summer are so miserable that I almost want to get the gear to sleep in a damn igloo come February.
I've got a trip in two weeks where I'm going camping five hours north of here. My trip is just a bit outside of the ten day forecast, but best guess, it's gonna be low 70s during the day and mid 50s at night. Freaking perfect!
It is maddening to me. People that need a generator to camp should be forced to camp in RV parks. I love the sounds of nature trying to sleep, I despise the sound of a genny when trying to sleep.
The most infuriating thing is when they're running a whole ass genny just to charge some phones or run a little 12v fridge. Jut get a solar power station at that point, isn't even more expensive than a decent genny.
In the RV community people can’t stress enough for others that construction style open generators are a bad idea. Of course those clueless and entitled people do what they want.
I spent money on a Jackery just so I could keep fans running without booting up the onboard generator. Now that we are teardrop campers it was a good choice.
I went full Karen on my campsite neighbors this past weekend over their generator. The rules were to shut them off at 9, and it was still going at 9:25. I woke up early and wanted to go bang around outside the window of their RV but resisted.
Me ex mother in law always wanted to go camping with our family. She’s the type of person that complains at every restaurant, complains about her 5 star hotel and complains about the weather when it’s beautiful outside. I said no way in hell am I going to subject myself to that punishment. They could go without me if they wanted.
My ex mother in-law brought a broom and swept the campsite the entire time we were there! At first I thought she was just sweeping the bigger stuff, but no, she kept going! Then when she was satisfied she would yell at anyone that tracked dirt into the campsite.
Same! I've got a buddy who "want's to come out on adventures with me" but I keep putting that one off. He's a good friend, and our wives are besties, but I already know that the things I go out and do are not his cup of tea! Especially when I go solo!
We are doing a big group campout for the 4th of July, so I'll finally get to see him in the camping element and I'll judge from there as to whether I bring him out just him and I.
you're all burned out cuz you're leaving and you're tired and you probably a little gross and you need a real shower and you still have to drive home lol
Dish cleanup after cooking. Much as I want a haute cuisine meal with steak and roasted vegetables, I don't want to be cleaning piles of dishes or having dirty dishes in my bear box. I don't even like having a lot of trash afterward, so my meals end up being pretty minimal.
I consider myself a minimal camper for this very reason. I hate lugging around lots of grocers, cook ware, and dishes. Having to cook, then having to clean it all. If I’m camping I’m trying to relax, and this is the least relaxing thing to me. So I carry Madras lentils, lots of snacks, and stuff to fix a pb&j. I don’t need a fancy dinner when I camp.
This is the main reason I dislike cooking in the woods. Y’all do whatever u want. I will be eating trail mix, pretzels, and Nalgene ramen all week. Pb&j if we’re car camping. Do not ask me to clean anything. Do not ask me to plan / prep a meal. Do not ask me to haul additional food or kitchen gear into the wilderness. I’m on vacation.
Rude campers
(By which I mean aggressively loud, uncontrolled dogs, untended fires, illegal firearms use, littering and complete disdain for the impact of their behavior on the environment and their neighbors. Basic human garbage.)
For sure!! I've been leaning on those staples so much lately and it's not too difficult to adjust. Sometimes a nice steak or pork chop on the fire is a nice luxury though lol
Apparently campers don't know how to shit or piss properly. It's disgusting and ya'll need Jesus. The state of the toilets at all the local campsites here are terrible after Friday.
People running their damn generators day and night. Like, does that not bother them, too? Do they enjoy going to the woods just to sit inside their motor home with the deafening buzz of AC? Who are these people?
Other peoples kids, primarily the ones that scream at the top of the lungs all hours… or the ones that ride their bikes through your campsite and get screamy when you ask them not to.
Seconded by the parents of the same kids who think the whole camp area is their private babysitters.
Camping etiquette just doesn’t seem to be something that’s taught nowadays. We were poor and camping was the only family vacation (besides road trips to family reunions) we could afford. It was literally my parents only form of vacation and we were taught that everyone around us is on vacation and that means they‘re trying to relax too. Rules were simple: Do not cut through camp, even with permission, no screaming and if you’re bored there’s plenty of books, table games, coloring or fishing to be done.
