7 reasons you might not like camping

We think camp­ing is a great way to spend a week­end or a week, but we know it’s not for everyone.

Here are some rea­sons camp­ing might not be up your alley:

1. You hate wak­ing up to birdsong

Bush parks are full of nasty, noisy birds who all want to sing and wake you up at dawn. Mount Remark­able Nation­al Park is the sort of place you’d real­ly want to keep away from, with 117 species of birds. You can lie in your tent at the Mam­bray Creek Camp­ground, and instead of just hear­ing burnouts and leaf blow­ers and your neigh­bours hav­ing a bar­ney, all you can hear is birds like kook­abur­ras, mag­pies, rosel­las, bronzew­ings, rufous whistlers, lori­keets, hon­eyeaters, galahs and cock­a­toos – all at the same time.

Parks have lots of ani­mals too, so if you don’t like see­ing Aus­tralian native ani­mals like koalas, kan­ga­roos, emus, goan­nas, wom­bats and echid­nas wan­der­ing past your tent, you’d prob­a­bly bet­ter just stay out of nation­al park camp­grounds completely.

2. Relax­ing isn’t your thing

When you go camp­ing, there’s noth­ing to do but relax out­doors. Seri­ous­ly, all there is to do is go bush­walk­ing, four-wheel dri­ving, fish­ing, bird­watch­ing, snorkelling, beach­comb­ing, lie on the beach, or just sit in front of your tent with a cup of tea and a book.

With­out your couch and your widescreen TV, it’s so bor­ing. And most piz­za places don’t deliv­er to parks, so we’ll under­stand if you’d rather stay home. Inside. Away from out­door things.

3. You don’t real­ly like stars

Stay­ing in a hotel in the city is way bet­ter, because you just get five nice, order­ly stars. If you go camp­ing, there are mil­lions of them and they’re everywhere.

Get­ting into a park away from the big city lights – like the Gawler Ranges Nation­al Park, Flinders Chase Nation­al Park, Cof­fin Bay Nation­al Park, Innam­inc­ka Region­al Reserve or Canun­da Nation­al Park – means you can actu­al­ly see the Milky Way. We get that that might not be cool – it could start you wor­ry­ing about all sorts of things, like whether there’s life on Mars…

4. Beau­ti­ful views just don’t appeal

Urgh. Amaz­ing views are every­where in parks, and if you go camp­ing, you’ll be way too close to them. It’s so bor­ing hav­ing to wake up to icon­ic views like the Flinders Ranges, the South­ern Ocean, Lake Eyre, the Simp­son Desert or unspoilt bush­land, so you’d prob­a­bly bet­ter not go camping.

5. You love being at everyone’s beck and call all the time

There’s noth­ing quite as good as hav­ing peo­ple call­ing, tex­ting and mes­sag­ing you ²⁴⁄₇, is there? It’s so nice to be want­ed. Then there are the work and pri­vate emails, noti­fi­ca­tions from all your social media accounts, binge watch­ing all the lat­est shows on your favourite stream­ing ser­vice, and hav­ing very impor­tant argu­ments in the com­ments sec­tion at 11pm with ran­dom peo­ple you don’t even know.

Lots of our parks have lim­it­ed mobile phone cov­er­age, so you won’t be able to do any of that impor­tant stuff if you go camp­ing. Some peo­ple find peace through dig­i­tal detox­es, but we get you prob­a­bly don’t want to do that because, hel­lo! Borrring!

6. You don’t like fresh air

Noth­ing like the odour of a car exhaust or stale cook­ing oil from a fast food place to real­ly get you feel­ing great about life, is there? All you’re like­ly to smell in our parks are fresh scents like the salti­ness of the sea or the scent of euca­lyp­tus. Sounds pret­ty hor­ri­ble, doesn’t it?

7. You hate see­ing your kids hav­ing fun in nature

Chil­dren these days spend more time in front of screens than play­ing out­doors, but at least that means they don’t get dirty or mud­dy, and at the end of the day they’re not tired from explor­ing, climb­ing trees, play­ing in creeks, or build­ing cub­by hous­es. They might even skin their knees, which could leave them with life­time scars, both men­tal and physical.

Camp­ing is pret­ty much the ulti­mate nature play expe­ri­ence, because with­out the dis­trac­tion of TV and com­put­ers, there’s noth­ing to do but have fun out­doors. And no respon­si­ble par­ent would want that for their kids when they could be watch­ing car­toons and eat­ing biscuits.

If you think camp­ing might actu­al­ly be quite a lot of fun and you’re look­ing for some inspi­ra­tion, vis­it theNation­al Parks SA web­site. And if you’re won­der­ing how camp­ing can be smooth sail­ing with the kids in tow, check out our series aboutcamp­ing with kids.