When I was 17, my boyfriend’s parents invited me to go on a family camping trip. We went to the local state park not 50 miles away, but I felt like I was on a grand adventure. We camped in a huge canvas wall tent…the kind you see at hunter’s camps. It was damp and musty. My boyfriend’s mother and I slept on cots and the boys slept on the ground. She carefully positioned her cot between me and her son for the sake of propriety. His dad had a huge folding cabinet that held a cooking kitchen. It was really cool. I think we only camped three or four nights and I didn’t go camping again for at least 10 years.
Girl camping, or glamping, is a far cry from that canvas wall tent and army cots. There are certain amenities most girl campers like to have depending on personal tastes. There are tent campers in the girl camping movement, too. But most have little campers. Some stay in cabins. There were 7 of us who arrived early so we gathered last night for dinner in the lodge. We are all Sisters on the Fly but this isn’t a Sisters trip. We range in Sister numbers from somewhere in the 500’s to nearly 7000. I’m right in the middle at 3537. When I visited with Sisters #1 & #2 at the Denver Fly Fishing Show in January, we remarked that the 3000’s are beginning to feel like old timers.
Janine Pettit does a lot of public speaking and camper colleges for different RV manufacturers and dealers as well as goRVing.com. Her goal is to bring women into the camping world and showing them how to do everything from hooking and unhooking to backing into tight spots and everything in between. Janine also does a podcast every week covering all manner of issues surrounding camping as well as featuring really cool people who embrace the camping experience. I am the Girl Camper Correspondent and will be recording a segment this weekend on Camping in Colorado.
One thing most of us agreed on last night. You know you’ve seen pictures of those cute campers staged with all the little cute doodads arranged so artistically. We agreed that was great fun the first year or two. And then it just became such a huge deal we gave it up. My biggest obstacle is not having a garage or basement to store that stuff. Since I live in my camper full time, I want it decorated according to my own personal tastes and that is pretty minimalistic. I don’t like a lot of clutter around because it makes an already small space seems claustrophobic. Don’t get me wrong…I love the look of the cute little campers when they’re all decorated and if I had a hobby camper, that’s more than likely what I would do. As you can see in this photo, I’ve strung little tiny white lights and decorated simply in canvas and white with a little gold for glitter. When I get done with the inside, it won’t even look like an RV because the brown is going away!
❤️
“Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace.”
Proverbs 3:17 NIV