It’s now been one month since I started my camping-by-van adventure (vamping) and I feel like I have fallen into a solid routine. All of the sites I have camped in have been run by national or state parks, staffed by rangers and campground hosts, who are usually retired couples who love the seasonal RV lifestyle. Most campgrounds are reassuringly similar in their mechanics—each site has a paved pad for the vehicle, plus a picnic table and a fire ring. From there, they diverge into different tiers. Some are primitive, with vault toilets (read outhouse) and scattered water sources. Others offer electric and water at each individual site, and flush toilets and showers are available (oh, the luxury!). Yet these amenities are not what I will remember; it’s the locations they are in. I have camped on beaches, on dunes, in Redwood forests, beneath volcanoes and alongside rivers. The backdrop of each site is as varied as nature itself and it’s never the flushing toilets that make one stand out.

Take for example the campground I am in right now, in Mt. Rainier National Park. Sure there’s a beautiful, snow-covered volcano just a few miles away, which I will be exploring tomorrow, but the campground itself, like many others, offers wonderful experiences right outside my van’s door. After negotiating treacherous, unpaved roads for hours on end, the first thing Willy and I do when we hit a campground is go stretch our legs. Campgrounds often have wonderful paths weaving through them that showcase the region’s biodiversity. So it was that I spent 20 minutes this evening observing salmon try and swim up a small stream to spawn (there are just so many metaphors there!). It was mesmerizing watching these determined fish jockey for position, “draft” off each other, and in every way mimic the slowest horse race I have ever seen. I almost feel guilty about the smoked salmon I picked up for dinner.

Campgrounds on beaches are another favorite. It is something else to wake up, throw on some shoes and go wander an empty beach for an hour before breakfast. Sure, hitting the vault toilet after is less of a delight (Willy hates them and now refuses to go in), but it’s hard to undo a morning beach romp.

The evenings offer up further entertainment with beautiful sunsets, starlit skies, campfires (s’mores!) and the sounds of rushing creeks or pounding waves. When it grows too dark or too cold outside, we retire to the van and listen to audio books. I bought a Kindle for this trip, but most days I am too tired to do the reading myself and, besides, falling asleep being read to is such a treat, and reminds me of my father, an amateur theater actor who loved reading to us when we were kids.

In all, I am enjoying the camping lifestyle, despite the trudges to smelly toilets and showerheads installed for Hobbits that spray warmish water. I will not be turning down friends’ guestrooms or nice hotels anytime soon, and there are times when I long to just stay in one place for more than a night or two, but the rewards have been bountiful and, best of all, unexpected.