Campground Insanity

[MOAK]

I'm happy that it's working out in PA, and I have nothing against such a system. The problem is that federal lands lack proper policing/enforcement and funding to allow them to be properly managed. That's the point I'm trying to make, having such a system in place federally is great in theory but in practice it just won't scale due to the lack of resources and until that is addressed there's no point in implementing new permitting/access systems even if they are "free" to citizens.

Very true. The major problem is funding.

 

[Kevin108]

People, did not, nor currently want more rules, as you say. People that truly enjoy remote areas want them to remain pristine and remote. Rules are necessary because others do not follow the principles of leave no trace or tread lightly. If those principles are enforced, via permits, etc, etc, then those that abide by those principles would not be bothered by enforcement of those principles, by any means. Outer Banks? That place is a tourist maven for anyone living this side of the Mississippi. Hardly remote. If you want to get a permit and pay for a ferry ride down at the Cape Lookout Island one gets the experience of being remote, without really being remote. We were there last summer, and what struck me was how clean it was. Not a piece of trash anywhere.

I am happy to abide the important principles that protect the outdoors. But paying for access changes the dynamic. When you're at home, you take out your own trash and wash your own towels. When you stay in a hotel, that's a service included in the price of your stay. Charging fees for access suggests to visitors that those fees will be used to provide a similar full-service experience. Like the difference between watching a movie at home vs in the theater, and accidentally dropping a piece of popcorn.

The post I quoted in the previous post specifically requested fees, permits, and park rangers with more authority. Sounds like more rules to me. And the author of that post had already observed every level of poor behavior in places locked behind fees, so that's clearly not a guaranteed solution.

The Outer Banks is not remote now, but as a teenager with my first 4x4, visiting Carova or Oregon Inlet, there may have only been another 30 trucks on either on a summer Saturday. Of course, the internet changed all that. Eastern VA is an off-road "desert," so 4x4 drivers of the area tend to overwhelm the nearest locations.

The point I usually make, which I neglected to elaborate on, is that after an environmental group used an out-of-state judge to usurp the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and force visitors to pay additional tribute to the federal government for accessing public lands, Carova was still free to access for a year or two. Massive amounts of visitors then flooded there, so Currituck took advantage of this, opting to levy their own fees for access.

It's a huge mistake to try and civilize all the wild places.

 

[MOAK]

I am happy to abide the important principles that protect the outdoors. But paying for access changes the dynamic. When you're at home, you take out your own trash and wash your own towels. When you stay in a hotel, that's a service included in the price of your stay. Charging fees for access suggests to visitors that those fees will be used to provide a similar full-service experience. Like the difference between watching a movie at home vs in the theater, and accidentally dropping a piece of popcorn.

The post I quoted in the previous post specifically requested fees, permits, and park rangers with more authority. Sounds like more rules to me. And the author of that post had already observed every level of poor behavior in places locked behind fees, so that's clearly not a guaranteed solution.

The Outer Banks is not remote now, but as a teenager with my first 4x4, visiting Carova or Oregon Inlet, there may have only been another 30 trucks on either on a summer Saturday. Of course, the internet changed all that. Eastern VA is an off-road "desert," so 4x4 drivers of the area tend to overwhelm the nearest locations.

The point I usually make, which I neglected to elaborate on, is that after an environmental group used an out-of-state judge to usurp the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and force visitors to pay additional tribute to the federal government for accessing public lands, Carova was still free to access for a year or two. Massive amounts of visitors then flooded there, so Currituck took advantage of this, opting to levy their own fees for access.

It's a huge mistake to try and civilize all the wild places.

no one is attempting to civilize any wild places, other than what has already been done to National & State Parks. ( All they do is make me cringe because of all the paved roads and other modern amenities.) Where did you pull that from? Permits, when done correctly will keep our wild places wild.
Your point of view seems to be mired on the eastern seaboard. The places that we go out west just don’t have the same problems that public lands have when they are within a short drive to any major cities. The crap I saw last spring on the Mogollon Rim, was enough to make me never want to go back. Hmmmm, very near Phoenix, the crap I witnessed at all of the BLM lands surrounding Joshua Tree NP was enough to make me barf and never want to go back. Interestingly Joshua Tree NP was a lot cleaner. It made me sad, that we had to drive deep into BLM lands out there before the trash ended as the trash is generally only within driving distance of common 4x4 pick up trucks. Not just Joshua Tree but any “permit free” public lands near any large metro area. You chose to completely ignore my positive comments about Cape Lookout, the ferry ride was over $100 and the permit fees to camp were negligible. Cape lookout, both on the ocean & bay side was pristine. We’ve been all over the country and seen a lot . I can safely say that when permits are required that the likely hood of someone going through the trouble of obtaining said permits, are not driving in with a pick up truck and looking for a place to dump trash. It just doesn’t happen.

