The Art of Camping
Written By Catherine Newman
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There's nothing like brushing your teeth in the woods to keep you in the here and now.
Download Catherine's complete camping checklist.
Across the dirt floor of our campsite a black beetle is scuttling. It's as big as a small rat, and the kids scream and laugh with terror and delight; they can't take their eyes off of it. And I can't take my eyes off of them, off of their legs in particular, which I'm looking at now as if for the first time. They're filthy for one thing — pine needles have stuck on one of Ben's shins to a lump of something that most likely began life as a marshmallow — and they're also bruised and scraped, these legs, as bitten-up as candy apples. They give me a feeling of inexplicable joy. Isn't this what children's legs are supposed to look like in the summertime? My kids have kid legs!
I'm not saying that you have to go camping for your children to get legs like that, should you happen even to want such a thing, but boy does it speed things along, what with the incessant bike riding and wood carrying and creepy-crawlies and falling down hillsides in the dark while you're peeing. Let me start over. Let me sing the praises of camping to the beautiful tune of wide, starlit skies, the drowsy and flame-flickered children bundled around a campfire while tree frogs chirp, while day unfolds into night, time as magically expanding as a pleated fan. We have camped every summer in the very same site (usually) of the very same campground since Ben, now 8, was 1, and our memories are as thickly layered as a fancy cake: the summer the raccoons stole our marshmallows and pitched them down at us from a treetop; the summer Birdy was just a burping-new bump under my swimsuit; the summer the two babes slept late in the breezy shade of our tent while we two parents sat happily alone with our mugs under the dappled sunshine. "Remember the time . . . ?" we all say to each other a hundred times a day, and so, like a kind of vacation matryoshka doll, the latest trip contains nested inside it all of the trips that came before.
It's things gone vaguely haywire that the kids reminisce about most fondly: the time something winged and furry — a bat? a flying squirrel? — flapped into Dad's face while he was brushing his teeth; the time Ben put down a hot sparkler and melted our vinyl tablecloth ("There's the scar!"); the time our king-size air mattress deflated all night long with a cartoonish hisssssssss and we awoke on the hard ground, the four of us in a laughing heap; the time we repaired the mattress — or tent or swim ring or hiking boot — with duct tape; the time it rained and rained and Ben ate a lobster roll in footie pajamas because he had no dry clothes left to wear to the clam shack; the time we missed the turnoff and drove in an unwitting circle around the entire campground, Ben exclaiming, "Hey, those people have our exact same watermelon tablecloth!" just as I was exclaiming, "Hey, those people have our exact same beach towels!"
There's never a dull moment camping — even when nothing happens. The time you normally pass through on your way to the real destination of your actual day — this time becomes your actual day: getting water, boiling water, brushing teeth, cooking breakfast, washing dishes. You don't camp in spite of the fact that the most ordinary activities become challenging; you camp because of it. Take the bathroom, for example: It's a buzzing, flapping insectarium, and while both kids are vaguely afraid of the drain in the floor, they're fascinated by the bugs (others feel differently, it seems, since we once spent five minutes ferrying a dozen daddy longlegs out of a stall so somebody's nail-biting 8-year-old could pee). Every activity occasions curiosity, conversation, and detour; we're always asking each other, "Hey, where were you guys?" and always answering, "Watching a red-tailed hawk near the faucet," or "Examining a slug on the firewood," or "I'm not sure." There is nothing quite as thrilling as ordinary life when it suddenly takes center stage.
It's not that I'm a purist: We eat at a clam shack a lot, drink a lot of nice wine, go to the drive-in movies, and buy wood and bottled water nearby, even when it's a rip-off. We sleep on our cotton sheets with our down comforter from home. But camping is great because it so precisely taps into our kids' passions: dirt and water, bent rules (more sugar, for example, and less hygiene), peeing en plein air, and, of course, fire. Last year, while Birdy was still content to cozy up to the fire pit with Eebo, her grubby purple hippo, our son made the inevitable 7-year-old turn toward pyromania: He helped his dad build and light the fire; he held a stick in the coals until it became (oy vey) a "torch"; he tossed crumpled paper into the flames, also bark and pine needles and a torn-up tissue box, to say nothing of the primitive thrill of cooking on a stick — marshmallows and hot dogs, of course, but also the less common plums and string cheese. When you're camping, everything tastes good. (Actually, make that everything except an incinerated plum.)
And let me just add: I am a city kid by birth and by nature, more "double-shot latte, please" than "help me balance this percolator on the fire grate." Years ago, in fact, my husband Michael (then boyfriend) and I backpacked in a Pacific Northwest rainforest where it — surprise! — rained the whole entire time, and I sang him the chorus from that Lemonheads song ("I lied about being the outdoor type") before swearing never again. But this — car camping with children and a comfy bed and a bottle of wine — I love completely. We stay in the most beautiful places (the California coast, Cape Cod) for next to nothing, and our initial investment (tent, air mattress, a camp stove) was the equivalent of maybe two nights in a hotel — and now we'll use that gear for years of inexpensive vacations.
Finally, no matter how bitterly I resent packing up the car — "Why are we doing this?" I grouse every single year as we cram the trunk with guitars and pillows, life vests and sandwich bread — it's always worth it. We tumble out into the cathedral-hushed shade of our campsite and inhale the clean air deeply into our lungs, and the kids begin the happy process of dirtying their legs.
Cardinal rule of camping: Set up your campsite — put up the tent, make up the beds, unfold the chairs, hang a clothesline — before jumping in the pond or hunting daddy longlegs.
Things I Can't Camp Without
- Doormat
- Camp chairs
- Washing-up bin
- Clothesline
- Paper towels
- Air mattress
For the Kids
- Bug box
- Field guides
- Magnifying glass
- Art supplies
- Disposable camera
High Camp
Campgrounds range from pristine hike-in spots in the wilderness to sites complete with swimming pool, horseshoes, and a family watching Simpsons reruns in the RV next door. Our favorites are state parks, which tend to offer the perfect mix of a lovely natural setting and flush toilets. An easy way to reserve a spot is through reserveamerica.com, which lists more than 170,000 campsites and cabins at 3,000 state, federal, and private campgrounds. We reserve six months ahead to get specific dates and sites, but we have also gotten last-minute reservations many times. For details on particular sites (terrain, shade, etc.), call the campground itself, rather than relying on its online map.
Note: If you park your RV next to Catherine Newman's tent, she requests only that you let her watch Lost before she rejoins her family roasting string cheese.
Download Catherine's complete camping checklist