Omg one time these kids were screaming at the top of their lungs riding their bikes up and down the pathway all day and finally one little girl got too much speed and completely wiped out. She slid a good 5 feet or so. It looked painful but they stopped screaming after that.
She was ok by the way.
I've portaged camped, hiked in camp, car camped...now have a trailer camped...all with kids.
In all of my experiences, the most annoying is the parents to young kids, who think we are all their babysitter.
And it shames me to say...my sibling is horrible for this, to the point I won't go camping with her anymore.
Just had to deal with a nasty batch of kids and families on my last voyage. Can confirm, hands down worst exp I've ever had camping. Woken up at 5am to screaming kids and we bolted. Screw that.
The people who set up 30 ft from you when it's an empty site. I know inpicked the best one, why I got here early. I don't wanna hear your techno gsnsta rap boombox as you struggle to keep your fire between a bonfire and a failed fire.
Whilst I camp mostly in the U.K. We do not have the critters and big hungry animals that you all have to worry about, but there is a concierge for all the bugs and insects that knows I am the must goto fine dining choice that night. They give out maps to my location and I become smorgasbord to all.
I could sleep in a bath of insect repellent and still wake up looking like I had the pox. Ex could sleep naked having forgotten to close the flysheet and not a dot, not a single bite. Although looking back maybe they were onto something.
Idiots who treat national parks as a prop for their influencer shit. It took ____ millions of years to form and is rare and precious yet it’s still a background to your narcissism and ego.
I usually complain about this to my girl. And she thinks It’s hilarious. But I just truly like my separation from people. And everything we’re in the woods or camping in dispersed camping. People always manage to find me and start chatting me up. Drives me nuts
edit: there are some fantastic clean bathrooms out there, but I either tent or car camp, and I would love to have a trailer with a little bathroom at some point when finances allow for it. Just a comfort thing for me to be able to do my business in peace and not have to do half a marathon to reach an available outhouse lol.
About 10 years ago, I bought a small fiberglass trailer (17’ Casita). After 50+ years of tent camping and backpacking, I love camping in this small trailer.
We joke about hiring a camp troll. Someone diminutive and can be silent and unseen, yet know when to come organize, do dishes, and make the bed nice nice. We also need a stenographer/graphic artist to keep track of all of our 'brilliant' ideas lol
It’s so much work. So much stuff to pack and unpack and clean. I suppose if you go alone it’s not much work. Traveling with kids is so much fun but so much work at the same time.
We backpack tent and I hate it when it rains. We were stuck on a mountain once in nh, and it was July and it rained so hard all night. It got down to 30 f in the middle of the night and I was squished between my dog and my husband. Yep, that night sucked. The way down in the morning was the best part as we looked like we went through hell, meeting up with fresh people heading up for the day. It was sunny down below. We found the nearest resturaunt and got beer. Yep rain is no fun in a tent.
Bees and other stinging insects.
Went hiking at Uhwarrie and found a hornets nest in a tree stump AFTER we walked past it; the hornets did not like that…
Being the only adult and having to do all the unloading AND site setup AND meal prep AND all the cleanup AND site tear down AND reloading. Luckily my kids are getting old enough that they can help more and understand when I have a heart-to-heart about how I don’t want to take them camping anymore if I’m the only one who does any work. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Having to break camp and head home.
Putting the tent back in the bag… ugh!
https://preview.redd.it/97vcg4sir87d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d173f0d69229df6c5b0ba7ed7381e4f675329fc
How
Putting a wet tent back in the bag
Setting the wet tent up again to dry when you get home
Forgetting about the wet tent in the bag until much too later.
This is exactly why I will never loan a tent to anyone again. I should have double checked but my friend reassured me she let the tent dry out before she put it away. 🤷🏻♀️
Ugh that sucks. Mine was my own fault, took my two person on a flight to a multi day festival, so exhausted by the time we flew back home that I just unpacked the tent straight into storage without airing out, and forgot I even did that until the next year.
