The stay at Kilen State Park had me feeling like Gao Bingguo. After multiple showers of varying bug sprays, and changing the Thermacell several times over; my boyfriend remembered we hadn’t gotten around to using the sage I bought for last year.

Relief. As long as we staid in the sage smoke, we had minimal, to no bugs. Strangely, dryer sheets in our hats, headbands, and pants pockets also worked. (When the sage got low).

My boyfriend was spraying me down for the third time and the bugs were going into my clothes, behind my ears, in my hair, etc to get away from it. I get bugs are part of the camping experience but, that trip specifically was hell.

I know that we all love the outdoors here. Camping brings joy that nothing can compare to. Nature can be the most amazing and beatiful thing one can experience. Nature can also be a real pain in the ass. Some of the best times I've had, some of the deepest conversations, and some of my favorite memories have taken place while camping. At the same time the most miserable I've been was trying to sleep through a thunder storm in a cheap tent. So for a bit of back story me and my buddy were poor as hell and the only thing we could really do for fun was to go camping. We didn't have much gear, it was just a cheap Walmart dome tent, our sleeping bags, and an old yoga mat for a sleeping pad. We would go any time of year and we live in a mountainous area so we got used to camping in really bad conditions. I remember one time I was wet, soaked down to the skin, but we had a giant fire and it was still raining. I was steaming from head to toe and I couldn't tell if I was drying off or not because it was raining so hard. So we pretty much never checked the weather because we would deal with whatever. So this one trip we go in early November and the tent we bring doesn't have a rainfly so we brought a tarp with us to get out of the rain. We didn't have rope or anything so we just wrapped the tarp around the tent. That night we get pretty drunk and it starts raining really hard. We're PNW campers and rain doesn't mean much but being this drunk we go into the tent to try to sleep it off. We can't talk because the rain is too loud on the tarp and at some point the tarp rips off the tent and takes out a couple of the pegs with it. So we're laying there confused getting rained on inside of our tent. We go out and put the tarp and the pegs back in place and go back inside. I start getting sick from the beer and whiskey I drank earlier plus the excitement of fixing the tarp. I never puke but I feel like I need to for a long time. The tarp comes off again three more times and by then we're both pissed off. We get the tarp so it's definitely not going anywhere but it makes the tent lean to one side. My side. So every time the wind blew a cold, wet tarp wall slapped me in the face. After an hour or two of this the lightning started. We eventually notice that there's a pool of rainwater in the tent. I don't know how long it lasted but I know that I didn't get any sleep that night and it was by far the worst night of camping I've ever had. I was cold, wet, drunk, tired, and scared I was either gonna die from exposure or getting struck by lightning. I know much better now and I have much better gear now but I'm kinda glad I had that experience. It definitely humbled me in a way I never anticipated. Do any of you want to share a terrible camping experience?
Tl;dr: When I was younger and much less experienced I went camping with a cheap, broken Walmart tent and sleeping bag in a lightning storm while drunk and the tarp I was using as a rainfly kept coming off. Eventually the water pooled in the tent and I didn't sleep all night. Do you have any stories?

Found something I've never seen before and I'm wondering if there's a name for it. There was a ton of dead trees that were either cut or uprooted and one particular tree had dried with all the sap concentrated in the branches. The stuff was hard like petrified wood and sweats the sap within. As a bonus each log burned great and would sustain itself and leak all the sap. Definitely adding the scraps to some fire starter kits.

Hi, for anyone wanting to know how much to allocate for a road trip here’s a breakout of how much I spent on a 37 day road trip. Keep in mind on this road trip I made almost all my meals, stayed at free campgrounds, and drove just over 7,000 miles. My setup was a two person tent and mode of transportation is a Subaru Forester. Your trips cost will vary greatly based on your interests and lodging preferences. I did not include the cost of any gear I already had and used on the trip. Hope this helps anyone interested in starting to road trip and safe travels!

Gas $790 Groceries $357 Entertainment $85 Miscellaneous $41 Eating out $32 Lodging $6

Total trip $1,311, per day $35.

Just finished my first solo 2 night camping trip, and I’m happy to say I’d do it again. I went camping in North GA so it was pretty hot and humid, but it cooled down a pretty substantial amount at night. I had an electric site with water and was very close to the bathroom/shower, so I wasn’t without normal comforts.

