If you don’t take your french press camping, you are definitely NOT camping right.
Anyone can camp, but only the fabulous camp with style and grace.
Note: I actually take an Aeropress since it is less breaky when packed with the other kitchen items.
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Yeth 
(its been a long week)
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I still dont understand what is so non camping about french press? It’s not a keurig. It doesnt froth milk.
Camping is kind of about roughing it, but its also a vacation. And who wants to drink crap instant coffee after a night of sleeping on the ground when your press can easily make the trip? Now pass the bagels and lox!
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Sleeping on the ground? My dear chap, even in the Retreat from Kabul, a gentleman could mostly rely on having a bed for the night.
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Now that’s preparing for the apocalypse!
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…but Pharoah, who quite liked tea anyway, hardened his heart, and would not let the people go.
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Nice! When I travel I have a $5 plastic “ammo box” from Harbor Freight that holds the aeropress, ground coffee and a little sugar very well.
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Maybe to leave out for the fair folk? A saucer of milk is traditional, but I think if you really want to Get Shit Done, hyperactive elves, fairies and cobblies would be the way to go.
I have a rugged french press for car camping, one cup filters for lighter camping. Save the instant for survival situations.
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Exactly! Boiling the water is the biggest effort. The effort between pouring into a cup of instant or pouring into a french press and pushing the plunger is negligible.
Some people seem to think camping is driving until you run out of gas, throwing your car keys and clothes in the car and slamming the door, and then walking home in a straight line through streams and bramble…
Maybe a case of “Real men always…”
The funny thing is that like I said above. Anyone can go out and half ass it and suffer. It takes effort to elevate the experience. When I was camping a lot with friends. I modified a car port to have a shower room, bedroom and living room. The bedroom had a king size bed I made that folded flat for transport. Also had fun making the most complete but compact kitchen set. All of that took planning, preparation, and effort to load, move and set up. But the extra effort was rewarded with a bit of comfort in the gorgeous outdoors.
But to each their own. If people need to sleep on the hard ground to enjoy nature, nothing wrong with that.
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You’re right.
I do think it’s too bad there’s too many people who think going outdoors is only authentic if you don’t have suntan lotion, water, or the first plan on what do when it gets dark.
People actively seeking avoidable suffering can sometimes make work for other people who have to haul them back.
But maybe that’s offset by the number of people scared of the woods who don’t end up going in the first place.
So many ways to be a person.
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Lies.
There’s a certain set of people who disparage anything but ultra light backpacking in a Sasquatch infested warzones sans toilet paper to be not technically camping.
Generally these are people who have little awareness of the purpose or context of the “non-camping” activity they disparage.
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So true. Many ways of doing things. Each have trade offs. Not everyone has the same needs or priorities.
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I am fine with instant while camping. It is partly about ritual, a symbolic comfort from home.
While camping you are downgrading everything about your lifestyle.* Coffee is part of that for me.
*Unless you are glamping
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Funny because when I go backpacking I say “backpacking” or “hiking”. When I’m overnight canoeing, I am “canoeing”.
When I am sleeping in a tent, in a camp ground, at a camp site, then I am camping.
But I know what you are saying. One uppers gotta one up.
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I get the downgrading. I enjoy the challenge of not having every tool and every convenience, it’s problem solving. Additionally, I also enjoy readjusting perspectives like what is really important to me.
But I do a lot of camping in a lot of different ways with different groups of people. If I’m alone on a trail I’m going to be happy with a flask, some gorp, and a change of socks. But if I’m car camping with friends on our annual holloween trip, we are glamping hard (many foodies in the group), but we still find ways to create new comforts. Gourmet in the woods is not necessarily taking an “easy” path! Have you seen the guy that humps a cast iron dutch oven up a mountain for rich campers? Bet that hike up doesn’t feel very glamourous lol!
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I view it more as a class thing. Most often hear it from fairly well off people who can afford expensive accessories talking down about people who have found an affordable, enjoyable way to travel in ways they might not otherwise be able to.
The number of times I’ve talked about RV camping as a kid only to have some shit in a Patagonia Jacket pull the “why not just stay in a hotel, not real camping, something some manly nature” nonsense is ridiculous. Explaining that we couldn’t afford things like hotels and airfare, but did enjoy campfires hiking and fishing would bring them up short. I don’t think it ever occurs to a lot of these people that camping might not be about re-enacting Waldon.
So I get touchy about it.
But that misunderstanding thing plays a part a lot of the time. Like my parents still do the RV thing. Part of it is that they like to stay/rot on isolated beaches. And a 5th wheel camper and big ole truck is much more affordable than a retirement house on the beaches in question. But it’s also because there all these amazing camping spots in the us, physically on the beach, closer than any hotel or home could be built. In amazing places where there are no accomodations.
These areas have campgrounds, but for safety and evironmental reasons they aren’t open to tent or open camping. You have to have a camper (and true 4 wheel drive vehicle) to get to them. You can’t backpack to them because the surrounding areas are usually blocked off to hikers for environmental reasons (dunes are easy to damage, and loaded with endangered species). And you really wouldn’t want to.
I explain the whole thing to people who shit on “glamping” and they’ve generally never even heard of that whole scene. And never considered camping in any environment but the woods in very specific areas (New England, Pacific Northwest).
The folks are currently living on an isolated beach in Key West for 2 months. There’s a military base there with a handful of RV spots on an isolated beach. You need to reserve space 3 years ahead of time, but once you get down there you can rotate from dry, off the grid slips to full hook up slabs to recharge/pump out the trailer and get a shower, and back. For pretty much the whole summer. And it only costs a couple bucks a day.
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