Grump Alert: camp apps, drones, loud music, generators, etc

[steamboatscott]

Does anyone else miss the “good ol’ days” of camping where campers were quiet without generators/music, enjoyed the outdoors without flying their drones, left with whatever trash they brought, and finding that beautiful dispersed campsite required a bit of work but rewarded you with serenity? It seems that apps like Allstays, Campendium, etc have brought more people than the land can withstand, and too many of those visitors aren’t treating the land well either.

[ben31]

I don't think the apps have done that. The half a million RV sales a year, with no real increase in the number of campgrounds have done it. More people vying for the same space.

Though, yes, I do agree that campground etiquette is disappearing.

[timfromma]

Nope. Time and progress marches on and I really like all the cool new technology there is today. Sure, there's the random jerk who misuses and abuses these things but I still really enjoy all of it.

[BandJCarm]

Has nothing to do with apps.

For many years, 10,000 people are retiring EVERY day. Still going on. Maybe increasing. Huge percentage are buying RV's. Natural selection says some percentage of those are not considerate.

Most are, though.

I am sitting in Amish country, and see buggies going down the road all the time. It's hard for me to pull a huge trailer with a huge truck that uses diesel fuel refined from oil, and travel the country with it, and then not find the Good in new technology like Apps or such.

It's not the gun that kills, nor the drugs that destroy, nor the technology that is addictive, nor new tools that cause problems. It's choices people make.

[ben31]

Amen, BandJCarm!

[mikel68]

I'm not sure many people know about those apps anyway, judging by the number of people here asking about how to find campgrounds, dumps, gas stations, gps, etc.


Camping or RVing? Is there a difference? The problem with the word camping is people think it means one thing. Like tents or pop-ups or no slides or no generators, etc.



We used to do all those things, tents, campfires, etc. We moved on to RVing, I said, "on" not "up." I could care less what people use. I realized I wanted "all of it." The ability to build a campfire, go fishing, make s'mores and travel into a city for a while and have "our" stuff their as opposed to hotels.

Education and respect plain and simple and it starts at home from age Zero. Unfortunately we have become "throw-away" society and it's translating to everything, including the beautiful parks. "If I don't see it, it's okay..." Sad.

[BandJCarm]

Thank you, Mikel.

I do not "camp" very often. Yet sometimes I do!!

I travel with my house. I go places. I bring my house with me. Yet I am in campgrounds where people ARE camping!!! Tents, etc. Others are like me. Sometimes I join them. Sometimes I don't join them. NEVER do I bother them.

[jd50i]

When kitchens, speakers, showers and TV mounts are being put on the outside of RV's then people will be outside using them.
I only use my outside speakers when I am at home working outside and keep what little noise I make inside when camping.

[jeffnick]

Nice thing about an RV - you can always go someplace else.

[Cowracer]

Times change. And what you must "endure" today will be the "Good old days" for the next generation.

On the other side of the coin, I have been at campgrounds where the stuffy old people want to sneer at anyone having fun. I had an old guy march into my site once tell me that we had to stop playing corn-hole as the thumping was giving his wife a headache. This was at like 3pm in the afternoon. They sat in their lawn chairs reading the whole weekend practically screaming at every kid that rode a bike past their site. His wife also made a big show of being overcome with the fumes when I started my diesel truck to run into town. I guess I even blinked my eyes the wrong way for them too.

Point is, the social norm nowadays is drones and music and generators and fun. Times change. you cant expect everyone to want to camp in the manner you prefer.

Tim

[GL1800Rider]

You can blame the over abundance of campers on your parent's rainy day and cold night activities and creating the baby boomers

[Mountndream]

i could easily argue that we are part of the problem.

The tent Campers have two opinions, we are ruining camping or they are jealous of our campers

[timfromma]

Originally Posted by Cowracer

Times change. And what you must "endure" today will be the "Good old days" for the next generation.

On the other side of the coin, I have been at campgrounds where the stuffy old people want to sneer at anyone having fun. I had an old guy march into my site once tell me that we had to stop playing corn-hole as the thumping was giving his wife a headache. This was at like 3pm in the afternoon. They sat in their lawn chairs reading the whole weekend practically screaming at every kid that rode a bike past their site. His wife also made a big show of being overcome with the fumes when I started my diesel truck to run into town. I guess I even blinked my eyes the wrong way for them too.

Point is, the social norm nowadays is drones and music and generators and fun. Times change. you cant expect everyone to want to camp in the manner you prefer.

Tim

What he said.

[DreiHunde]

Originally Posted by BandJCarm

Has nothing to do with apps.

For many years, 10,000 people are retiring EVERY day. Still going on. Maybe increasing. Huge percentage are buying RV's. Natural selection says some percentage of those are not considerate.

Most are, though.

