But another part is definitely facilities. Being not originally from the US but having been to large parts of it, I was incredulous when I found out that BLM public land literally means just that -- that you can drive onto it and do stuff within reason; this is such a powerful concept that I -- and others -- often don't know what to do with it.
It's definitely an easier expenditure of mental energy to go to a big-name National Park, pay the fee, get the map, go to the Visitor Center, go to the big lookout and vistas, and leave with the magnet and the hat -- and I say this without intending to disparage this style of tourism. I lack the outdoorsy know-how and wisdom to feel at ease on the backroads of the desert southwest (and I live too far away from the backroads of the rugged northwest) where most of these facilities are, and it's a nice (albeit somewhat fictitious) thought that when you stick to the approved big tourist roads at big tourist places, that you're not completely alone in nature at the mercy of the elements.
This is one of the reasons that I am glad I was a Scout and spent a lot of time in the backcountry.
I grew up thinking that this is how everybody grows up, but having lived in several major world cities, it has never ceased to amaze me how few city-folk know any fundamental outdoor skills.
Selecting a campsite, leaving no trace when you leave, water purification and management, building and containing campfires, land navigation with a map and compass, how to safely use a rifle, knife use and maintenance, first aid... I learned all of these as a kid.
Spending that time "roughing it" really helps you appreciate the benefits of both preserving nature, as well as the wonders of modern civilization. It also builds some serious self-reliance skills, which have served me well in life.
Maybe we need a program similar to Scouting, but for adults that have lived all of their lives in or around cities? Would help to bridge the urban-rural divide in both directions. Does such a thing exist?
There are two good options for this, NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) and Outward Bound. I went on an Outward Bound expedition where we kayaked for several days on Lake Superior, and I have a number of friends involved with NOLS. NOLS and Outward Bound are similar; they both teach outdoor skills in a group setting. Outward Bound has a little more emphasis on group dynamics, but they're both great programs and they offer a wide variety of courses in beautiful locations.
NOLS: http://www.nols.edu/
Outward Bound: http://www.outwardbound.org/
The Boy Scouts of America currently can't be supported by me no matter their merits because of their stances on gays and the non-religious.
I also don't support sex segregation in scouting.
Keep the BSofA for the people who want that sort of thing but let's support inclusive scouting organizations as well.
I am an Eagle scout who was openly an atheist while going through the program. A lot of this depends on your local leadership; the national organization stays out of it.
The program is a great program as noted above, for all its flaws. If you have a child interested, you can have a huge effect on the local program simply by becoming involved.
I would probably feel out the group first if you intend to do this, it wasn't a pleasant experience at the time.
Sorry but joining an organization that is openly exclusive to you and your values then trying to change it to be inclusive to you and change their core values seems very wrong. Having your child being an unwelcome outsider during your personal crusade. why not join, create, and support alternative scouting organizations that welcome you and your values?
But I do seem to meet a large number of young adults that could benefit from a similar experience to Scouting, in terms of learning valuable life skills, building self-confidence, and as a way of broadening their experience outside of urban life.
Lord Baden-Powell as he was or a hypothetical version of him with modern morality applied?
"No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys His laws. So every Scout should have a religion....Religion seems a very simple thing: First: Love and Serve God. Second: Love and serve your neighbour." - from Scouting for Boys. And, generally, he seemed to consider that pretty important.
I'm not making any argument about what the Boy Scouts should or shouldn't do, but rather responding to the statement that Lord Baden-Powell would be disappointed by it or parts of it rejecting atheists, which is clearly false.
Things like
>Selecting a campsite, leaving no trace when you leave, water purification and management, building and containing campfires, land navigation with a map and compass, how to safely use a rifle, knife use and maintenance, first aid... I learned all of these as a kid.
I suppose.
Sorry, this goes against my core beliefs and I couldn't perosnally support or send a child to such an organization no matter what their other merits may be.
http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/11/02/beginning-next-y...
I was a boy scout in the Bay Area and we had openly gay scouts and almost all of the kids and parents were atheist.
From my link above:
>What’s new is that beginning Jan. 1, 2016, every rank from Tenderfoot to Eagle Scout (plus Eagle Scout palms) will include a “duty to God” requirement
I'm not aware of any perfect scouting-like groups nor of any imperfect ones that, all things included, would be better for my own boys than the scouting group across the street.
I don't have to take umbrage at everything that has some relationship to something I don't agree with. I guess there is more that one kind of "inclusiveness".
Hopefully this isn't too political, but I will try and answer your question.
Part of self-reliance is the ability to make your environment safe. This is why you learn first-aid, CPR, how to use a fire extinguisher, how to properly use a knife, etc.
In the United States, there are more firearms then people. This trend shows no signs of stopping any time in the near future.
Statistically speaking, in a group that focuses on outdoor activities and self-reliance, there will be multiple gun owners. Some will probably have concealed weapons permits.
Taking a gun into the wilderness is a sensible precaution. There are any number of dangerous critters, especially the ones with rabies.
While in the backcountry, you will also run into other people that are armed.
Our hypothetical non-gun-person is therefore going to be around guns.
Guns are dangerous.
Not knowing how to safely handle a gun makes non-gun people potentially dangerous to both themselves, and other people.
The responsible thing is therefore to learn how to safely handle a weapon, including how to unload and clear it.
They don't need to ever buy one, own one, or even like guns.
But knowing gun safety is right up there with knowing CPR.