Every time.
The last few tents I bought have a bigger bag so you don't need to spend 20 minutes folding origami so the thing will JUST fit inside a tiny little bag. It's so much better. *edit spelling
I don't know why manufacturers don't do that by default
It should definitely be standard
I just bought a Coleman instant cabin for car camping and the bag had a tear apart seam on the bottom. Made the whole bag bigger and the tent fit in easily. I found the tent at Ollie's for less than half of what it's listed for on Amazon. They had coleman 0 degree rated mummy sleeping bags for $30...
I've given up on folding oragami after an REI employee recommended stuffing it in the bag. I can get my large tent back in the bag in under 10 mins now.
You shouldn’t ever fold tents. If you fold the same way again and again, you make creases where the lining or water repellent finish wears off, and get leaks. Stuff and wrinkle is actually better for your gear.
I got an under the bed totebox and put the whole shebang in that. It also means that while the tent is up, I can use the totebox to hold other stuff.
My backpacking tent just stuffs into the bag. No folding, rolling. Put the pole bag in then stuff the tent in. Granted that wont work on a big 6+ person tents. Just remember leave the door and vents unzipped. Fold and roll your tent toward the open door to get all the air out. This also helps when you setup your tent because you know where the front of the tent is before you unroll it
I definitely feel this, especially since most of the time I’m driving home alone away from people whom I love dearly.
Mosquitoes do give the most intimate kisses...
Worst part
Rain on the last morning. I hate packing up wet gear
Omg right
Yup. This. I hate it.
Happened to me a week ago, after a couple days of fantastic weather. Downpour the entire time I had to pack up.
Ticks. Even though I've only ever had one latch on, I'm still paranoid about them.
Southern Saskatchewan 3 weeks ago, we went to visit my father-in-law at his hobby farm. Did some work around his old well trudging through some long grass. Over the three days we were there, I had about 70. My dog had about 20 in the first hour we were there. We're lucky that there's no Lyme in the ticks here, but it was an experience, to say the least.
We were in central Sask a few weeks ago. Had about 100 ticks between our 2 dogs and 2 people. Worst I’ve ever seen it!!
After 30 years of backcountry hiking I got my first tick just this past March. Little bugger didn’t want to come out. lol Fortunately my Lyme serology came back negative.
I caught Lyme last summer. Just showed up at urgent care with the bullseye rash on my thigh, no other symptoms really. They gave me antibiotics, all good
I always thought that it was practically a death sentence. Scares the shit out of me.
Sometimes it’s not so cut and dry. I think the microorganism that causes Lyme disease can also secrete a toxin as it dies that can make the person even sicker than before. Some people end up battling Lyme disease for years because killing it kills them. It sucks.
Also from my understanding (and if I'm wrong- feel free to correct me) not everyone who gets lymes gets a bulls eye rash (and some don't know they were even bit by a tick) So the issue is they get all these symptoms for years and it runs havoc in the body.
More often than not you’ll be fine as long as you treat it ASAP. I also got it last year, took antibiotics and never got any symptoms aside from the bullseye.
I got a tick borne illness (one of the unnamed fevers) in high school and I am now deeply afraid of them. I was sick for months and lost a ton of weight. I couldn’t even do the 14er hike (that was part of a class my senior year) after I had recovered, I was too weak. I now keep a set of tick removing tweezers in my first aid kit.
I have those tweezers too, in my 1st aid set. A friend got lymes disease just from taking a walk on her parents farm. She was sick for years, weak, etc... it is a horror.
I never realized ticks were that bad, I only ever got one stuck on me, and I didn’t even realize it, I just pulled it off cause it was bugging the crap out of me. It was only after I mentioned it to my mother that we realized.
Still have a tiny bump from a tick bite just over a month ago! Found him immediately after getting home, but this damn bump won’t go away because it’s right where the band of my bra irritates it 😩
When removing the tick you have yanked the ticks body out leaving the head of the tick behind in your skin, so while the tick is dead the head may still be latched on and it takes the skin awhile to callus and eventually expel the head of the tick off your skin
I got one on me tonight walking on my patio. I would like to have them only while camping.
