How Often Do You/Should You Go Camping?

The simple answer to how often should you go camping is:  as often as you can!  How often you go camping will affect a lot of aspects of your camping life.  Things such as how and where you store your RV or camping gear, how much preparation it will require for each trip, how and what you do for post-trip clean-up and storage may influence how often you can go -- or how often you want to go may dictate how and where things are stored.  When you go camping will usually be determined by  the availability of discretionary time, e.g., not in school and/or not working. Where you go and what you do will determine travel time and equipment/preparation needed.  Where and how you store your equipment may affect how often you go camping and vice versa so it is a two-way street.   If everything is convenient and ready to go you may be able to take frequent spontaneous trips but if you have get your stuff out of storage across town each time, it may inhibit your urges and require a lot advance planning.   If you have no other choice but some remote location, you'll need to plan ahead.

When you go camping usually requires setting aside time and putting it on your schedule.   That is absolutely essential if you have a job or in school or have any other regular obligations.  However, even if you are retired you may need to put it on  your calendar so you don't let other distractions get in the way.  There always seems to be something that tries to demand your attention and take you away from fun activities.  It is important to realize that having fun IS an important activity itself!  We need balance in our activities to maintain health lives and it is way to easy to get caught up in routine demands that preclude our letting ourselves have fun.

The more often you go camping, the better you will do each time.   You may "get rusty" during any extended layoff.  Frequent outings will help you maintain your skills -- and have more fun!  Regular use of well maintained vehicles and equipment will usually extend their useful lifetimes.

How and where to store your RV or camping gear.  If you go camping frequently, say at least one a month, you'll want to have your RV and/or camping gear close by where you can keep it ready to go and have access to it for spontaneous trips.  If, on the other hand, you only get out a few times a year, it may be OK to store your RV in a storage yard and you might even put your camping gear in a self-storage locker if you don't have room for it at home.  Where your store your RV and camping gear may affect how often you go camping.  Sometimes zoning laws or the size of your property will force you to seek off site storage for RVs, boats, etc. If you must store things remotely, you're less likely to take spontaneous trips.  Remote storage also restricts how useful your camping gear might be in an emergency.  If you're storing your tent camping gear at home and using it frequently you'll want to have it easily accessible.  When you don't expect to be using it for several months, a less convenient or more remote location would be acceptable.   Having your RV or tent camping gear at home will make it more usable in a disaster situation.   If it is in some storage lot or private storage facility some distance away it will be of little use.

How much preparation will it require for each trip?  If you store your RV and/or camping gear at home you can more easily keep everything ready for when you want to go on an outing.  Having to make a trip to a storage yard or retrieve your stuff from a locker is going to inhibit how often and how much time you spend making sure it is ready.  When it comes time for your next outing you may need to allocate an extra day or so to retrieve and prepare your gear.  Even stuff stored in an indoor storage facility may need some extra cleaning before you can use it again.  And some equipment can deteriorate over time.   The leather gaskets in gas stoves and lanterns dry out and sometimes need to be oiled or replaced before they'll work again.   Residual fuel sometimes clogs orifices or spiders build webs in propane appliances.  Given the amount of maintenance and repairs idle equipment might need to be put back into service, give yourself plenty of time.   Don't just figure you can pick it up on the way out of town and have everything working right, even if it was the last time you used it, especially if it s been a while since its been used.

How and what you do for post-trip clean-up and storage?  If you're stuff is going to be idle for more than a month, make sure everything is properly cleaned and packed for storage.  Exposed metal parts should be lightly coated with oil or some other rust/corrosion preventative solution.  Water should be emptied from all containers.   Perishable foods and medicines should be removed.  Clothing and kitchen items should be stored in sealed plastic containers to prevent contamination from dust, insects, or vermin.  You have more latitude if you're going to be using your stuff again soon, but you should still make sure it is clean and dry before putting it into storage.   Spilled foodstuffs in RVs and on other camping equipment attract all kinds of bugs and vermin in storage.  If you're lucky, you only have extra cleaning to do, but if you're not so lucky you may suffer permanent damage to your stuff.

For many years our primary camping has centered around dirt biking.  We got out about once a month in our motorhome, so we didn't do much tent camping.   When we did decide to go tent camping, it was often quite an ordeal finding, cleaning, inspecting, and fixing everything we needed. We set up both tents in the back yard to make sure everything was there and that we still remembered how to put them together.  Good thing we did.  One of the tents was missing all its pegs and had a broken metal loop on one of the main poles.   Both were easily solved before the trip but heading out without taking care of these issues would have made for some very unpleasant problems when we got to camp.  Even kitchen items stored in plastic tubs were dusty and needed to be washed.  Since our tent camping gear hadn't been used in quite a while, it took several hours of going through where it was all stored to locate all the things we wanted to bring along.   It had been put into "long term storage" when we unpacked from our last move and we hadn't had a chance to organize it for convenient access.  Over the years we've accumulated various camping equipment, not all of which is needed for any particular type of outing.  Finding exactly what we needed for this particular trip among the mountain of stuff was tedious and challenging.  We are now in the process of reorganizing the storage so it is more logical and we'll be able to get basic components more easily.

Keep it handy!