You don't learn CPR by reading a book. You do it by practicing in a controlled environment.
Same for gun safety.
It just seems so much easier to just avoid wildlife in most places.
I've hiked in probably 30 of the 50 states, and have met a very small number of people openly carrying guns of any sort (maybe some had concealed pistols for defense against people; that's a reasonably common thing, and there's a permit for concealed carry in most states).
There is a non-trivial portion of the population
that feels encryption only exists to hide illegal
activity. How would you convince them to use a VPN?So, playing Devil's Advocate, here is what an anti-encryption person would say in response:
Nobody really needs encryption, and the common availability of military-grade encryption powers terrorism on a global scale.
Terrorist groups use encryption to organize and coordinate attacks, such as the mass shooting in Paris that claimed 137 lives, with an additional 400 injuries.
If this technology could be countered by intelligence agencies and law enforcement, it would become almost impossible to use the Internet to coordinate terror attacks, or to secretly support terror groups.
Thousands of innocent lives could be saved if we just limited encryption to low-strength variants, which are still strong enough to safeguard emails and documents from nosy coworkers.
And really, what legitimate use is there for strong encryption? If the government wants your salsa recipe, they are just going to throw you in prison until you tell them. Your online payments will still be secure if the government holds a master key. The only reason you would need strong encryption without government oversight is if you have something dangerous to hide.
This is not true, and you should not allow someone to get away with statements like these. The Paris attackers made extensive use of unencrypted burner phones. Far from supporting it, this actually deals a fatal blow to the idea that terrorists could be stopped, if it weren't for that pesky encryption. They demonstrably can't.
I'm frightened that, as a meme, "paris attacks demonstrate the need to weaken encryption" actually got off the ground. It demonstrates the power of government propaganda is sufficient to completely invert the lessons of an event to suit them.
As a non-american scout my experience includes all the same things, except the shooting.
Correct. Hunting rifles are typically much more powerful and lethal than handguns and "assault style" AR-15 and AR-derivative rifles.
They shoot farther and with more velocity, they use larger (sometimes much larger) projectiles and are much more accurate.
We want to have certain things, and once you have accumulated the resources to get them, you can purchase them.
But I'll note that part of the reason the gun debate is so poisonous is advocates that are unwilling to draw a distinction between the use of guns against animals and the use of guns against humans - regarding any distinction between different types of guns or contexts of ownership as heretical.
"There is a non-trivial portion of the population that feels rifles only exist to kill other people."
I find it odd that you say people think rifles only exist to kill people. Pistols are used in the vast majority of shootings, and rifles in the vast majority of sport uses.
For what it's worth, there is also a non-trivial portion of the population that feels that confidence with weapons is an integral part of the American individualist spirit.
You are asking how do we convince people who refuse to use guns how to learn how to use guns safely...
Maybe you could just let them not use guns?
In our local area we have several drownings a year, tourists who don't understand the power of the ocean. That and people falling off cliffs. Our education system (UK) is very out of touch with nature. Very few students get to swim in the ocean, climb a cliff, light a fire or camp out in the woods.
The UK isn't big but I don't think you can generalise here because my experience is very different. Scout groups seem very popular (so popular it's really difficult to get your kid a place in one), schools offer the optional Duke of Edinburgh award which teaches camping/orienteering and is pretty popular, and in the UK a hell of a lot of people live pretty close to the ocean and know how to use it safely (surfing is very popular in Ireland and south cost of England/Welsh coast). When I was younger my friends and I would go camping a few times a year as did many other groups of friends (the reason was mostly so we could get drunk without getting caught but still we hiked 12 hours to get there, figured out how to cook, get water, build a fire, pitch tents etc.).
On the other hand I've been pretty shocked this Summer that every sunny weekend it seems half a dozen people get killed in the ocean here. I'm only in my mid-20's but maybe the education system has been lacking in recent years to cause this? Or is it maybe that kids don't play outdoors very much anymore so don't have an easy way to learn and practice the skills? In the 90's video games were just hitting/becoming affordable so we could build huts in fields, play football everyday, ride bikes, play on building sites, camp several times a year. Looking at younger family members they don't do any of these things. Maybe it's not education but lack of practice. Schools can teach you how to swim but if you never actually go to the ocean or a pool after learning you're going to be out of practice when you go and try to swim in the ocean in the summer.
Don't forget the Cadet organizations too e.g. https://armycadets.com
National Outdoor Leadership School perhaps?
Hiking: you're doing it wrong. Seriously, if you don't have to at least pee outdoors, it's not a hike.
While I love to hike, including way off the beaten path, it's worth recognizing that not everyone is able-bodied enough to take advantage of those aspects of our parks. So, it's totally cool that National Parks provide a means for folks with limited mobility to safely see some of our nation's most beautiful places. And, it's a valid reason to visit the obvious parks rather than going off on your own in lonely places.
National Forest land too. I grew up as the child of a federal employee in rural eastern Oregon, and I got a solid taste for "I can ride my dirt bike 50 miles in any direction and do whatever I want." Sadly, where I live now, I need to carry three different parking passes in my car depending on where I want to go hiking on the weekend, and somehow the $50K I pay in taxes every year can't absorb the fees of these things - I need to remember to go prostrate myself at each office every year to get them...
Please don't let this stop you. It's like people saying they can't go hiking because they can't afford "hiking boots". Whatever shoes you already wear every day are fine enough to get out there to start!