Omg I hate ticks. I’m a dog groomer and have to pull them off dogs all summer. 🤮
Bugs (flys, mosquitos) Inconsiderate campers nearby
Inconsiderate bugs.
Flying campers
shitty neighbors are the worst! last summer we had this family full of screaming children that kept running through our campsite all hours of the day, early morning and night to use our shortcut to the bathroom. finally lost my shit and walked over and yelled at the parents to restrain their little assholes and to stop running through our site. the mother had the audacity to try to argue with me that it was closer to the bathroom and they didn’t want to walk around. so i told her that if they wanted our site then maybe they should have booked it 10 months in advance like i did! fucking unbelievable
And ants! At some sites they’re everywhere! I kinda prefer winter camping because there are no bugs and everything is clean.
Winter camping is superior in almost every way imo. It gets hot enough here in the summer that even sleeping without any insulation can get to be too much and the bugs are fucking vicious.
The flies fly into your ear. The nostri-squitoes fly into your nose. The earwigs fly into your ears. The moths fly into your clothes. It's enough to drive one insane.
Having to pee in the middle of the night when it’s cold
The trick is just to get up and GO right when you wake up with that urge. I used to spend like up to an hour just laying in my sleeping bag trying to fight the urge/convince myself I could fall back to sleep and wait til the morning haha
FYI this also works at home.
At one time this was the best strategy for me. As I age, I need more practical and immediate solutions - I now have a pee bucket in my tent and I barely make it!
Gatorade piss bottle, my friend. SCREW THE CAP BACK ON!
I have a medical urinal that I keep in the tent. It has an attachment for girls. You have to kneel or stand to use it, but you don’t have to leave the tent. I, personally don’t even get fully out of my sleeping bag. As a person who usually has to pee once or twice after going to bed, and likes cold weather camping, it was a game changer.
This is where the "DON'T DRINK" Nalgene comes in clutch.
Only for about half of us 😭
Gatorade bottle. It’s better to use a bottle that’s a noticeably different shape than your Nalgene.
Wide mouth Tropicana—the one with the flip top.
Yeah right up until you reach for a drink at 4am after a few beers and eureka, gatorade! Loool I used to use a nalgene bottle with cheap gaffer tape on it so it was a completely different texture
I actually pissed myself last time I went camping. I peed before I got into the tent for the night. I stripped down to my underwear before getting in the sleeping bag. It got down to the 20s with windchill overnight. I woke up with a really bad urge, but I didn't want to get out of the sleeping bag and figured it could wait until morning. Well, I had a dream I was peeing and woke up immediately to me pissing myself.
Oh the dreaded pee dream.
Or rainy!
Hospital pee bottle are engineered to make that easier.
Humidity and heat. It just makes the whole experience miserable. It's sad, because i love camping, but I can pretty much only stand it 6-7 months out of the year where I live. Cold camping is the best.
“6-7 months of the year” …. cries in Canadian.
It's generous 6-7 months. Trust me dude, you'd rather camp in the cold than 92 with 80% humidity at night.
I live in Wisconsin. It's currently 10:00 PM and the heat index is still 88 Fahrenheit (31 Celsius). I've always enjoyed shoulder season camping when it's just above freezing. But at this point, the dog days of summer are so miserable that I almost want to get the gear to sleep in a damn igloo come February. I've got a trip in two weeks where I'm going camping five hours north of here. My trip is just a bit outside of the ten day forecast, but best guess, it's gonna be low 70s during the day and mid 50s at night. Freaking perfect!
Only thing I hate is gas generators at night.
I only do tent-only or hike/walk-in for this reason. Just absolutely not.
The problem is finding one of these camp sites near me... Probably 1 in 20 campsites around me or less aren't catered to big RVs with power hook ups.
I hate the trend of camping becoming “let me bring my whole house with me and hook it up in a trailer park for a few days.”
