We’ve been spending nights on this trip at hotels, warmshowers’ hosts and camping.
Each has benefits but camping provides some things the others don’t.
Even when camping, there are numerous ways to camp (approved wilderness, unapproved wilderness, private and chain campgrounds).
Our first camping night was along the Columbia River in an approved wilderness (off grid – no water, electric, toilets/showers) site set up by the Army Corp of Engineers. Luckily there was a pit toilet 3 minutes away at a boat launch so this wasn’t as rough as it could be. What was great about this was that there were only a few other families there. We’d planned for this so had plenty of water and some food so there wasn’t really any hardship. Being able to eat riverside, soak feet in water, stare at the stars made for an enjoyable evening.
Our next camping night was in a private campground. The one memorable thing that happened there was an amazingly strong wind storm that raged for almost 30 minutes. I finally had to sit in the tent to make sure it didn’t blow away (found out later that a family who went out for dinner had their’s blow way). Nice thing here was there was both laundry (which we didn’t need yet) and bathrooms and showers.
As nice as that was, it didn’t hold a chance against the Village of the Trees campground where we camped then next time. This had bathrooms, showers, store and grill, a pool and tree covered soft grass area for tents. While the former campground was sufficient, the latter was enjoyable and relaxing.
We later camped at a KOA campground. Again bathrooms, showers, store and a pool. This was smaller and met all our needs but wasn’t as peaceful as the Village of the Trees site. This isn’t to say it was bad, it was good.
Soon, being in Wyoming and having many, many miles ahead of us without any lodging, we will also have to do unapproved wilderness camping. Some call the stealth camping. It is off grid camping where there is no identified camping areas. We are preparing for it by making sure we are carrying plenty of water and food, etc.