We just got back from our very first (car-)camping trip. I'm thrilled that my wife and son loved the whole tent/under the stars/around the camp fire thing. Honestly, their enjoyment kind of caught me by surprise. But while I'm glad because that means we'll be going again, I'm now wondering how to choose future camping locations.
We probably will have to work our way up to camping in the wild. The facilities available in state parks seems good for now: clean running water, a flushing toilet, a dumpster and shower, and even just the nicely laid-out camp site with fire pit and picnic table. But even in our really short trip, some state parks worked for us and others didn't. We were in a Penn. state park--Pine Grove Furnace--for two nights. We loved it. Then we drove to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. When we saw the actual site we'd reserved, we decided to skip our night there and drive another 4 hrs through the night to head on home.
We like the setting in Pine Grove Furnace: trees and such around each camp site. You could still see other sites and hear muffled voices and such from those around you, but we didn't feel like we were right on top of other folks or on display for them.
Hocking Hills struck us as kind of a big parking lot (for RVs) where you could pitch a tent on the grass around the edges. There was just a dozen or so feet of lawn between each campsite.
I'm wondering how to spot the kinds of features we like and don't like before we pull up to the camp site. The pics/info on the two parks' websites didn't give a ton of info, though looking back at them after the trip I could see the openness of Hocking Hills and the trees etc. of Pine Grove. But that didn't leap out at me beforehand.
Do people post about state parks and such on YouTube or on camping forums, or is it more a word of mouth thing?
Thanks for any suggestions. I'll probably be looking over this particular part of the forum more, now, to get ideas for future trips. We enjoyed the trip but already have a lot of ideas for how to do things better next time--and ideas of what things we'd like to do better in future trips.
A chuck box may be in our future.
We probably will have to work our way up to camping in the wild. The facilities available in state parks seems good for now: clean running water, a flushing toilet, a dumpster and shower, and even just the nicely laid-out camp site with fire pit and picnic table. But even in our really short trip, some state parks worked for us and others didn't. We were in a Penn. state park--Pine Grove Furnace--for two nights. We loved it. Then we drove to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. When we saw the actual site we'd reserved, we decided to skip our night there and drive another 4 hrs through the night to head on home.
We like the setting in Pine Grove Furnace: trees and such around each camp site. You could still see other sites and hear muffled voices and such from those around you, but we didn't feel like we were right on top of other folks or on display for them.
Hocking Hills struck us as kind of a big parking lot (for RVs) where you could pitch a tent on the grass around the edges. There was just a dozen or so feet of lawn between each campsite.
I'm wondering how to spot the kinds of features we like and don't like before we pull up to the camp site. The pics/info on the two parks' websites didn't give a ton of info, though looking back at them after the trip I could see the openness of Hocking Hills and the trees etc. of Pine Grove. But that didn't leap out at me beforehand.
Do people post about state parks and such on YouTube or on camping forums, or is it more a word of mouth thing?
Thanks for any suggestions. I'll probably be looking over this particular part of the forum more, now, to get ideas for future trips. We enjoyed the trip but already have a lot of ideas for how to do things better next time--and ideas of what things we'd like to do better in future trips.
A chuck box may be in our future.
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