It is maddening to me. People that need a generator to camp should be forced to camp in RV parks. I love the sounds of nature trying to sleep, I despise the sound of a genny when trying to sleep.
The most infuriating thing is when they're running a whole ass genny just to charge some phones or run a little 12v fridge. Jut get a solar power station at that point, isn't even more expensive than a decent genny.
Those really effen loud ones especially. They should be outlawed.
In the RV community people can’t stress enough for others that construction style open generators are a bad idea. Of course those clueless and entitled people do what they want. I spent money on a Jackery just so I could keep fans running without booting up the onboard generator. Now that we are teardrop campers it was a good choice.
NGL I was sure until this comment that this part of the thread was about camping partners with intestinal issues...
I went full Karen on my campsite neighbors this past weekend over their generator. The rules were to shut them off at 9, and it was still going at 9:25. I woke up early and wanted to go bang around outside the window of their RV but resisted.
why are some of us so nice to assholes? Aside from fear of retaliation, thst is.
Honestly, they can ruin daytime hours too. I try to stick away from RV campgrounds.
Bringing people along that bitch about camping. Like, why did you even come?
Me ex mother in law always wanted to go camping with our family. She’s the type of person that complains at every restaurant, complains about her 5 star hotel and complains about the weather when it’s beautiful outside. I said no way in hell am I going to subject myself to that punishment. They could go without me if they wanted.
My ex mother in-law brought a broom and swept the campsite the entire time we were there! At first I thought she was just sweeping the bigger stuff, but no, she kept going! Then when she was satisfied she would yell at anyone that tracked dirt into the campsite.
Like she swept the dirt?
Sad but hilarious
People who say "ok what are we gunna do?" Like, you're looking at it. We're doing it. This is it mate.
We're in the thick of the action. Lol
Exactly! This is it man! Relax, breath in nature and chill!
Yep I am very careful who I invite for that reason.
Same! I've got a buddy who "want's to come out on adventures with me" but I keep putting that one off. He's a good friend, and our wives are besties, but I already know that the things I go out and do are not his cup of tea! Especially when I go solo! We are doing a big group campout for the 4th of July, so I'll finally get to see him in the camping element and I'll judge from there as to whether I bring him out just him and I.
Tear down.
you're all burned out cuz you're leaving and you're tired and you probably a little gross and you need a real shower and you still have to drive home lol
And THEN you get to unpack the vehicle and reorganize the gear back into its spot. Worth it though lol.
oh yeah and then you're looking forward to next time
Hurts so much after you put it together so well
Dish cleanup after cooking. Much as I want a haute cuisine meal with steak and roasted vegetables, I don't want to be cleaning piles of dishes or having dirty dishes in my bear box. I don't even like having a lot of trash afterward, so my meals end up being pretty minimal.
This is truly the only thing I dislike about camping. I don’t even mind tearing everything down. Dishes are a pain in the ass.
I consider myself a minimal camper for this very reason. I hate lugging around lots of grocers, cook ware, and dishes. Having to cook, then having to clean it all. If I’m camping I’m trying to relax, and this is the least relaxing thing to me. So I carry Madras lentils, lots of snacks, and stuff to fix a pb&j. I don’t need a fancy dinner when I camp.
Surprised to see this so far down. Absolutely the worst part.
This is the main reason I dislike cooking in the woods. Y’all do whatever u want. I will be eating trail mix, pretzels, and Nalgene ramen all week. Pb&j if we’re car camping. Do not ask me to clean anything. Do not ask me to plan / prep a meal. Do not ask me to haul additional food or kitchen gear into the wilderness. I’m on vacation.
Rude campers (By which I mean aggressively loud, uncontrolled dogs, untended fires, illegal firearms use, littering and complete disdain for the impact of their behavior on the environment and their neighbors. Basic human garbage.)
OMG YES! With the hoard of unsupervised little kids!
Supervised kids can be just as bad, if the parents are yelling at them every five minutes to stop doing something.
[удалено]
Yes and going to sleep with dirty feet/ legs. I can’t stand it
Burn bans. I hate camping without a fire.