 

[danwyandt]

I used to love the Outer Banks. Up until about 5 years ago, Carova Beach and Oregon Inlet were both free to drive to access. I'm in southeastern VA, so it was an easy day trip to run down, cruising the beach, grab some dinner, and come home. Now everything is pay to play because people wanted more rules. I don't go there anymore, and wouldn't care if all the sand there washed away tomorrow.

All these agencies mishandle staffing. They only want to hire biologists to measure toe length on red newts or some nonsense. What they actually need is to hire custodians to pick up trash. I think the absence of Bud Light cans and living room chairs on the trail would do more for promoting good behavior than fees and forest police.

The more fees and rules, the fewer people will visit these places and care about them, and the easier it will be for heavy-handed greenies to get them closed to vehicles. Be careful what you wish for.

People, did not, nor currently want more rules, as you say. People that truly enjoy remote areas want them to remain pristine and remote. Rules are necessary because others do not follow the principles of leave no trace or tread lightly. If those principles are enforced, via permits, etc, etc, then those that abide by those principles would not be bothered by enforcement of those principles, by any means. Outer Banks? That place is a tourist maven for anyone living this side of the Mississippi. Hardly remote. If you want to get a permit and pay for a ferry ride down at the Cape Lookout Island one gets the experience of being remote, without really being remote. We were there last summer, and what struck me was how clean it was. Not a piece of trash anywhere.

Same here. We were there in June and it was spotless. Saw very few people except for the occasional rental SxS .

 

[a12houk]

there are several threads about defining "overlanding" and after this weekend...my definition of overlanding is "travel and camping as far from campgrounds as possible"

the wife and i started the traveling/camping thing right after we first met in 2018. we do a little bit of everything from desert camping in the back of the tundra to pulling our camp trailer into state parks and using it as a base camp. still being fairly new to this, our experiences with state parks have been generally in the off season where we have literally been the only campers in the area and in the case of spending a week at vogel state park in georgia during the month of january, we even had an entire heated bath house to ourselves.

this last weekend, brother-in-law invited us to go with them to buccaneer state park in waveland, ms (about 2 hrs away) just outside of bay st. louis. we havent gone anywhere in a while and although its peak season, we figured 'how bad could it be', and hitched up the camp trailer and on friday afternoon, headed thru the 5 oclock traffic taking I-10 thru new orleans and along the coast to our destination.

its been 100 degrees in the swamps and with all the rain and humidity, its pretty much a miserable sauna being outside. the campground is right on the gulf, so i immediately noticed the nice breeze as we got closer and i was feeing hopeful that the temps would be bearable and that the weekend just might end up being enjoyable even though we were in mississippi.

as soon as we entered the state park, we were greeted with swarms of unattended, very young children riding everything from motorized scooters, to bicycles and even some driving custom golf carts that they could barely see over the steering wheel. it was chaos. as we idled thru the swarm looking for our campsite, it soon became obvious that our site was dead center of the loudest and most crowded area. right across from us was a giant diesel pusher pulling an equally long trailer loaded with golf carts and junk. they had 5 giant dogs and and equal amount of kids. one of the giant dogs came over by us and immediately hunched over to produce a pile that would make an elephant blush. i looked up to see the owner actually scowl at me for noticing what his dog was doing. he obviously wasnt going to go pick it up and apparently i was "the bad guy" for witnessing it.

all i can say is that the rudeness and self-centeredness was on a level i never expected. i know theres no need to bitch and complain, and this past experience has just really solidified to me the reason people put in the extra time and money to be set up to be in remote areas, far away from this type of craziness.

we took our bikes and did some riding and ended up going into bay st. louis where the wife ended up meeting a local artist and bought some of her work and then we did some eating and drinking and mainly just sightseeing. it seemed like most of the folk in the campground just stayed there on their little plot cooking and drinking beer while their kids and dogs just ran loose all over. it seemed to be everyone in that area doing it, so apparently that is just an accepted thing. i was tripping out on how some folk will spend several $100,000 on giant motorhomes just to sit in a crowd and not go anywhere. and the people are so lazy that they have to have golf carts just to get get around in the campground.

a very interesting and a very weird experience....

I’m with you on all this. I hate established places during peak season.

