Camping Basics

Camping Basics answers the questions that come before you buy gear or book a site: what kinds of camping exist, how to plan a first trip, what a night outside is like, and how a day at a campground runs. The articles draw on the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Weather Service. They send you back to your own campground’s page, because rules, times and limits change from place to place.

The category is written for beginners: families, couples and friends planning a first trip to a national park, national forest or state park campground. It compares car, RV, backpacking, dispersed and backyard camping. It shows how two people or a group can split the work. It also helps you decide how many nights to book, so the first trip is long enough to learn from and short enough to leave early if something goes wrong.

Start with how to plan your first camping trip for the order of decisions, then read types of camping explained to choose a style. If you want to rehearse first, backyard camping as a practice run is the quickest test. When you are ready to turn the plan into a list, open the Planner.