Throw a tent, a little stove and a box of food in your car and get out there. Maybe stick closer to bigger roads to start so you can always walk back if you car breaks down, but please get out there!
You'll figure out how to put your tent up after a few tries, and as long as you've got some food and water, you'll be fine.
Food, water and shelter aren't enough for camping. You also need: flashlight with spare batteries, a map of the surrounding region, a compass, extra clothing, sun protection and a first-aid kit. It's also a good idea to know where the nearest ranger station is so that you can haul ass there in case of an emergency.
You're discouraging people from even starting. They don't need all that gear and experience to get out and try it - in all honsety their first night will be just off a road next to their car - are they really going to get in trouble from not having a flashlight and map and compass? Just sleep in the car.
> the Mohave (where I backpacked/camped/rock-climbed for seven years) has 18 species of rattlesnakes, and one of those is the Mohave rattlesnake, which carries one of the most lethal rattlesnake venoms in the world.
Awesome! how many times did you see one? How many times were you in danger of being bitten? Quoting facts like that doesn't help teach people the realities of camping. Chances are the vast majority of people will never see one.
For reference, I'm from Australia, and lived in the Yukon for 4 years, hiking, camping and canoeing all over remote Yukon and Alaska. I've been face to face with bears about 10 times, seen tons of deadly snakes, waded across waist deep glacier melt rivers, etc. etc. I camped most nights from Alaska to Argentina, and now I'm camping my way around Africa. I've hiked many of the worlds most famous multi-day hiking trips. I've spent something like 1000 nights in a tent in my life.
Stop discouraging people from trying. Soon you'll be telling people they can't try swimming without buying goggles, they can't try golf without buying clubs and thousands of dollars of lessons from a pro, and they can't learn to drive without buying their own $30k car.
Encourage people to try something new. They don't have to start out in a store - they have to start out doing.
are they really going to get in trouble from not having a flashlight and map and compass?
It's true to say that many routes wouldn't need that equipment, but many routes would be dangerous without it.
Asking people who, in this context, have little or no experience with outdoor trekking, to appropriately identify the necessary clothing, footwear, or safety equipment for a hike, is inviting accidents.
Mountain Rescue regularly picks up people from Snowden who are lacking the appropriate kit, such as hikers attempting it in winter wearing shorts and trainers [1].
I am fully in favour of encouraging people to "get out there and do it", but with appropriate guidance: advice from an outdoor shop, a rambling guidebook, a knowledgable friend…something that can steer them towards an activity that's appropriate for their fitness level, experience, and equipment.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578247/Foolish-walk...
In addition, the assumption is that you're camping in an area where the area itself is inhospitable to life. There's a ton of camping and hiking opportunities on the east coast, and unless you break a leg or something, you can pretty much just pick a direction and walk ten miles and end up in somebody's back yard.
You should be able to walk through the woods for a few hours without having to gear up at the local outdoor's shop.
(Of course, that's not to say that there isn't a lot of damned good reasons to tool up, or that folks don't get dead even on the east coast. There's just a level of awareness that's involved in being outside that shouldn't come as a surprise to most. Our species is bred to be outdoors. Take it slow. Pay attention. It'll work out.)
No, I'm discouraging people from starting unprepared. Big difference.
>>Awesome! how many times did you see one? How many times were you in danger of being bitten?
I personally saw one maybe a dozen times. Camping mate got bitten by one because he didn't see it. He woke up at night, got outside the tent to take a piss and in the dark stepped on one. Within 30 minutes he was vomiting and foaming at the mouth, and had started losing sensation in the leg he was bitten in. The only reason he's alive today is because we remained calm, applied first aid and were able to rush him to a nearby hospital.
This happens to people rarely. But the point is that it can be fatal for someone who isn't prepared to handle the situation. In general, thousands of people die every year in the USA because they underestimate nature, don't understand the risks of the adventures they undertake and don't prepare accordingly.
Besides, think about it this way: if someone starts out unprepared and has a shitty experience as a result (e.g. they forgot to bring extra clothing and couldn't sleep at night because it was cold), they are unlikely to try again. Being prepared helps them enjoy the activity more, which in turn makes it more likely that they will do it more.
People absolutely should try, and the price of entry is really tiny, but the price of getting it wrong can be fatal. What's also possible is people simply being unnecessarily uncomfortable due to a lack of preparation and then never doing it again.
Heck, I had the latter experience myself: I'd been camping as a kid and got training at school and all that, but the first time I did it as an adult after a gap of ten years I was uncomfortable because I'd forgotten that nights are cold in summer.
Oh please, give it a rest.
We're talking about driving down a road with a car and camping near it for a night or two. Maybe going for a short walk. Like, you know, walking to the store. To say that the consequences of doing that can be fatal is exactly the same insane hyperbole as saying choking on lettuce can be fatal.
Yes, both can. The chances are remotely slim, and you shouldn't scare people off by mentioning it constantly.
As an experienced wilderness traveler, I consider teaching people about the potential risks to be the responsible thing to do. It might scare them off but that's better than them getting hurt or worse.
Besides, in my opinion being aware of the risks, no matter how minor, is considerably less scary than not being aware of them. People who are prepared will be more at ease and as a result they will enjoy the activity more. We are not talking about taking a six-month course on wilderness survival. We're talking about having some basic knowledge and equipment, neither of which is expensive or time-consuming to acquire.
Food, water, and shelter are plenty for car camping in most places.
Car camping in Death Valley in August? Or in the Colorado mountains in January? Of course not.
