I am not sure why it is that the first time I remember ever camping, at least as an official sort of thing, was when I was a young adult camping with friends in California, and that it only became a relatively consistent aspect of my life as an adult. It is not as if my family was unconcerned with traveling inexpensively, after all, for I have slept plenty in cars at rest stops or on long road trips over the course of my life (to say nothing of my frequent and generally unsuccessful attempts to rest on airplanes). Camping, though, is not a habit I grew up with, and it was something that I came to enjoy later on.

What is the appeal, though, of camping. By the time you read this, I will be (hopefully!) enjoying a campout with a great many friends from church, and as I type this I have been packing up my clothes and other supplies for it. What is it that makes camping appealing, even as someone who does not sleep easily and who finds it a challenge to be comfortable enough to rest. A lot of it has to do with the enjoyment of creation as well as the fellowshipping that happens with others. The generally leisurely process of spending time with friends over food and chairs for sitting and conversing, the fact that one has a private tent but also is close enough to be around others when one wants to, allows for privacy but also for the enjoyment of sociability, in a form many of us do not get on a regular basis.

To be sure, I do not think I would like to live the camping life for the long term, but for weekends it is pleasant enough to sit under some trees and chat with other people, tell stories around campfires, and so on. The small dose of a rustic and rather austere life as one would experience in a tent and sleeping bag and all of that is just enough of a life to appreciate the conveniences of contemporary life and modern technology without signifying any real loss of living standards, and it allows one to appreciate the simpler life at least once in a great while. Some people may not like that as much, but it’s something I am certainly fond of, it must be admitted, at least in small doses. Perhaps the same is true for you as well.