Green Goddess Glamping: Evolution of a Camping Lifestyle

The Green Goddess, RTTC Polar Bear

My wife and I began our travel trailer camping lifestyle in a little 5 x 10 "hard-sided tent" camping trailer, the Green Goddess a Rustic Trail RV camper, a Polar Bear model. Then we bought an Airstream 16-foot Basecamp, and then after three seasons, we have traded that in for an Airstream Bambi 16.

If now you're thinking, "Oh, their evolution as travel trailer campers has been from one trailer to another," then you'd have it wrong! Our evolution as campers has little to do with our travel trailers but a great deal to do with how we learned to live with all three travel trailers as we hit the road. Yes, our campers have changed and our camping style has changed, based on the possibilities each of our campers presented.

However, many of our attitudes regarding camping and being out in nature have remained the same, with our choice of campers allowing us to become the campers we have always dreamed of becoming. As the saying goes, it's not the tool or equipment; it's the person using them. Keeping that in mind, here are a few things I'd like to share with you after six years of camping with little travel trailers and writing this blog.

Essential Activities

My first idea about buying a tiny travel trailer was to make it easier to camp with my wife. I wanted to get away and be in nature with my wife. However, she owns a consulting business, so we needed access to electricity and the internet--and a place to work without bugs and humidity. After owning three travel trailers, we think we've found our best configuration for our family's needs: a small, easy-to-pull trailer that still allows for comfortable working environment.

Airstream Basecamp 16

Our 5 x 10 RTTC Polar Bear standy allowed us to get out, but it was just too tight a space. My snoring and my wife Zoom-conferencing at the same time in the same space was awkward! The Airstream Basecamp 16 was a big step in establishing an environment for both work and for my retirement, but the actual living/sitting/sleeping space was still one space--the rear of the trailer, necessitating changing the working/eating/sleeping space, perhaps several times a day, and also still clumping retired teacher and working consultant in close proximity. The Bambi configuration seems to be a real game-changer for us; the dinette table up front and the bed in the back allow for differentiated spaces for different activities.

Not everyone needs discrete living spaces in a little trailer, but we do--and the Bambi has finally given us a livable travel trailer floor plan for our lifestyle. Remember, our goal was to find a way for my wife and me to camp together as much as possible. "Third time's the charm," and our new 2024 Airstream Bambi checks those boxes regarding our essential activities to spend time camping together. Rather than thinking that "bigger is better," we held onto our "little campers are best" philosophy (for us) and didn't buy a Bambi 20- or 22-foot model.

A Philosophy of Downsizing

Within the constraints of providing a camping space for us to engage in essential activities, my wife and I have always adhered to the philosophy of minimalism in camping. OK, a sixteen-feet-long and eight-feet-wide Airstream isn't exactly minimalism in camping; however, park a tiny or little travel trailer next to a thirty- or forty-foot rig, and it seems pretty darn small! It's pretty easy to fall prey to the notion that an item is essential and then say, "We need to get a bigger rig and/or tow vehicle!" We've done a pretty good job of avoiding that perspective . . . or should I say "black hole" of camping philosophy?

How we avoid the pitfalls of "essentiality" is that whether in our camper or in our home, whenever we begin to wonder where we're going to put all our stuff, we help one another shift to "what do we take to Goodwill" mode and determine what we can get rid of. Having gotten back into camping via bicycle camping, it's not super hard to focus on essentials only when there was a time when my camping gear was around 40-50 pounds packed in bicycle panniers!

Airstream Bambi 16

Essential to packing minimally, though, is the perspective that ultimately it's better to keep things small--better for the camping experience, better for expenses, and also better for the environment. I will be seriously amazed and confounded if I ever own a recreational travel trailer larger than our 16-foot Airstream Bambi. I remember, to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau in his "Economy" essay, that the problem with owning stuff is that eventually you have to purchase a place to put all that stuff. Relative to camping, you own a lot of camping equipment, buy a trailer to house your "necessities," and then you also have to buy a tow vehicle to pull your camp trailer! At a certain point (and not the same point for everybody) it's best to let go of that tiger's tail.

