Let me tell you about the worst camping experience that I’ve ever had.  It took place last summer and I was actually excited when the camping trip began.  I packed up all my camping supplies along with my family and we headed to our favourite camping site.  This was a particularly special trip because we had made the reservations for the campsite months in advance.  It seemed that our favourite site was getting very popular and therefore increasingly difficult to visit.  When we got to the site we saw that there was garbage and empty water bottles all over the place.  We glanced over to our neighbour’s campsite and found a bunch of people listening to music, getting drunk, and making a lot of noise.  To make a long story short, they ended up being the worst people that I’ve ever had to share a campsite was.  I don’t think they were trying to be rude, it just seems that they were not aware of common camping etiquette.  But in any case, it was extremely difficult to live next to them and it made our last camping trip of the year almost unbearable.  Here are some simple camping etiquette tips for you to keep in mind so that you don’t end up ruining someone else’s trip.

1.  Always make sure to stay on your own campsite and avoid the temptation to go wandering on someone else’s sight.  You’ve booked your camping space and your neighbour has booked and theirs, so respect that fact by giving each of the privacy.  One of the worst offenses is walking across another person’s campsite while they’re still there, and you’d be surprised at how often that happens.

2.  Did I mention that my camping neighbour’s last year had pets?  They had a dog who would stay up late at night and howl at the moon.  During the day, this rather large dog would come running onto or campsite and rummage through our food.  There were never any attempts to keep this dog on a leash or under control in any way.  If you have a pet make sure that you keep it chain properly or you can even look into cheap camping tents to contain it.

3.  Don’t get me wrong, I love camping next to people and meeting new friends.  It’s only when they seem to have no regard for camping etiquette that there is a problem.  Sometimes you can’t control how other people will behave, but you certainly can determine how you act yourself.  So make sure to familiarize yourself with the posted camping rules of any given site.  Pay attention to things like rules about noise levels, camp fires, staying up late, and using the various amenities or bodies of water nearby.