Funny article to elevate ‘camping’ in particular from Victorian age. I’m from CA and did backpacking with the Boy Scouts and later backpacking with the help of Sunrise Mountaineering of (Fremont,CA -that’s how old I am).
Now I’m in NY and camping in upstate NY— the birth of fly fishing! Who knew.
And the history of fly fishing is a history of NYers who bought land and started fishing clubs, keeping everyone out. Authors Ed Van Put, Austin M. Francis describe this history.
Early fishers were fighting over their spot on the creeks and rivers before the rail road from NYC reached these spots.
So into this history here falls this story. Sounds like vacation industries catering to less wealthy Americans who can’t form their own fishing vacation companies.
This was what "real" camping was considered in Western Canada when I was growing up. If you didn't have to hike a few hours in, if there were amenities you didn't have to build yourself, if you weren't responsible for potable water, it wasn't real camping but rather a multi-day picnic. Closest I ever saw to that in modern times was Big Sur (they had cleared plots and a permanent latrine set up, which is probably better for the environment).
But even we were considered soft by the previous generation. My father would go camping with friends during summer vacation like so: My grandfather would drive them deep into the bush along a logging road (to a high enough elevation that the trees thinned out a bit), drop them off, then come back to pick them up a week later.
camping = pull up somewhere and pitch the tent, you may be near a lake or some hiking, but you generally aren't going far with all of your gear, also call this car camping
backpacking = putting all of your gear in a backpack and hiking to your destination, packing up and continuing on to the next spot or head back. There's no set milage or time you need to hike in order to call it backpacking, but I'd say it's where you start thinking about the things you don't need to bring with you because you don't have room in the one bag you have or it's too heavy
What you’re describing sounds like normal camping, you hike for a few hours and pitch your tent somewhere. Isn’t the drive in picnic variety just an American phenomenon?
No. "Camp sites" where you drive in and stay in an allocated spot in your tent or vehicle are definitely common in Europe. They have washing facilities and often much more: playgrounds, restaurants, even water parks. Some people also hike and camp in the wilderness, but I'd bet it's a minority.
I'd be fascinated to know where you live that "hike for a few hours and pitch your tent somewhere" is normalized and the very idea of a camp site sounds foreign.
We went camping in a California national park once. The park was really beautiful but imagine my shock when not only did they have designated campsites that were extremely boring, you drove your car all the way up to the site, there were individual parking spots within 10 meters of each tent site!
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Now I’m in NY and camping in upstate NY— the birth of fly fishing! Who knew.
And the history of fly fishing is a history of NYers who bought land and started fishing clubs, keeping everyone out. Authors Ed Van Put, Austin M. Francis describe this history.
Early fishers were fighting over their spot on the creeks and rivers before the rail road from NYC reached these spots.
So into this history here falls this story. Sounds like vacation industries catering to less wealthy Americans who can’t form their own fishing vacation companies.
According to Wikipedia, fly fishing was known in the Roman Empire ¿Am I missing an obvious joke here?
The American style of fly fishing occurs when bug patterns match our bugs!
Prior to the names mentioned in the two cited books, Americans used flies based on European patterns.
But even we were considered soft by the previous generation. My father would go camping with friends during summer vacation like so: My grandfather would drive them deep into the bush along a logging road (to a high enough elevation that the trees thinned out a bit), drop them off, then come back to pick them up a week later.
camping = pull up somewhere and pitch the tent, you may be near a lake or some hiking, but you generally aren't going far with all of your gear, also call this car camping
backpacking = putting all of your gear in a backpack and hiking to your destination, packing up and continuing on to the next spot or head back. There's no set milage or time you need to hike in order to call it backpacking, but I'd say it's where you start thinking about the things you don't need to bring with you because you don't have room in the one bag you have or it's too heavy
I'd be fascinated to know where you live that "hike for a few hours and pitch your tent somewhere" is normalized and the very idea of a camp site sounds foreign.
What you're describing sounds like a modern 'soft' version.
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Anyway, the OP describes camping significantly more luxurious than our simple Boy Scout outings.
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