Glamping has gone too far: Survival tips for the unhappy camper

This piece was originally published on Aug. 18, 2019.

My doctor once told me I shower a lot because I'm a salty sweater. I'm the rare person who showers before and after the gym.

My preference for hyper-hygiene renders me unsuitable for the great Saskatchewan pastime of camping.

I always hated being dragged camping. Even in my 20s I had the bladder of an 80 year old. That meant doing the long, slow tent unzip of shame at 3 a.m., when 10 degrees feels like -20 and you're standing over a bush waking up to clattering teeth.

Flash forward to me having a family and getting the idea to buy a tent trailer as a solution.

"This will be full-on glamping," I thought. It had a heater, running water (for some reason) and many of the conveniences of home, like a floor and ceiling. But no toilet or shower.

I was quite satisfied with myself after we got set up for our first night of relative lavishness at Candle Lake. Then I saw the sun get eclipsed by something large and unearthly. It was one of today's modern travel trailers, behemoths of indulgence, rolling in next door.

It took forever to get in place. You can tell the health of a stranger's marriage by how the parking of one of these wheeled giants goes.

My daughter quickly made friends with the family and came back to report that their camper has two bathrooms and an en suite. "What's an en suite?" she asked.

"Never mind," I snapped.

"They've also got two microwaves," she added.

Understandable, I reasoned. No one wants to walk more than a city block to get to their microwave.

It even sported a balcony for those who want to observe the natural world without getting their slippers dusty. Perhaps I wasn't the only non-camper in the campground. The place was full of these defenses against nature.

The upside of camping is that it prepares you for the apocalypse.- James Whittingham

With all these camper bathrooms around me I had to wonder why I was always standing in line for a shower.

The answer can be found with my pro-camper brother in-law, Doug. His little piece of luxury is brand new and boasts a spacious bathroom with a skylight over the shower. I was choking on envy when he explained they never use it. "Uses too much water," he confessed.

I'll bet you a box of s'mores that every luxury camper sale in Saskatchewan is made with the phoney promise, "Don't worry about our line of credit, honey. You'll never have to shower with strangers again."

So that leaves me in the same smelly boat as everyone else, regardless of the fact I sit at the bottom of the Saskatchewan RV class system.

Surviving showers, spiders and stinky stalls

I've compiled some survival tips for the unhappy camper:

Problem: Sharing toilet stalls with men who make noises varying from huffing before an Olympic dead-lift to whimpering for their mother.

Solution: Bring your headphones to play classical music. Close your eyes, cover your nose, and pretend you're doing your business in a five star restaurant somewhere in civilization.

Problem: Giant rolls of toilet paper that require incredible skill and patience to pull anything of substance out of them.

Solution: BYOTP or start slowly acquiring useful wads the moment you enter the stall.

Problem: Loud birds that wake you up at the crack of dawn.

Solution: Keep a smoldering fire going with wet wood whose thick smoke blocks out the sun, tricking the birds into sleeping in.

Problem: The Old Schooler There's always some happy go-lucky guy who brings his 45 minute morning routine to the campground bathrooms. He's got all his metrosexual lotions and potions carefully laid out before him and a radio playing like the world is his. He truly is happy to be shaving and it couldn't be more annoying.

Solution: See below.

Problem: Poisonous shower spiders.

Solution: There's always a shower spider. Always. Use the hand wand in the accessible shower to squirt the spider into the stall with the annoying, happy guy. The upside of camping is that it prepares you for the apocalypse. Knowledge that people like him don't stand a chance is what keeps you going.

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