Camping

Camping Camping

Camping was easy and by far the least expensive accommodation available. By camping and cooking our own food, we were able to do everything we wanted for $40 a day for the two of us. Campgrounds were generally equipped with hot showers, laundry facilities and shops, and in Germany and Holland were extremely easy to find with signposts alone.

My two-man backpacking tent served us well, and along with my mat, Dennis' air mattress and good sleeping bags, kept us warm even in sub-freezing temperatures.

We met a young couple in Amsterdam just finishing a trip like ours. They gave us their camp stove, cookware and lantern for a tiny fraction of its cost. Dennis had brought a foldable camp chair and I picked one up in East Berlin for only $7.00. In Bonn, we found some discarded lumber and Dennis built a gable which hooked over the open back of the station wagon. A sheet sleeping bag served as a tablecloth and voila, we were cooking and eating in comfort (see photo).

After I was drenched by Edinburgh rain and developed the cold of a lifetime, we began staying in Youth Hostels. They were a bit more expensive, but quite cozy. We'd gotten into the habit of going to bed soon after dark, and by late October, dark was coming early. In the hostels, we could read, write, and visit with other travelers until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m.

We knew we'd have to spend a week in London in early November in order to sell the car, mail some things home, and prepare for the trip to Africa. We dreaded it. Accommodations there are extremely expensive. Even a Youth Hostel would cost us nearly $15 a night, if there were any beds available.

We camped. Only a couple of campgrounds are open in November in London. One is at Pickett's Lock Sports Centre in Lower Edmonton, a 45-minute trip by public transport from Central London. The cost was only $9.00 a night with the car, $5.50 without. The sports center is a huge complex, with gymnasiums, weight rooms, swimming pool, golf course, outdoor playing fields, roller skating rink, bowling green and much more. We had access to hot indoor showers and, best of all, a sort of snack bar / lounge where we could get in out of the weather and read, write, and drink tea.

A "Capitalcard" for about $3.75 each got us a day's transportation to anywhere in London by bus, train and tube. Even in this expensive city, we found we could live on less than $40 a day.

Of course, we camped almost the entire four months we were in Africa. There were few established campgrounds but lots of desert sand and gravel pits alongside the road.

When we returned from Africa to Europe, we knew we'd be without a car or other vehicle, and that we'd have to haul everything on our backs. We considered taking only sheet sleeping bags and staying in Youth Hostels instead of camping, but it would have been a mistake. The very night we left Bergamo where we stored excess baggage to lighten our loads, we camped in a park in Florence. On the ferries, we traveled as deck passengers for a fraction of the normal cost. We put up our tent in an isolated place just before going to bed and had all of the advantages of a private cabin. In Israel, we rented a car and were able to save the cost of the rental by camping and cooking our own food.

After a year of sleeping on the ground, even Dennis, dedicated outdoorsman that he is, admitted that the glamor had worn off. Camping had become the norm rather than an exciting adventure!