Put It Away

This point may sound obvious or trite but, believe me, putting things away immediately when finished with the item is an essential habit for those who camp in little trailers. It takes just a moment for suddenly all places to set something (including yourself!) are filled with objects used . . . just a moment ago. I have to discipline myself, but putting things away immediately has allowed me to turn around in all our campers and see a fairly orderly space. If I wanted to put the case more intensely--putting things away in my little campers has allowed me to just . . . turn around!

I worked my way through high school and college by earning money working in kitchens, from cafeterias to restaurants to fast food establishments. One basic survival rule of professional cooking is to learn the skill of cleaning while cooking. Rinse out that pan and put it away while you've got thirty seconds. Don't think, "I'll get to it after I've put the casserole together." Otherwise, after finishing up with the lunch menu and starting on the dinner menu--you've first got an hour of cleaning to have space to cook.

First there is the intention, then the routine, and finally the practice. Like I said, perhaps my training works for me. However, I am willing to accept that others follow a different routine that works well for them! This is camping and recreation, not company policy. I just personally enjoy not having to wade over and through dirty clothes to make it out the door. Putting things away is simply, in my opinion, the optimal use of space, and space is a precious commodity with little trailers. ("Keeping Organized in a Tiny Trailer" is another article I've written about this.)

The Big Backyard

One personal camping option that my wife and I have adopted--at least for now--is that we are camping more locally. Because my wife is still actively engaged with her successful consulting business, and because all three of our children live nearby, and because many younger families are facing challenges in our present day reality, we are staying closer to and finding ways to be available if necessary yet still having time for ourselves and getting out in nature.

We are lucky to have three state parks within forty miles of our house, multiple county parks, and a few fine city campgrounds. This gives us choice and variety while still camping less than an hour from home. Would we like to travel to Yosemite and to the Cascades or to camp at an ocean campground? Of course--and someday we hope and plan to do just that! But for now, we've included the needs of our children and grandchildren within our plans and are still pleasantly surprised at the opportunities and beautiful outdoor experiences available to us locally.

I suppose our lesson has been that beauty is not just something a far and fatiguing drive away, nor are all great campsites far off the beaten track. I write this in all seriousness, even remembering as I write these words that I've written travelogues on this blog about fellow tiny trailer owners who have been places that are incredibly beautiful, vistas that are tantalizingly more exotic than the Iowa Midwest. However, Iowa does have its beauty, and as I get older, the concept of "drive less, camp longer" does have its logic.

Compromise as Perfection

The final concept that we have embraced with our little trailer camping lifestyle is to embrace the compromises that camping with small trailers entails. We agree to have less living space, to take less equipment, to have fewer cooking options, to have to climb over one another in the middle of the night because of the tiny bed, to have the tiniest concept of a bathroom--the "shoilet"--possible.

Lake Darling State Park, Iowa

Why do we make all these compromises for less? For us, it's because of the sense of freedom these compromises give us. When we simplify our camping, camping is so much simpler! Easier to buy, to tow, to pack, to maintain; easier to find the great campground and the great campsite in that campground; easier to store, to stow, probably even easier to sell, and if sold at a loss, a smaller loss; easier to set up camp and to break camp.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," Thoreau wrote in "Economy," and he set the cause of that desperation at the amount of time--the amount of our life force--we spend just accumulating and maintaining our stuff, possessions. Camping with a little trailer is a compromise, a negotiation with ourselves, a granting ourselves more time to experience by choosing fewer possessions to keep track of and maintain.

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In the end, our evolution as little travel trailer campers has been to ask ourselves a question: What really makes us happy? Right now, our answer is a quick pack, a quick drive, and a nice, long, quiet camping experience. We'll find the beauty because we have included the time to look for it. We'll find relaxation because we've scheduled the time for it to find us. We'll find happiness because it's always there if we just take the time to notice. It's like gardening: prepare the soil and plant the seed. When we open the door on our little Bambi as morning dawns on the lake we've camped beside, it's like that seed bursting the tiny husk of its existence. There's nothing tiny or little about camping in a small trailer, not with the whole wide world an open door away. The ultimate recreation is re-creation, and for us, the best recipe for happy camping is "less is more." Call it a small secret, a little secret, a tiny secret, but it's the perfect size for us.