Then I became a Boy Scout and camping felt like school — a packed schedule, lots of busyness, not much unstructured time or freedom to explore. (I’ve since learned that not all troops have the same approach to camping.)

When we moved cities, I dropped out of Boy Scouts and took to walking everywhere — to school, to friends’ houses, or just to clear my head.

I returned to camping in college, taking backpacking trips with friends. I loved it, even with the extra weight of canned food. Short backpacking trips when I was a bachelor kept me sane from an insane work schedule of 80+ hour weeks working on developing government accounting systems.

Then I started camping with my lovely wife. In the beginning, we found ourselves cramming the car full of necessities for the two of us for two days. Then we worked even harder to cram a little more into the car when my daughter was born.

In the years since we’ve enjoyed countless camp-outs with our extended family and friends. Over these many trips, in a variety of campgrounds surrounded by families that approach camping in as many ways, I’ve seen how camping can quickly go from enjoying life’s simplicity to an outdoor re-creation of home life, only more complicated and more stressful.