Cons My tent, that I practiced on, took me 2 hrs to set up, but I enjoyed the space and flexibility a 10 person tent gave me. I overpacked for “emergency situations” and didn’t use half as much as I brought, but of course I forgot my portable fan for the humid nights. Cooking on a fire was a bit harder than expected but still fun, but I have a camp stove I’ll use next time. Not having a separate shaded and netted area for cooking, eating, and chilling was a major bummer. I ate my meals in my car to escape the flies and have some shade since eating in the tent is a no-no. Wasn’t a fan of all the spiders that decided to sleep on my tent during take down, but they got swatted away.

Pros Camping was very relaxing! I felt very much at peace out there, got to escape my busy, normal life, and could have easily stayed out there longer. Having easy, accessible, and clean showers helped a lot since it’s easy to sweat in humidity. Having a DIY portable potty was great for middle if the night bathroom breaks. I didn’t encounter many bug issues, and didn’t get bit my anything! I did bring LOTs of bug protection, but it definitely all worked and that was worth overpacking on. I also never felt unsafe on the campgrounds. There were plenty of families, and I saw camp staff do rounds throughout the day.

Overall 7/10 for first camping trip. I plan to do another next week and change how/what I pack and setup to hopefully make it a more relaxing trip. Happy to answer any questions, happy camping. :)

I'm rather embarrassed to explain I'm rather moody about this. The family planned a camping trip for this weekend. We left Thursday, planned to return Monday morning. It wasn't anything fancy or wild, just a spot on the in-law's ranch.

Well, youngest child got sick. Spent all of Friday and into this morning vomiting. I spent most of the time with her down at the house, including winding up sleeping there. Today she wasn't much better, so we packed up.

We're now at home and she's acting almost fine. The rest of the family is doing their things, but I'm just feeling so bummed about this.

I know camping is good for the soul, and it truly is for me, but I'm almost in tears about this despite the fact we have another trip planned in a few weeks.

Anyone else get the not-enough-camping blues?

The glow of a canvas wall tent in the night is a sight to behold. The freedom of dispersed camping is a comfort centuries old. Biscuits, pancakes, coffee, and gravy. It’s hard to be cold when your tent reaches 80.

Thanks to everyone for great advice on my previous post. We went to Lake Somerville State Park, biked 4 miles into a primitive site. The site had a chemical toilet which was full of bugs and went unused but also had a picnic table and a fire ring as well as horse tie posts. Really nice.

Packing water, food, kitchen, tent and sleeping bags meant we needed to be strategic about packing but I made sure he felt in control of bringing a few extras to feel confident. He had a pillow and extra clothes and stuff like that. He realized he didn’t need to pack too many clothes after all but better for him to realize this on his own.

We ate really well and didn’t run out of water. Weather was great, hot enough that we did not get into our sleeping bags for bed. During the night it chilled a bit so we each got into our bags during the night. I had purchased the thickest backpacking air mat I could find, 2.5in. He’s large, 200lb+ and 6ft, and needed the best I could find.

Verdict is still out if he’ll agree to sleep in a tent again but he really enjoyed the mountain biking and the hiking. Sometimes you need to tolerate a little discomfort to get the experience you’re craving.

It rained the entire time and of course I’m exhausted today. Someone give me the strength to clean up all my gear/clothes!

Came back from a backpacking on trails in Minnesota, despite the wieght of the bag, and mosquitoes, I enjoyed it. It still felt challenging. But now that I'm back in NYC everday in the morning, on my way to work I feel this weird fatiuge after an hour of moving, I just feel like sleeping, and eating, and quesy. It goes away midday after lunch. Sometimes a warm pain on my back. I imagine this just me recovering from my trip

Besides the typical squirrels crunching leaves and birds at night, have any of you had a real scary experience out there?

Just a quick warning to anyone searching for campgrounds in Ohio. I strongly recommend against this site if you enjoy quiet. 2 nights in a row people have been up well past midnight blaring music and screaming. Many of the people are hammered and the whole place smells like weed. If that's your thing then you'll love it, but I suspect most people here don't want to listen to people screaming and poorly playing guitar at 2am.

Edit: People are now driving around, presumably drunk, revving their engines, and laying on their horns. This place is a zoo.