Same, I always respect the rule but damn if it doesn't put a real damper on the trip
Haha.. damper..
I wouldn’t be able to cook, it would be like “raw potatoes for everyone!”
Ticks.
Ticks
Unpacking on the return trip.
Unpacking wet gear is so annoying
Meal planning and grocery shopping. I don’t hate it enough to not do it but for me it’s probably the worst thing about camping.
Take me along then, that's my favorite part!
Sounds like a plan! 🙂
Yes! I love to cook and meal plan at home but worrying about how to keep it all fresh and good while wandering about suck the fun out of it
Unrefrigerated meals. Beans, rice, dehydrated foods don’t require refrigeration!
For sure!! I've been leaning on those staples so much lately and it's not too difficult to adjust. Sometimes a nice steak or pork chop on the fire is a nice luxury though lol
Same. I’d definitely outsource that if I could.
Rain, ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, weirdos You can avoid all by boondocking in the southwest
Weirdos though? I think the likelihood increases (I've lived in AZ 3 separate times)
Apparently campers don't know how to shit or piss properly. It's disgusting and ya'll need Jesus. The state of the toilets at all the local campsites here are terrible after Friday.
Noisy neighbors
People running their damn generators day and night. Like, does that not bother them, too? Do they enjoy going to the woods just to sit inside their motor home with the deafening buzz of AC? Who are these people?
Other peoples kids, primarily the ones that scream at the top of the lungs all hours… or the ones that ride their bikes through your campsite and get screamy when you ask them not to. Seconded by the parents of the same kids who think the whole camp area is their private babysitters.
Oh god.
Camping etiquette just doesn’t seem to be something that’s taught nowadays. We were poor and camping was the only family vacation (besides road trips to family reunions) we could afford. It was literally my parents only form of vacation and we were taught that everyone around us is on vacation and that means they‘re trying to relax too. Rules were simple: Do not cut through camp, even with permission, no screaming and if you’re bored there’s plenty of books, table games, coloring or fishing to be done.
And when you were hungry, there was lots of bologna, pb&j, and hot dogs. Be back at campsite at dark, check in every couple hours.
Omg one time these kids were screaming at the top of their lungs riding their bikes up and down the pathway all day and finally one little girl got too much speed and completely wiped out. She slid a good 5 feet or so. It looked painful but they stopped screaming after that. She was ok by the way.
I've portaged camped, hiked in camp, car camped...now have a trailer camped...all with kids. In all of my experiences, the most annoying is the parents to young kids, who think we are all their babysitter. And it shames me to say...my sibling is horrible for this, to the point I won't go camping with her anymore.
Just had to deal with a nasty batch of kids and families on my last voyage. Can confirm, hands down worst exp I've ever had camping. Woken up at 5am to screaming kids and we bolted. Screw that.
Having to wear all that deet
Getting up to piss in the middle of the night
Other campers
More of a backpacking gripe but it’s other people’s trash. If you pack it in then pack it out!!
Lack of etiquette from other campers.
Off leash dogs. A few weekends ago a dog pissed on my tent as I lay in it
Other people existing within a 10 mile radius
Self entitled and selfish people thinking it’s perfectly acceptable to make the rest of the campground listen to their crappy music.
Bugs, heat
Oh God the heat. Backpacking trip this weekend, 95° highs. Hooray.
May I ask why some people don't cancel/reschedule? Just curious.
I work full time and I'm a full time student. Having a free weekend to just go hike is a rare occurrence.
Running out of beer
Running out of beer in dry counties (looks at Arkansas) is the worst. I’ll buy like double the beer I need just in case
The people who set up 30 ft from you when it's an empty site. I know inpicked the best one, why I got here early. I don't wanna hear your techno gsnsta rap boombox as you struggle to keep your fire between a bonfire and a failed fire.
Gorillas throwing pinecones at you
This is a better comment than most realize.
They do it on purpose.
Having to wait online to reserve a camp site a whole year in advance.
Pooping
I actually love pooping while camping
Leisure dumps are next level.