 

[grubworm]

ha! well, color me insane....

just talked with the wife, and brother-in-law (her sister's husband) is ready to go back to the same campground and wants us to go with them again. this time we are getting a more "remote" site, but yeah...

brother-in-law is good people and we did some boondocking with them out in utah and new mexico last year and had a great time. i like hanging with them, so i will head back to the same campground and embrace the suck that is campground life. i did bitch about the campground after our first visit, but now that i'm going again, i cant say anything bad this time. its like dating a chick and its chaos and turmoil and youre telling your buddies how bad it sucks. you break up with her and then end up getting back together. at that point, there is nothing you can say anymore except sheepishly smile and act like everything is normal...

it is right there in bay st. louis on the water, so luckily the "suck" can be pretty much offset with some good food and drinks...lots of drinks.
i've always heard the expression "be careful what you wish for", but i think equally important is "be careful what you bitch about..."

 

[Sparksalot]

ha! well, color me insane....

just talked with the wife, and brother-in-law (her sister's husband) is ready to go back to the same campground and wants us to go with them again. this time we are getting a more "remote" site, but yeah...

brother-in-law is good people and we did some boondocking with them out in utah and new mexico last year and had a great time. i like hanging with them, so i will head back to the same campground and embrace the suck that is campground life. i did bitch about the campground after our first visit, but now that i'm going again, i cant say anything bad this time. its like dating a chick and its chaos and turmoil and youre telling your buddies how bad it sucks. you break up with her and then end up getting back together. at that point, there is nothing you can say anymore except sheepishly smile and act like everything is normal...

it is right there in bay st. louis on the water, so luckily the "suck" can be pretty much offset with some good food and drinks...lots of drinks.
i've always heard the expression "be careful what you wish for", but i think equally important is "be careful what you bitch about..."

 

[OTH Overland]

ha! well, color me insane....

just talked with the wife, and brother-in-law (her sister's husband) is ready to go back to the same campground and wants us to go with them again. this time we are getting a more "remote" site, but yeah...

brother-in-law is good people and we did some boondocking with them out in utah and new mexico last year and had a great time. i like hanging with them, so i will head back to the same campground and embrace the suck that is campground life. i did bitch about the campground after our first visit, but now that i'm going again, i cant say anything bad this time. its like dating a chick and its chaos and turmoil and youre telling your buddies how bad it sucks. you break up with her and then end up getting back together. at that point, there is nothing you can say anymore except sheepishly smile and act like everything is normal...

it is right there in bay st. louis on the water, so luckily the "suck" can be pretty much offset with some good food and drinks...lots of drinks.
i've always heard the expression "be careful what you wish for", but i think equally important is "be careful what you bitch about..."

We were visiting with some guys from Veteran Overland at a recent rally, and they had a shirt with "Hunt the Good Stuff" on it, a simple reminder that while you are busy embracing the suck, find something good about the situation no matter how small, and your day just got a little bit better. Suffice it to say, Wife now has a new favorite tee shirt, and the grumpy curmudgeon now has a patch to stick above his drivers seat as a reminder also..lol

 

[Anak]

ha! well, color me insane....

just talked with the wife, and brother-in-law (her sister's husband) is ready to go back to the same campground and wants us to go with them again. this time we are getting a more "remote" site, but yeah...

brother-in-law is good people and we did some boondocking with them out in utah and new mexico last year and had a great time. i like hanging with them, so i will head back to the same campground and embrace the suck that is campground life. i did bitch about the campground after our first visit, but now that i'm going again, i cant say anything bad this time. its like dating a chick and its chaos and turmoil and youre telling your buddies how bad it sucks. you break up with her and then end up getting back together. at that point, there is nothing you can say anymore except sheepishly smile and act like everything is normal...

it is right there in bay st. louis on the water, so luckily the "suck" can be pretty much offset with some good food and drinks...lots of drinks.
i've always heard the expression "be careful what you wish for", but i think equally important is "be careful what you bitch about..."

Remember to pack some chicken bones for the guy who likes to let his dog dump in your site.

 

[CR-Venturer]

there are several threads about defining "overlanding" and after this weekend...my definition of overlanding is "travel and camping as far from campgrounds as possible"

the wife and i started the traveling/camping thing right after we first met in 2018. we do a little bit of everything from desert camping in the back of the tundra to pulling our camp trailer into state parks and using it as a base camp. still being fairly new to this, our experiences with state parks have been generally in the off season where we have literally been the only campers in the area and in the case of spending a week at vogel state park in georgia during the month of january, we even had an entire heated bath house to ourselves.

this last weekend, brother-in-law invited us to go with them to buccaneer state park in waveland, ms (about 2 hrs away) just outside of bay st. louis. we havent gone anywhere in a while and although its peak season, we figured 'how bad could it be', and hitched up the camp trailer and on friday afternoon, headed thru the 5 oclock traffic taking I-10 thru new orleans and along the coast to our destination.

