Originally Posted by
iahphx
I applaud you on your innovative -- and lengthy -- trips to Europe, but I'm sure you recognize that there are very, very few Americans taking their families on 38-day trips to Europe.
Elliott's column (now written long ago, btw) suggested this was a "mainstream" trend. That's ludicrous -- campgrounds are not springing up in the cities, towns and villages of America to handle the hordes of folks fleeing conventional lodging choices.
It's just silly.
I used to think I did some things only a small percentage of Americans were doing until I found flyertalk.com.
If I'm camping to cut costs, it wouldn't surprise me to see others doing it, even if they're only doing it in Tenn.
I really should have added that for years we travelled through the Canadian Maritimes and the northeastern US from Texas. The traditional vacation was getting so costly for 2-3 weeks that I sort of retooled what we were doing. The price of gas alone was a serious chunk of change, plus the cost of good-mediocre US motels was going up and up, especially when you are stuck just walking up and asking for a room rather than booking on the internet.
It is easy to spend $200+ a day driving through the middle of the US on the Interstate, staying at a HIE and eating a Cracker Barrel meal and getting a meal at McD's. Then you wonder why you just did that and what you or your kids got out of it.
I can't statistically prove that more people are camping, but I've found that I'm not usually totally alone in my thinking. This was proven to me by the Seinfeld episode where they tried to take the deposit bottle back to Michigan to get the nickel apiece or the people that hoard the copper penny.