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What is Camping?

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What is camping? Is it something only done with a tent, no electricity and few comforts? Are you camping if you sleep in the comfort of a climate-controlled travel trailer or is that RVing? How do you define what camping is?

For myself, I think of camping as more of a primitive experience. One sets up a tent to sleep in, on the ground with a thin foam pad or air mattress. Food and beverages are kept in a cooler packed with ice. Meals are prepared over a campfire or on a camp stove. You don’t watch movies on a 42-inch TV but instead watch the flickering flames of a campfire. If you took a hot shower in the morning, it was done in the campground’s bath house.

Perhaps my definition of camping comes from memories growing up. I remember when my father bought a camping lot in a recreational community many years ago. My family would sleep on folding lounge chairs set up in a screen tent. Dad would fix breakfast on his Coleman propane camp stove. We didn’t have the comforts of home; we were camping. We were clearing the camping lot and making improvements.

Not long after the camping lot was cleared of brush and such, a concrete pad was poured. A pole was set in place with electricity and a 30-amp outlet for connecting an RV. My father purchased a used Coachmen travel trailer and parked it on the concrete pad. Now our family would have a 24-foot box to sleep in complete with air conditioning, kitchen, refrigerator, and a bathroom. We would have all the comforts of home and wouldn’t have to experience the primitive camping conditions anymore.

I seem to recall more memories of sleeping in the tent than I do the travel trailer. What about you, how do you define camping?

RV Manufacturers

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Updated September 25, 2023

Below is a comprehensive list of RV manufacturers in the United States and Canada. Three RV companies make up about 90% of the RV market: Thor Industries, Forest River, and Winnebago. REV Group, formerly known as Allied Specialty Vehicles, also owns several RV manufacturers but don’t have a large market share. Then there are the independent makers. I’m aware of about 50 small RV companies at present.

Thor Industries

The following is a list of RV companies owned by Thor Industries.

Forest River, Inc.

The following is a list of RV companies owned by Forest River.

Winnebago Industries, Inc.

The following is a list of RV companies owned by Winnebago.

REV Group

The following is a list of RV companies owned by REV Group.

Independent

The following is a list of independently owned RV companies.

Camping Journals and Log Books

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There is an abundance of camping journals and logbooks available to those who wish to record and document their travel adventures. How do you sort through all of the options available? Which one is best for you? In this post, I’ll try to summarize the different types of guided journals available.

A search on Amazon for the term “camping journal” returns a list of over 50,000 results. Similarly, a search for the term “camping log book” returns a list of over 30,000 results. How much time do you think it will take to look through all of those results? More time than I care to spend.

Did you know that Amazon makes it easy for anyone with word processing or desktop publishing software to make a book? It’s true and it really shows in some of the books I’ve seen. Some folks know just enough about word processing software to barely get by while others have obvious difficulty with spelling.

So, to make it easy for you, I’m going to say you should just buy the journal or log book I’ve created! That would be My Campground Logbook and My RV Travel Journal (both links are Amazon affiliate links). Now that I’ve put that sales pitch out there, I’ll dig in to the other options available to you.

To see what kind of competition I had with my books, I created a spreadsheet to record the various titles available on Amazon using the search terms mentioned above. My spreadsheet included the name of the publisher, the book’s title, page count, trim size, year published, and retail price. I spent many hours over several days collecting the data and figured I could probably spend many more days doing the same. After entering information in my spreadsheet for nearly 50 different titles, I decided I should rethink doing this.

In my opinion, there are three books from competitors that are popular sellers on Amazon that provide a good format for recording travel information. They are as follows:

The Write it Down! series are spiral bound so the cost is a little more than the others. By the way, the link to each book listed above is an affiliate link so if you buy any of the titles on Amazon, I make a small percentage of the sale price. These three titles appear to be professionally produced. A fourth book I considered for inclusion above was The Camping Logbook by Peter Pauper Press. It also is professionally published but I just didn’t care for it as much as the others.

While looking inside each book, using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature (not available on Amazon’s mobile site), I learned that many publishers used the same form for entering information but created different covers for their books. This isn’t bad, necessarily, because folks may prefer one cover over another. It just adds to the number of books one must look at to determine which one to buy.

All of the books provide the same basic prompts or guided questions to assist you with writing. Things like campground name, description, favorite aspects of the campground, people you met, and ideas for the next time you visit. Some books provide a detailed form with check boxes for selecting features, amenities, and activities available. A lot of the books provide space for attaching a photo. Considering that many travelers take digital photos with their phone, I’m not sure how useful this feature is. How many people will actually take time to print a picture and paste it into the book?

So, for what it’s worth, I present to you a list of some of the “publishers” of camping journals and logbooks I came across during my research. As you commence with your own research, you’ll start to recognize the publishers and the standardized form used on the inside of their guidebooks. I will attempt to provide a link to “author pages” as provided by Amazon but in some cases the link will point to a general keyword search. Also, the links provided are affiliate links so I’ll earn a few cents for any purchase made through the link.

There are many, many more journals that I’ve not included here. If you know of some really good camping journals or logbooks that I’ve not discovered, let me know. I’d be happy to take a look and decide if it should be included in this post.

Teardrop Campers

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Teardrop campers are small trailers that are typically 12 feet long or less. They usually weigh less than 2,000 pounds and can easily be towed by smaller SUVs, trucks, and the like. Teardrops are designed in such a way that the rear of the trailer curves downward to a point, which gives it the “teardrop” appearance. That’s the traditional teardrop definition. Some RV makers will use the teardrop name to describe their small campers with a rear hatch that opens to reveal an outdoor kitchen area.

I’m providing a link to some makers of teardrop campers below. This list isn’t intended to include every single model available but it should give you a nice start in researching what is available. If you know of a manufacturer that you think should be included here, drop me a note.

Teardrop Trailer Manufacturers

Mini Campers

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Small and light weight campers and travel trailers seem to be rather popular among those buying new RVs currently. I, myself, am interested in a small travel trailer to pull so I can drive down some of those scenic back roads and byways that larger RVs just can’t follow. My wife and I currently tent camp. We enjoy tent camping but wouldn’t mind some air conditioning on those really hot days. I began looking into small campers to provide that climate control a few years ago.

I was aware of pop-up tent campers but was more interested in finding an air-conditioned, hard-sided camper where we could escape the daytime heat but return to the tent for sleeping. I first became aware of “mini campers” when I came across Runaway Campers, makers of what I call an air-conditioned box. They offer campers with “living space” that is 4 or 6 feet wide by 8 feet long and 4 feet tall. You can buy one of these mini campers for less than $6,000. Some folks might even call these micro campers.

Further research lead me to the discovery of inTech RV and their Flyer Explore model. It, too, was basically an air-conditioned box but it did have a tip-out bed similar to the slide-out beds found in pop-up tent campers. (The only issue was the bed is a small 46 inches wide.) It also had a slide-out kitchen with two-burner stove and a 50-quart Dometic refrigerator. A plus was the interior height is 5 feet 6 inches; my wife could stand upright in it but I would have to crouch over a little. To me the biggest downside was the cost as it will set you back between $15,000 and $20,000 for one of these. For that amount of money, I can buy a traditional travel trailer with a full bathroom, kitchen, and sleeping accommodations. I really like the simplicity of the Flyer models, though.

I’ve provided links to the website of several mini camper makers below. I believe there are more that I came across during my research but can’t seem to find them now. If you know of other mini camper makers, feel free to contact me. Teardrop campers could also be considered mini campers but I’ll cover those in another post.

Mini Camper Manufacturers