its been 100 degrees in the swamps and with all the rain and humidity, its pretty much a miserable sauna being outside. the campground is right on the gulf, so i immediately noticed the nice breeze as we got closer and i was feeing hopeful that the temps would be bearable and that the weekend just might end up being enjoyable even though we were in mississippi.

as soon as we entered the state park, we were greeted with swarms of unattended, very young children riding everything from motorized scooters, to bicycles and even some driving custom golf carts that they could barely see over the steering wheel. it was chaos. as we idled thru the swarm looking for our campsite, it soon became obvious that our site was dead center of the loudest and most crowded area. right across from us was a giant diesel pusher pulling an equally long trailer loaded with golf carts and junk. they had 5 giant dogs and and equal amount of kids. one of the giant dogs came over by us and immediately hunched over to produce a pile that would make an elephant blush. i looked up to see the owner actually scowl at me for noticing what his dog was doing. he obviously wasnt going to go pick it up and apparently i was "the bad guy" for witnessing it.

all i can say is that the rudeness and self-centeredness was on a level i never expected. i know theres no need to bitch and complain, and this past experience has just really solidified to me the reason people put in the extra time and money to be set up to be in remote areas, far away from this type of craziness.

we took our bikes and did some riding and ended up going into bay st. louis where the wife ended up meeting a local artist and bought some of her work and then we did some eating and drinking and mainly just sightseeing. it seemed like most of the folk in the campground just stayed there on their little plot cooking and drinking beer while their kids and dogs just ran loose all over. it seemed to be everyone in that area doing it, so apparently that is just an accepted thing. i was tripping out on how some folk will spend several $100,000 on giant motorhomes just to sit in a crowd and not go anywhere. and the people are so lazy that they have to have golf carts just to get get around in the campground.

a very interesting and a very weird experience....

That's pretty intense and crazy. As much as I personally prefer bush camping myself, I have to say I've done my fair share of campground camping and my experiences have been nothing like that, even the "worst" ones. Most of the campgrounds I've been to in Canada have been really nice, fairly private treed sites, and the people are quite courteous, with the minor exception of a few late drinkers talking a bit loud, but even then it hasn't been that bad. You have kids riding around on bikes and such, but hey, that's a happy childhood right there, and they generally are savvy enough about traffic and whatnot.

Maybe Canada is just different? I donno. We have 1/10th the population of the US, so that may be a factor.

If I had experienced what you describe, I would have run screaming for the hills lol.

ha! well, color me insane....

just talked with the wife, and brother-in-law (her sister's husband) is ready to go back to the same campground and wants us to go with them again. this time we are getting a more "remote" site, but yeah...

Well, good booze does make a lot of things more bearable in the moment...lol

 

[grubworm]

if i have to go to a campground, im at least going to have some fun...
amazon has these remote controlled noise makers for $6. set up a dozen of them scattered around the sites and then at 2am when im up...everyone else can be up too!
best $72 ever spent

 

[Correus]

if i have to go to a campground, im at least going to have some fun...
amazon has these remote controlled noise makers for $6. set up a dozen of them scattered around the sites and then at 2am when im up...everyone else can be up too!
best $72 ever spent


View attachment 239715

Kanda sorta related.... Every year there is a Land Rover event hosted by a Rover club in the North Eastern US. Everyone gets together and camps on private property.

Each year one of the main guys who helped plan the events would purposely show up around 2 or 3 in the morning. He would drive into the midst of the group, park, get out and climb onto the top of his Rover. He would then proceed to play 'Scotland the Brave' on bagpipes. He did this to announce his arrival.

Sadly he died back in 2018. Have been told the event has never been the same since.

 

[MOAK]

Kanda sorta related.... Every year there is a Land Rover event hosted by a Rover club in the North Eastern US. Everyone gets together and camps on private property.

Each year one of the main guys who helped plan the events would purposely show up around 2 or 3 in the morning. He would drive into the midst of the group, park, get out and climb onto the top of his Rover. He would then proceed to play 'Scotland the Brave' on bagpipes. He did this to announce his arrival.

Sadly he died back in 2018. Have been told the event has never been the same since.

Is that event in Pennsylvania? I ask as there is a big Rover event just up the hill from me.

 

[Correus]

Is that event in Pennsylvania? I ask as there is a big Rover event just up the hill from me.

I'll have to double check, but I think it's in Main or upstate NY, and I want to say it'sthe Winter Romp. That area of the country - New England, the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic - are the main areas for most of the biggest events. Several are in Pennsylvania, but I'm not aware of any going on right now.

 

[grubworm]

it was 3 months ago and i only spent a weekend at the campground...but i can still hear the hum of golf cart motors and the smell of dog poop. i swear one of the piles was this big...