When we sold the rpod in 2021 we weren't using it. We had recently bought our little farm and found we couldn't get away for more than a couple of days at a time, And didn't want to spend that whole time dragging a trailer around. But after awhile the travel bug hit us again.
So what to do? I had recently bought a 2 seat airplane so now we could get places within around 500-600 miles in under 3 hours, allowing us to go on 2-3 day trips again.
One problem solved, but where to stay when we got there, we both dislike staying in hotels. The airplane luggage compartment is limited to 100lbs of gear. The solution involved a return to the camping we did in our twenties. Back then we we avid backpackers, so a couple of trips to REI found us supplied with all new ultralight backpack gear.
I can tell you that sleeping comfort has come a long way in 40 years. In particular, there are lightweight high quality air mattresses now that completely eliminate that sleeping on the ground feeling us older folks recall from tent camping in the past. And the tents, sleeping bags, food, clothing, cooking etc gear have also advanced a lot. So have the prices though too, it's not cheap to outfit these days.
We found we could camp for 3 or 4 days with a total weight of around 50lbs for the two of us. Add in a couple of folding e-scooters for local transportation and we're still under our 100 lb limitation (barely).
Here's what we've found after half a dozen or so airplane camping trips this summer and fall. After a couple of times we can set up and take down camp in about an hour each. Not as fast as RV camping but acceptable. Sleeping is very comfortable. Rain hasn't been a problem, we pick weather windows for our flying trips anyway. Backpacking food is fine, lots of choices, and vey easy to prepare and clean up. That probably saves as much time vs RV camping as we spend setting up camp. Most campgrounds have showers as do the pilot facilities at small airports, so getting cleaned up hasn't been a problem either.
There are far more and better (for us) camping locations open to backpackers than RVers. We enjoy solitude while camping, and that's hard to get in RV campgrounds. Tent campsites tend to be much more private and quieter. And often there are walk in sites too. In most national forests and some parks you are free to camp where you want as long as you are a minimum distance from trails, lakes, and streams, so you don't have to backpack for miles to find nice campsites. The new ultralight water filtration systems work like magic so you don't usually need potable water either.
The two problems that we've found bother us are the getting up in the middle of the night to urinate and the cold in the morning getting into our hands cooking or breaking camp on chilly mornings. Those weren't problems back in our twenties but in our 60's they are, and both get worse in the fall with longer nights and cold mornings. Flip top mittens and headlamps help, but all the camping tech in the world won't solve getting old.
Some things you just have to live with I guess. So, we'll continue to use the ultralight gear for camping, but probably limit that mostly to summer. We also just bought a class B rig which I plan to outfit for boondocking and park at selected small airports next year. That will allow for more camping comfort as well as better local transportation at our flying destinations. We'll see how that goes.
------------- 1994 Chinook Concourse
1995 RV6A Experimental Aircraft
2015 Rpod 179 - sold
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