Know the environment, have some lighting, and go on. You're not wrong, but you're overselling the danger. Common sense and a general awareness of the climate will be enough to make a judgement on safety.
The most important thing about being out in the wilderness is this: it's better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. This holds true regardless of experience level.
It's true that car camping is considerably safer. But, in my opinion, making sure you have the "ten essentials" I listed is about forming the right habits. You may not need the extra shelter since you can sleep in your car, but when you decide to upgrade to tent-camping, you'll know to bring some with you.
It's not called the "Common Canyon" for a reason. Where else are you going to see something like that in the States? Something of that magnitude?
And Yellowstone? It's a Super Volcano for christ's sake!
Yellowstone and Yosemite both offer incredibly unique and beautiful sites.
This isn't meant to take away from your larger point - that we have hundreds (if not thousands) of other locations in the US that are both amazingly beautiful and where your experience will be more your own rather than shared with the denizens of tourists, but to call the major attractions "arbitrary" seems to undermine how incredible they actually are.
Also, I love how some places are left rugged and undeveloped, while others have an excellent infrastructure in place to allow people to see the highlights even from the car. At first, I thought it was pathetic: you drive through, get off at the parking lot, take a picture, and drive to the next parking lot, ad nauseam.
That's not seeing nature, I thought.
But then, if you're older and somewhat infirm, or, say, wheelchair bound - the accessibility of many parks still allows you to experience the sights.
This "long tail" phenomenon is at work elsewhere, as well: I've been to the Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia recently for the third time and took some time to explore more remote ruins (Koh Ker, Beng Mealea, etc.), and while the main sites (Angkor Wat, Ta Phrom) are visited by busloads of tourists, you can easily be the only person for a while at the more remote ones.
The most popular cities in the US don't have room for all the people that want to live in them (for a variety of reasons, NIMBYism being a big one). If everyone who could work remotely moved out to smaller towns, we'd revitalize small town America and those folks could buy houses (which is not possible for a lot of people in a place like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Austin, etc.).
But, you're right. I do find the crowded parks surrounding major cities to be a turn-off. There is a point at which I wish there were some more quiet and solitude. Which is why I spend so much time so far away from major cities.
Although even there, you can get away from most of the crowds pretty quickly. It won't be untracked wilderness but it won't be crowded.
I was in Acadia National Park last weekend and the standard just-off-the-road spots were mobbed (holiday weekend) and the standard trails were pretty busy. But we hiked a handful of less-common trails and only saw a handful of people except at the beginning and the end.
If you have the skills, you can also go to certain National Parks in the off-seasons. Doesn't work everywhere but when there's access there are far fewer people.
If I could pick those up and move them to southern New Hampshire where I live (not even Boston or more expensive locales), they'd go for 350k-500k. It's really absurd.
I guess I wasn't clear when saying that I think we should spread out again, I did not mean I think people should live on ranches or farms, 3 miles from their nearest neighbor and 30 miles to the nearest tiny town. That's not what the future looks like, I would hope. But, small to mid-sized towns can be reasonably dense, and can provide reasonable amenities. There are towns like this that don't get a lot of attention, and I tend to like to visit them (I'm parked in Eugene, Oregon right now, and both Eugene and Springfield match the description I've just given...though Eugene, in particular, is maybe on the large, and expensive, side of the model I'm envisioning). But, there are others: Asheville, NC and Denton, TX spring to mind as excellent examples. Real estate isn't super cheap in these cities, but it's not outrageous, either. There's plenty of shopping, plenty of entertainment, plenty of stuff to do and see, but without the soul-crushing traffic jams, and dehumanizing crowds, of (sort of) nearby Atlanta or Austin.
We, as a species, have spent the last few eons coming together, and all of the reasons why we have done so are still in effect.
For starters, transportation costs are vastly lower in cities. Take New York, for instance. Here we have a vast subway system the efficiently moves millions of people around, day and night. Just the Lexington Avenue line alone moves more people than the entire DC metro, the 2nd most used American subway system.
For $130 a month, roughly, I can get more or less anywhere I care to in the city at more or less anytime I choose to do so. The trains are electric and likely contribute far less to global warming, air pollution, etc. per capita than would driving.
Even without the subway within a 5 block radius I have restaurants, bars, grocery stores, a hardware store, a pharmacy, a few doctors' offices, parks, and so much more. My contribution to destroying the planet when I run my errands is far smaller than hypothetical spread out America.
Should I get food delivered, more often than not the courier is on a bike, not a car. I work on a delivery app myself and know that in some cities we use scooters, bikers, and even walkers. Way more efficient than spread out America where the car is king.
One of the major reasons to travel at all is to go to work, and with jobs being much closer, the distance travelled is far shorter. From a pure physics point of view the energy expended to move a given mass is going to go up the longer that mass has to travel. Traveling 2 miles to work uses less energy than going 20. Spread out America will result in fewer jobs being nearby, meaning traveling longer distances and times to get to work.
Sprawl is actually really bad for traffic, as well, as cars take up huge amounts of space. In the DC metro area the Orange Line moves more people than I-66 inside the Beltway, despite taking up far less land and being limited by the insane interlining the Metro has going on.
The aforementioned Lexington Avenue line moves far more people than the DC metro as a whole, and takes up way less space than an interstate highway of equivalent capacity. And even it could in theory move more people with a modern signaling system and articulated trains. New trains alone could boost capacity by 10% or so. My own line is getting about a 10% capacity boost from its new signaling system.