I am sitting in Amish country, and see buggies going down the road all the time. It's hard for me to pull a huge trailer with a huge truck that uses diesel fuel refined from oil, and travel the country with it, and then not find the Good in new technology like Apps or such.

It's not the gun that kills, nor the drugs that destroy, nor the technology that is addictive, nor new tools that cause problems. It's choices people make.

Well said!

And I remember there were a some jerks back in "the good ole days" too.
I just always try not to be one.

[NMWildcat]

We bought a fiver to use all of it's amenities. We mainly boondock in the Gila National Forest area where we can get as far away from civilization as we like and enjoy any level of camping, glamping, or RVing. We even backpack from our RV basecamp occasionally.

We also enjoy several weeks a year of dry camping at NASCAR races where if you expect any quiet, you are in the wrong place. It's a week long party with 100k fellow rednecks.

We do stay in RV resorts/parks also, and enjoy long showers (on demand wh) and power w/o generators. We also get to meet mostly really nice folks. And after NASCAR, no amount of noise or grumpy neighbors will phase us.

So if you are unhappy with your RVing experience and neighbors, it's your own fault. RVs do have wheels.

[B and B]

Add to the dislikes in close parks. Cigar Smoke, Reefer Smoke, noisy dogs and people that have leaky sewer snakes.

[JohnD10]

Originally Posted by steamboatscott

Does anyone else miss the “good ol’ days” of camping where campers were quiet without generators/music, enjoyed the outdoors without flying their drones, left with whatever trash they brought, and finding that beautiful dispersed campsite required a bit of work but rewarded you with serenity? It seems that apps like Allstays, Campendium, etc have brought more people than the land can withstand, and too many of those visitors aren’t treating the land well either.

You mean like:

- The site next to you filled with a bunch of college kids with a keg of beer and a flatbed trailer full of 6-foot fence posts for firewood to build their gargantuan campfire at 3 am?

- The family with four kids and six pitbulls that they let run loose all day without any supervision and leave their bikes and toys out in middle of the road?

- The fisherman running his smoker right outside your dinette window upwind from you?

- The couple next to you in the tent that snore so loud that it sounds like the forest is being cut down yet keeps the bears away (this could actually be a good thing)?

- The old beat up minihome (ooppsseeyy, now they are called 'Class C') across the way doing a valve job on the engine while you are trying to go to sleep?

- The neighbor you try to sneek by to get in your RV quick as he/she likes to talk about nothing or tell you how everything he/she has is bigger, better and more expensive than what you have whether it's true or not for hours on end and drink all of your beer?

And much more...

Things really haven't changed much in the last 50 years...

Other than music going from wire to vinyl (78's) to reel-to-reel and back to vinyl to 8-track to cassettes to CD's to MP3's to streaming...to who knows what's next.

[dmlranhc]

Curse the manufacturers putting speakers on outsides of RVs. State Parks in my State do not allow drones and I rarely stay in commercial campgrounds because of the closeness between sites. Some are so small your awning slideouts won't extend. Please everyone, be courteous with your tvs, radios, music players, talking, laughing loud. I and I am sure other people enjoy relaxing to the solitude of quiet surroundings.

[Reverse_snowbird]

Of course we miss the 'good ole days' but they are not coming back. It's a matter of too many campers and not enough campgrounds.

It's also true that we remember being obnoxious campers when we were younger. We just didn't know any better, but watching how older campers did it and some friendly help from seasoned campers helped us become a little less obnoxious.

So we try to pass on the knowledge and leave a campsite better than we found it.

And... we also try to donate to state and national parks.

[jimmoore13]

Originally Posted by steamboatscott

Does anyone else miss the “good ol’ days” of camping where campers were quiet without generators/music, enjoyed the outdoors without flying their drones, left with whatever trash they brought, and finding that beautiful dispersed campsite required a bit of work but rewarded you with serenity? It seems that apps like Allstays, Campendium, etc have brought more people than the land can withstand, and too many of those visitors aren’t treating the land well either.

Great rant!
Perhaps a bit over the top, because, at age 70, I've seen many of these things since I was very young.

For example, the advent of the portable "transistor radio" put an end to the "silence." And - confession coming - I had a Sony "boom box" that could easily be heard 1/4 mile away if I wasn't judicious.

The mountains of broken glass and other waste are nothing new, either. Abolishing "deposits" on containers led to a proliferation of litter. Remember picking bottles along the road? Entrepreneurial kids were good at partial litter cleanup.

The recent explosion in popularity of camping and RVing probably has something to do with our recent "loss of innocence." Then there's the installed base of 4WD vehicles able to "get there" towing "off-road" versions of campers...little of which existed in the 1960's. The population density in the wilderness is growing, like it or not.

There was a time when my Dad and his hunting/fishing buddies had to "portage" a canoe miles into the woods to "get there." Today, most people can "drive there."

But, I do miss what truly were, by comparison, the good old days.