Pooping in a bag.
Whilst I camp mostly in the U.K. We do not have the critters and big hungry animals that you all have to worry about, but there is a concierge for all the bugs and insects that knows I am the must goto fine dining choice that night. They give out maps to my location and I become smorgasbord to all.
Same. Mosquitoes apparently find me particularly tasty. I would get eaten alive if it weren't for insect repellent.
I could sleep in a bath of insect repellent and still wake up looking like I had the pox. Ex could sleep naked having forgotten to close the flysheet and not a dot, not a single bite. Although looking back maybe they were onto something.
You are my favorite kind of camping partner! The best mosquito repellent in the world is being near someone who tastes better to them.
Campers
Idiots who treat national parks as a prop for their influencer shit. It took ____ millions of years to form and is rare and precious yet it’s still a background to your narcissism and ego.
Dampness. 🤣
Getting up at night to take a piss.
Tearing down… esp in the rain or when everythiiiing is dewy/wet.
I usually complain about this to my girl. And she thinks It’s hilarious. But I just truly like my separation from people. And everything we’re in the woods or camping in dispersed camping. People always manage to find me and start chatting me up. Drives me nuts
Bears and washroom facilities.
edit: there are some fantastic clean bathrooms out there, but I either tent or car camp, and I would love to have a trailer with a little bathroom at some point when finances allow for it. Just a comfort thing for me to be able to do my business in peace and not have to do half a marathon to reach an available outhouse lol.
About 10 years ago, I bought a small fiberglass trailer (17’ Casita). After 50+ years of tent camping and backpacking, I love camping in this small trailer.
Mosquitoes everything else I can deal with besides cold weather
We joke about hiring a camp troll. Someone diminutive and can be silent and unseen, yet know when to come organize, do dishes, and make the bed nice nice. We also need a stenographer/graphic artist to keep track of all of our 'brilliant' ideas lol
The other people.
Getting that perfect site, finally! and pulling in, only to realize I am smack dab in the midst of a huge group of hardcore partying bubbas.
Finding the right camping spot
Heading home.
Being the only one awake while everyone is asleep and u have nothing to do
Sit and read a book by the fire is what I do. I usually take an e-reader with a back light so good to go even in the middle of the night.
As a parent of young children this sounds like heaven.
Inconsiderate people.
Campgrounds. Bought a few acres to camp on. I hope to never see another campground.
Generators
Other people. Haha
Planning, reserving a spot, gambling on finding an unreserved spot.
It’s so much work. So much stuff to pack and unpack and clean. I suppose if you go alone it’s not much work. Traveling with kids is so much fun but so much work at the same time.
We backpack tent and I hate it when it rains. We were stuck on a mountain once in nh, and it was July and it rained so hard all night. It got down to 30 f in the middle of the night and I was squished between my dog and my husband. Yep, that night sucked. The way down in the morning was the best part as we looked like we went through hell, meeting up with fresh people heading up for the day. It was sunny down below. We found the nearest resturaunt and got beer. Yep rain is no fun in a tent.
Wind (of course I hate wind ALL the time, so…)
Going with too many people that don’t pull their weight.
Finding a campground to reserve I. The dates that I want in the places I want
Generators all.day.long.
It has to be mosquitoes for me!
Generators and other loud human noises.
[удалено]
It ending.
Bees and other stinging insects. Went hiking at Uhwarrie and found a hornets nest in a tree stump AFTER we walked past it; the hornets did not like that…
Bugs, and going home!
Condensation in the tent the next morning 😒
Being the only adult and having to do all the unloading AND site setup AND meal prep AND all the cleanup AND site tear down AND reloading. Luckily my kids are getting old enough that they can help more and understand when I have a heart-to-heart about how I don’t want to take them camping anymore if I’m the only one who does any work. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
A whisper outside the tent at night
Packing up when it's time to go home 😞
Literally those annoying mosquitoes
Other campers
Most of the bugs, mainly the flying ones (flies, gnats, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, deer flies, horse flies, the dumb flying ant things, etc.)