Transit scales in ways cars cannot. Spread out America is too spread out to invest in a subway system.
Even roads are cheaper in a city. One mile of road serves tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands vs. a few hundred in a small rural town. The cost is spread over far more people, making each person's contribution much smaller. Road improvements are more cost effective, as they can improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
Even ignoring the last mile delivery costs, being in a large enough city means having access to far more efficient means of intercity and global transportation. Freight trains and cargo ships are way more efficient than 18 wheelers. Intercity passenger trains likely pollute far less than jets do. Here in NYC I can reasonably use Amtrak's Northeast Corridor trains to get to places in Virginia, DC, Baltimore, Philly, and many others. There are also abundant, and cheap, buses to make the same trip.
Spread out America is too spread out for trains to be economical, as the infrastructure costs are too high and the potential passengers per stop too low.
The next major city efficiency gain comes in the form of heating and cooling. Apartments are more efficient to heat and cool given the shared walls and thermal mass. They are also more efficient to build, particularly low to mid rise apartments. Rowhouses are also fairly efficient for similar reasons. Electricity and gas for heating and cooling use is lower per capita than in suburbia and rural areas.
> The most popular cities in the US don't have room for all the people that want to live in them
Actually, every major American city has quite enough room to expand. This includes San Francisco, New York, DC, Chicago, Boston, LA, Seattle, and Portland. There are many I'm missing, but there are very few who are truly limited by geography.
(Note: DC is a special case in that it's not part of a state, so it can't annex surrounding areas and what is considered DC proper can never expand. It does however have suburban areas in its city limits, has a severe height limit, and is well below peak population).
The problem in all of these cities is political, not geographical. In all of these cities, we have put in place rules that limit population density in certain areas, make construction difficult and expensive, and even disallow certain entire classes of buildings. The 'missing middle' kind of housing is missing because it's illegal to build, even though historically these cities and others built large numbers of these houses.
Even Manhattan alone is below peak population. The area between Downtown and the heart of Midtown is much shorter and could support tall buildings just like the rest of the island. It is illegal to build them, though. Likewise, Brooklyn and Queens could easily support these tall buildings. Again, they are mostly illegal save for a few blessed spots.
Given Japanese zoning laws as an example of a better system, these cities would be far denser in their underdeveloped areas and housing far cheaper. Because it's a national, not local, system, you avoid the prisoner's dilemma of having to house every poor person in your neighborhood.
> If everyone who could work remotely moved out to smaller towns, we'd revitalize small town America and those folks could buy houses
Remote work is less efficient or impossible in almost every single job out there, including software, and that is why we don't employ it everywhere. I work in NYC but my company HQ is in SF.
So many things get done more quickly when I fly out there or when they flow here. Video chats, IM, and email are all great, but a poor substitute for a 30 minute in person chat.
Really what you want is to reform zoning laws so that the 'missing middle' is no longer illegal. This would ultimately lower housing costs in cities and increase worker productivity.
This is an issue that has actually started garnering attention on a national scale--newspapers sometimes comment on this now--but economists have been chatting about this for decades, and even have estimates on the costs these laws have.
You could potentially boost GDP by something like 10-20% just by reforming zoning laws.
But, I don't get to tell people how and where to live. Lots of formerly vital little towns, with two or three grocery stores, two or three box stores, and a bunch of little mom and pop businesses, are in decline as younger folks flee to bigger cities. Those are the places I think would be nice to see revitalized. I don't recommend a return to rural lifestyles...unless you're growing most of your own food and working remotely (I know some people doing this, actually), it'd be an ecological disaster.
So, I agree with you. Fixing our cities by allowing more affordable housing to be built would be great! That's fine with me, too. But, there's also plenty of room to spread out in the US, and there are ways to do it without negative ecological impact. But, it probably takes planning on a scale and of a kind that won't happen. Just like moving the needle on the housing crisis in places like SF has proven to be extremely difficult.
And in many cases, both kinds are within spitting distance of each other - e.g. Si is always packed, but Mt Washington, right across it in the valley, and two freeway exits away to the trailhead, with similar difficulty, and just as nice views at the end, is pretty quiet.
(Leaving this here for anyone like me who had to google why Black Lives Matter has anything to do with tourism)
One incredible thing about BLM managed land is that you can often visit, and camp, for free. Sometimes for months at a time. There's an entire subculture of mobile homeless folks who do just that. There's lots of snowbirds who summer around Mammoth Lake (which is actually national forest land, mostly, I think, but similarly loosely regulated) and winter in Quartzsite or Slab City or Yuma.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Nordic_countri...
"Allemansrätten gives a person the right to access, walk, cycle, ride, ski, and camp on any land—with the exception of private gardens, the immediate vicinity of a dwelling house and land under cultivation. It also gives the right to pick wild flowers, mushrooms and berries, but not to hunt in any way. Swimming in any lake and putting an unpowered boat on any water is permitted unless explicitly forbidden"
But, to put things into perspective, the BLM and the Forest Service have more land under management than nearly all of the Nordic countries combined (BLM and Forest Service have nearly 3 million sq km under management). And, the much of that land can be roamed, at will; some of it can even be camped on for long periods of time at little or no cost. So, there's no shortage of land in the US for roaming, though it's concentrated most heavily in the southwest. Northeastern states have been too densely populated for too long to have had a chance to get some protected wilderness.
e: Not to say I'm against allemansretten, I love it.
