That seems to not make too much sense to folks. Here we are with a big luxury diesel coach, but we go to rustic out of the way campgrounds without hookups? They ask: "Why?" ---(and probably silently to themselves: "Why would you WANT to?")
Not to get into an "Us" vs. "Them" spiel here, I wanted to post about WHY we like to camp rustic in Northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.
Well, the simple answer is that MOST of the campgrounds around us for 100 miles or so ARE rustic without ANY hookups. LOL
Honestly, we do like the rustic camping better ... it's more peaceful, green, roomy, and not parked in like rows and rows of tin cans. We see a lot of wildlife, go fishing in our boat, walk on nature trails and have no restrictions on campfire smoke, where to park or how many people are allowed on our site before we have to start paying extra fees. Most of the campgrounds we go to are either National Forest, State Forest or small county and township campgrounds. Some of our National Forest lands allow "dispersed camping" where you can pull off and camp wherever you want on their lands, pack it in, pack it out kinda code of conduct. The problem is most of the lands are wooded and not conducive to allowing a big diesel pusher motorhome to pull off into the woods without a good sturdy base underneath us. So we do kinda hang into the campgrounds themselves and park on rustic campsites. Fees are in the $10-16 range for the National Forests around us.
We like looking out the windows at lush green woods and sparkling waters, not the siding of the camper parked right next to us. Gravel, dirt and natural weedy vegetation is more preferable to cement, manicured lawns and gated campgrounds.
Now I know some RV folks won't even consider a campground with only electric and water, they want full hookups of sewer, cable, wifi and all the accompanying amenities of pool, clubhouse, gift shop, golf course and whatnot. That is fine for them if that is what they want. Sorry, we don't even have those kind of places around here to begin with.
Soooo just for grins, I made up a map with red flags for the rustic non-electric campgrounds... and green flags for the campgrounds with hookups. We have been to all of these places --- about 100-150 miles radius from our house
We mostly camp to the north of our hometown (yellow) because south of us it is more populated, less campgrounds and no national forest lands....
This is the reason we have four 100 watt solar panels, a big bank of batteries, a generator and large holding tanks. With careful use of water, we can go 10 days, with very careful use, 14 days or so. Our fresh tank is 100 gallons, our grey and black tanks are 50 gallons.
We look forward to the future of going out west and boondocking on the BLM lands and enjoying the quiet areas that are available to RVers. For now we have to be content with our National Forest lands.
So THAT is why we camp "Rustic" with no hookups....
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