How Old Were You When You First Went Camping?

We did all our camping in our back yard. It was depression time and we couldn’t afford camping any other way. We got together with our neighbor friends and dug deep holes in the far end of out yards. We lived in the country and had very big back yards. We secured old rugs or blankets over the top for the roof. We made a campfire and cooked hot-dogs and roasted potatoes drank hot chocolate We ate crackers and peanut butter and sang songs. And told those scary ghost stories. Couldn’t wait for bedtime boys slept in one hole and girls in the other. We slept like rocks until morning sun and the rooster crowing.
Wow I havent thought about this for almost 70 years

I was 50 the very first time I went camping.My husband and I were invited by my brother and his family who are avid campers.We borrowed my son’s friends tent and invested in a comfortable air mattress.We brought our own water and did not have any electricity. What we most vividly remember and still embrace was our natural harmony and peace with nature.It made me fell young and it renewed our sense of discovery.We fell in love with camping this very first time and to this day, seize every opportunity to go!

I had always camped in our back yard, but I was about 14 when we experienced our first real camping trip. We always vacationed as a family in the Adirondack Mountain area, eight of us. We stayed in motels, needing to get two rooms. The cost was becoming too much. We stopped at a beautiful lake for a picnic lunch and my dad noticed the campers. The next year, he borrowed a horse trailer, scrubbed it out and the 5 children stayed in it, Mom and Dad in a tent. Needless to say, we became avid campers since then! Now the next generation are campers also. What wonderful, fun memories of childhood camping I have!!

My first trip was with the Boy Scouts to the Watchung moutains in Jersey, it was in a old canvas Baker tent with no floor. It was cold and wet. We hiked,fished,and worked on merit badges. We sat around the campfire. I was hooked, that was 43 years ago and the first of hundreds of camping trips.

By the way David, I was also 11 years old.

We camp in luxury now, with a class C motorhome.
But my first camping trips were really roughing it. I was 8 years old and we went camping and fishing on the Chickashaw River in northern Oklahoma. Dad and his friends would leave after work for a two night fishing trip, which was either (or both) trot-lining and catfish noodling. My job was to help net minnows for the trot line, and hold up the coleman lantern at night while they checked their lines in the river.

We had no tents. Slept on a blanket with a second blanket for cover. Fortunately we only went in the summer. They boiled river water for coffee and brought a water jug. Fried catfish and potatoes were dinner.

I learned to swim in rivers, but I would not recommend it now due to the dangers. In my old age a lap around the pool is just fine or a snorkel in Hawaii.

My first camping trip was with my best friend when i was around 11-12, it was to a brownie camp, quite enjoyed it and didn’t feel home sick cos i was older in the group. I don’t remember it being devastating! I think it was more at night when things slowed down.

Started camping with my family, aunts, uncles and cousins in tents. Our parents would put the younger one in playpens with a sheet over it on the beach. We would go to Arrowhead at Myrtle Beach or Table Rock State Park. Wonderful family times.

My daughter Kim’s first experience camping was in an old pop up camper. She was a baby and slept in a playpen with my husband on one bed and myself on the other. Our weights proved to be uneven and the whole camper tiped over on my husbands side with the playpen lodged in between and Kim lying on the flimsy net. My husband only had his underwear on and he was trying to tip it back from the inside. It probably looked hilarious but it could have been a disaster!

I remember the first time I went camping was with my Aunt, Uncle & cousins in a pop-up trailer. I was 9 and I loved it…a new experience. I started my own camping excursions with friends around 11. We lived on a private lake and we would boat over to an island out in the middle of the lake and set up camp almost every weekend. I would take walkie talkies just in case of an emergency. Cook our catch for dinner on the campfire. The good ‘ol days…I love them.

After our first child, we decided to try camping, purchased an old 13 ft trailer, before we left our home, the trailer’s side was crushed by the garbage truck. My wife and I slaped plywood on side and away we went. It was a blast, as every campground we went to, campers would come over and asked what happened etc, it was a trip my wife and I laughed about for many years, even today I have fond memories and that was in 1959.. and I am still going, even though my wife went on a longer trip by herself, Great memories we had camping and met many many fine people both in USA and Canada.

My memories of camping go back to about 1950 when I first went deer huntuing with my dad in northern Nevada. we didn’t have a tent, we had sleeping bags with a sort of rain fly thta came up over you head and the opening in the sleeping bag like a sort of lean-to. We slept on the ground with pine needles acting as our mattress’. Camp fires to keep us warm and to cook awonderful breakfast of potatoes, eggs, and whatever we got for “Camp Meat” the day we got there, sometimes fish, some times someone would get a “sage Hen”.
Wonderful times in my memory, now of course, it a 25 ft trailer with a slide. Times, they have changed!

We were an Air Force family stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas when Dad took us camping in the Ozarks one weekend. I was 5 and my brother was 3 and we shared an old military cot each at either end. Dad hung a gas lantern over us in a tree and it attracted so many mosquitoes that both of us had swollen faces the next morning, but, we were having so much fun that I’ve been an avid camper my whole 55 years! I’ve learned a lot since then!

i didd little camping when i was younger but it wasn’t until six years ago that i got into it. i love it.

I first went camping with my husband when we had been married a few months.We had 1 mummy type sleeping bag to share with it unzipped and a blanket over us on the ground with nothing else. We had a ball watching the stars overhead, and listening to the night sounds. We have been camping ever since(1965) and have used everything from the bare ground to tents,small travel trailers, vans, stationwagons,pickup campers,etc. We go as often as we can now that we are retired. we have a 28 ft. 5th wheel,a popup camper and an overhead pickup camper now so we can go in whatever fits our needs for each getaway. It has taken us a lot of years to get to this and everything we have was used except the popup we got new 11/2 yrs ago.We use it for family trips with our son,daughter and granddaughter when they can get away from work at the same time. Our kids and granddaughter have grown up camping for all of our vacations since the first 1 was 3 months old. Wouldn’t trade any of those memories for all the mony in the world.

I grew up in Colorado and spent my youth camping with the Boy Scouts all along the front range. From winter camping in snow caves to summer camping on the plains, I got to try it all. To this day I still love to camp (although now I camp in a trailer) and I go as often as I can. My wife and I blog about our experiences and our love of camping outdoors. Stop by Little Travel Notebook sometime to read about our camping life on the road!

i was about……5 or six. at the YMCA there was an adventure guides program………i did it with my father. i will never forget it.