It seemed like most tourists cared more about eating, and buying souvineers. (Most were on a bus schedule though. It went from San Francisco, Sausalito, and then Muir Woods.)
They seemed to like being around other tourists? Never quite figured them out. I do know this, some tourists didn't appear to be on vacation. They looked misserable. They seemed annoyed at little things, like ice in soda. I was asked so many times, "Why do Americans put ice in soda!". I used to tell them that we want to delay diabetes. Then, I got to the point where I just said Americans are stupid. The second one they got.
Most didn't seem to care about the large Redwood trees. The only group of people who seemed genuinely interested, excited to see such large trees were a group of Amish tourists.
My buddy introduced me to BLM camping, and one day, I hope to be in your shoes, enjoying life in a RV.
A good many of these tourists are tours....some of them straight up rip offs so they take it out on locals. Imagine if you went to paris and found out your tour group was charging you 20% higher for everything....I'd be pissed off too.
I'm susprised about redwoods...
The tourist thing is a language barrier....When I lived abroad, I noticed americans did the same thing too including many expats.
I never imagined Amish could travel like tourists around. What a funny idea.
I just think of the times when I've had conversations with folks who live within an easy day trip of some amazing place, and I'll say, "I'm stocking up to camp at X place for the next week or two." And, they'll say, "Oh, yeah? I've heard of it. Never been." It's surprising. National Parks at least tend to have been visited by the folks who live nearby, often regularly.
Or is the exact opposite true?
Perhaps the United States Government does a poor job of promoting their most breathtaking parks, and only creates parking lots and ticket takers once there is the financial incentive to do so (because the general public decides they want to amass there for any particular reason)?
Often that reason may simply reflect where the water is, and how the wildlife follows that water.
Just because there's other pretty, lesser known stuff around does not make these things any less spectacular.
If I had to wonder at a reason why, I'd say it has to do with something else I've noticed: People from the US are also significantly more worried about the credence in what they're doing as something worth doing. Best way of that is that other people are doing it. If there's a ranger waiting to take your money it must really be worth it!
They would take a minimum of 10 selfies per painting before moving on.
This one is probably the best for finding BLM and National Forest options for camping: https://freecampsites.net/
All Stays is OK, too, but has a lot of noise in the form of Walmart parking lots and rest areas and such, as well as commercial campgrounds, (which are also great if you live in an RV and need a place to park for the night on your way somewhere): http://www.allstays.com/Campgrounds/
I wish there were a really good website that combined all of my favorite things: Public lands, free/cheap camping, and beautiful or interesting scenery. But, I kinda piece together my travel itinerary once I know where I'm going; I'll google a bunch the day or two before I start driving. Usually I'll have a pretty good idea of the places I want to stop, and how long I want to stay, based on reviews and the information I've found. And, sometimes there are surprises. When I'm on my way places, I'll sometimes stop at all of the public sites along the way (as best I can figure out where they are), and camp at the ones I like the best.
My parents went to grand canyon couple of years ago on their yearly 1 week off from work. they wanted to see the grand canyon . Most people I would imagine don't live in a RV or have all the time in the world to explore smaller parks.
I find it that whenever someone generalizes a population they are often talking about poor or lower middle-class people. sorry, 'average American' doesn't live idyllic RV lifestyle .
I think this comment ignors a huge swath of people living in RVs. Most of the people living on BLM and National Forest land in RVs do so as much out of necessity as desire.
Living in an RV is cheaper than living in a house or apartment, and most of my friends who live in RVs are extremely poor; well below the poverty line in many cases.
I went from place to place by bicycle when I was a tourist in the U.S. and, because I was not able to travel as speedily as everyone else, able to evaluate the scenery for what it was. Most of my up-close-with-nature experiences happened in the forest or BLM areas surrounding big parks such as Yellowstone, not in those parks.
People that visit the U.S. are not like me, they have a very short amount of time and they book lots of hotels in must see places. One day they are at the airport in L.A. picking up the car, three days later they are in Vegas, then they have the helicopter flight booked for the Grand Canyon the day after that.
In their itinerary they also have some irrational must-do thing where no amount of education can talk them out of this pilgrimage. This could be to the birthplace of a particular singer, a desire to drive some silly old car on Route 66 or a 'need' to go to '4 corners'.
It is therefore most fortunate for the bears and other unusual flora 'n' fauna that there is this tourist free area just outside the tourist hotspots. These areas are totally inaccessible to people on two-week fly-drive holidays with both Vegas and the Grand Canyon to cram in.
A friend of mine contacted me after a very bad trip to the Desolation Wilderness. She was shocked that the trails weren't marked, that there wasn't water etc. She thought it would be like a city park! Listening to her story I realized she didn't even understand in retrospect how close to dying she had been.
For someone like her a park is great: it gives her the support system she needs to enjoy the outdoors.
Desert Solitare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Solitaire
Death, Daring and Disaster: Search and Rescue in the National Parks
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/hisnps/NPSBooks/farabee.htm
The National Parks: America's Best Idea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Parks:_America%27s_Best_IdeaI have been amazed to go to places so remote I would not expect to see a living soul over a week only to find 2-3 4WDs already nestled in between the trees.
Also, you live in an RV - you're my hero! How I wish I could do that...
"How I wish I could do that..."
I'm gonna let you in on a secret: You (almost certainly) can! It costs less than living in a house, if you set out to live cheaply and travel slowly (the driving part, and the paying nightly rates rather than weekly or monthly rates in RV parks is how you can spend a lot living in an RV). Mobile internet coverage is better and faster than ever, though much more expensive than ever (I pay nearly $300/month). If you're a software developer of any sort, you've got a lot more freedom to live however you want than most people who have ever existed in history.
In theory, yes, but I'm married and have a kid. No way I'd be able to make the lifestyle change. Hence, you're my hero, living the life that I can't :)
Lake Quinault is also really wonderful, and apparently where the term "rain forest" was coined (by FDR, in the version I heard.)
If you're athletic, the climb up Mount Townsend is well worth it, and the trail is really pretty good.
If you like to camp, drive out by La Push and hike a mile or two north from Mora. Hole in the Wall is very interesting. Be wary of bears there, though. Hang your bacon high in the tree.
Mount Baker has lots to offer and doesn't get as much traffic as Rainier.
If you like it dry, there's a great campground above Twisp (northwest IIRC) that is really nice.
For a specific recommendation, there's a lot of beautiful scenery and generally pretty few people along Hwy 20. Once you get off the road, there are many beautiful creeks and lakes surrounded by miles of trails, and not that many people, especially early and late in the season (the highway is closed for winter, and reopens once the snow melts and avalanche danger is back to normal). Check out the area around Stehekin in particular.
Big mountains are between Vegas and LA - perhaps go through Mammoth Lakes and Bishop on highway 395, you go skiing at Mammoth and see Mt Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states, while driving through Lone Pine.
Note all the roads crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains are closed south of the Lake Tahoe area after they get enough snow, usually in November.
From LA to San Francisco, take the 101 freeway through Santa Barbara, which has great beaches and hiking (writing this from there). Recommend the courthouse (Spanish Colonial architecture), the botanic garden and Butterfly Beach. The southern Los Padres National Forest stretches for 40 miles behind there in the hills, with some of the beautiful hiking and camping far off the tourist trail the parent comment refers to: http://santabarbarahikes.com/hikes/sanrafael/
Wine country for the next 200 miles north through Santa Ynez and SLO, then leave the freeway for highway 1 to go through Hearst Castle and Big Sur.
Note vast parts of all the above have recently been or currently are on fire, so consider calling the ranger station to check conditions before you go.
More specific recommendations depend on what you're into, but usually the weather is nice in early December, though getting down near freezing at night away from the immediate coast.
If there's rain in the forecast at the coast spend the week skiing powder at Mammoth.
After that, go to Santa Cruz. The Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is the southernmost redwoods park on the coast. It's not quite as impressive as the Redwoods National Park much, much, much further north, but it's got the trees and the atmosphere. You're still south of San Francisco at this point. You can take Route 9 (a winding road) or Route 17 (a less-winding road) up to Silicon Valley from Santa Cruz.
Going south across the golden gate bridge, sometimes I just drive along the coast all the way south to half-moon bay, it's a great drive, and in December the Mavericks waves might be big. There is a black-sand beach along that drive, too.
This year, since the rainfall has been good, there will probably be some frozen waterfalls.
Muir Woods (which is under an hour away), Point Lobos...there's a lot of really beautiful stuff within a day trip of SF. I'd buy a tent, and plan to spend the night out for some of these, since most of the really good spots are at least a couple hours away.
That said, one could easily spend a week (month) on SF and Bay Area city exploration. There's a train that connects SF with the entirety of the rest of the bay area, so you don't even need a car to visit Mountain View (Computer History Museum is a must see!, though you'd want to catch a bus or Uber from the station to the museum, as it'd be a longish walk), Palo Alto (Stanford, Facebook, etc.), and several others along the CalTrain route.
Given how little time you have, I'd probably recommend you focus on minimizing travel time, and hit on stuff that's really close. That limits your "natural wonders" options, but there's a lot of really cool stuff made by people in recent history that's also worth seeing. SF is one of America's great cities.
Inland from Big Sur and equally south of SF, Pinnacles was recently made a national park. It can be fully explored in a couple days and, aside from the stunning volcanic scenery, is the first place the Califirnia Condor was reintroduced after very nearly going extinct. These days you can spot quite a few of them if you're willing to wake up early and watch the sunrise from the summit. The park attracts a crowd, and it's worth reserving a camp site early, but it's far less hectic than some of the better known parks.
Going east from SF, the Sierras has a number of wilderness areas that attract a fraction of the people you'd find in Yosemite (the valley is an absolute must-see, but it's a zoo outside of winter. The outdoors will require more gear in December, but the snow capped valley rim is one of the most beautiful places I've seen). If the snow is late in falling, I'm partial to Emigrant Wilderness - the same granite as Yosemite, none of the crowds. South of Yosemite, look into King's Canyon. Both should have snow in December, which is a good reminder to check seasonal road closures if you intend a scenic route across the Sierras. North of Yosemite, highways 120, 4, 88, and others typically close.
North of SF, Mendocino National Forest has an abundance of dirt roads accessing enormously underutilised public spaces. There's a drive-in campground just south of Snow Mountain (in the Snow Mtn wilderness) that's stunning and empty. Despite the name, it doesn't get much snow. Closer to the city, Sugarloaf above the Sonoma valley makes for a great low-key 1 or 2 day trip that can be worked into visiting a winery or two.
The Sonoma coast north of SF also has a lot of beautiful places. Check out Salt Point. A bit out of the way for Vegas, though.
Death Valley is mostly on the way to LV and in December will be cool enough to stand.
These are a few of my favorites that are varying degrees off the beaten path but all incredible natural places.
I'd recommend you spend some time learning about them. There are definitely quality differences; usually you get what you pay for, though buying older can get you a great deal, comparatively speaking. I would much prefer a high quality old rig to a cheap newer rig. But, older rigs can have a lot of hidden problems; my Avion has had a much rougher life and needs a lot more work than previous owner disclosed (for a variety of reasons I bought it knowing it needed work but some of the work it needed/needs is beyond what I expected or could reasonably find in the brief inspection I gave it).
One probably can't easily summarize everything one should know before buying an RV, but I'd recommend you start reading up on them now, and don't plan to buy for at least a month or more. Go visit RV dealers (with no intention to buy new, or even to buy from a dealer at all, as they will overcharge by a huge amount in the majority of cases...it's normal to pay half what a dealer would charge for a used RV).
Do you already have a tow vehicle? That's probably where you need to start, if you plan to go the travel trailer route. If you plan to live in the trailer full-time, you probably need a big truck to haul it; I've got a diesel F250, and it works great. With a weight distribution hitch it'll comfortably haul more than my house (which is probably about 9000 pounds loaded with tanks full).
As the other commenter recommended, road side service from Good Sam is a great idea; I've used both Good Sam and AAA, and Good Sam does a slightly better job getting the right sized tow truck out to you when you need it.
Yep I have an older F150 XL pickup. It is harsh on gas consumption and with towing the trailer that will get quite a bit worse but the savings can be substantial in the long run I suppose (as opposed to living in an apartment/house)
I live in Canada and would like something that is easier for 4 season usage. I can make do with warm clothes and down blankets etc but for example while working on my laptop in the winter, it will be easier without gloves ;-)
I can do without buying new but I am not too mechanically handy and do not want to spend a lot of money paying someone else to fix any issues with older trailers. However, I would definitely be down for buying something older if it is in good shape.
Arctic Fox is among the best known four-season RVs. I don't know of any other manufacturers who specialize in that area off-hand. Modern RVs are better insulated than older RVs, in the general case, especially when comparing similar quality levels (e.g. a new Airstream or Winnebago will be better insulated and energy efficient than a similar model made 25 years ago...but, 10 year old models are probably comparable to current models, and will often be obtainable for 1/3 the price).
With a travel trailer, there's much less concern about needing to be handy than there would be a with a motorhome. While things are going to break, and things are going to need work, that's true of new or old RVs. My motorhome (which was 7 years old when I bought it) constantly needed minor repairs. Likewise, my 32 year old Avion also constantly needs minor repairs (and it needed and still needs some major repairs).
Sticking with ~10 year old trailers is probably the right time frame for someone who has no desire to have a fixer-upper (I don't recommend fixer-uppers, no matter what, as they always cost more in the end). But, if you start searching well before you want to leave, you can be extremely picky and you'll find someone that has loved their trailer, and kept it in great condition. A lot of trailers only see seasonal use...so they've only been lived in for maybe 6 months, even if they're 10 years old. If the owners winterized them properly, and kept them covered or at least protected from direct sun and such, a ten year old unit can be damned close to new. Higher quality trailers hold up better to aging than cheaper ones, so look for the high end brands (there's too many of those to list, but if you spend a few weeks checking out RV dealers, and RV shows and reading some forums, you'll get a feel for the ones that people really like).
Buying a new RV would be madness, of course unless you're really sure you want to live this way and have a lot of spare cash laying around. They depreciate at an incredibly high rate. My first motorhome cost a bit over $30k when I bought it (it was 7 years old when I bought it), and I sold it last year for $12000, after living in it for most of the six years that I owned it. If you take your time, and shop carefully, you can find really great deals.
But, yeah, it's definitely a major life change, and one that maybe shouldn't be dived into without careful consideration.
Spending $3000 to validate a pretty huge lifestyle change isn't that much really.
We got lucky that we really enjoyed it when we bought ours but I could understand a lot of people finding the lifestyle ultimately a lot different from what they expected.
But isn't that true with everything? There's anyways somewhere better than the tourist trap; but only the locals know where.
It's like going out for a meal: our family can afford to eat out maybe once in 2 months. That makes the possibility of getting rubbish food, and rubbish service more worrying than if you can just go somewhere else the next night.
With more time (and more opportunity) you can sample more widely with less risk of wasting a large proportion of that time.
Stereotypically the locals don't visit nearby touristy areas because if the whole point of the activity is to brag that you are in the social class that gets vacation time and can pay a lot for travel, driving fifteen minutes from home proves nothing. Its a human thing not rural/urban... plenty of places in great cities where no locals will visit.
Being sweaty is not high social status, which explains why the parking lots and roads are bumper to bumper but the hiking trails are near abandoned.
I live in an RV and travel most of the time...I make it a point to visit any National anything (park, forest, monument, as well was BLM lands that seem interesting) and state parks, within 50-100 miles of my route (depending on my schedule and ability to go off the grid at that time). There are places where you'll see maybe a dozen people on your hike; while in the "big" parks, you can't spit without hitting somebody taking photos from an obvious vantage point. I've stayed in BLM campgrounds that are stunningly beautiful, and I may be the only person there for a week or more. These places often have historical significance; as much of the US does, since there were great civilizations that rose and fell here before Europeans arrived.
There's like a weird need for there to be a gate with a ranger taking entrance fees and such, for someone in the US to want to see and experience a place.