Established Campgrounds Are Chaos—and I Love Them

We pulled into the Crescent City KOA around 10 P.M. After a long day exploring the nearby Redwood National and State Parks, my travel partner and I were beat—and pretty sure we had to be the last people awake in this quiet seaside town.

Wrong. Rounding the corner into the rows of campers and tents, we were greeted by a light show, arrays of colorful LED strips illuminating big RVs, covered dining canopies, and even strung into bike wheels. The whole world still seemed to be at play, with twangy country music wafting down the lane and glowsticked, sugar-high kids running to and fro.

My friend looked at me in a state disbelief; this was a far cry from the nature experience she’d expected on her visit from San Francisco. But I knew the rest of our road trip to Seattle would be far more off the grid, and honestly, there’s something to these kinds of established campgrounds—the sound, the randomness, the sheer chaos—that is hard to replicate.

It didn’t take long to fall asleep, especially after our full day and an end to the music just a half hour later. We curled up in our tent and threw some eye masks on, blocking out the neon light and fading into Dreamland.

The next morning, we took advantage of the campground’s free pancake breakfast. Sliding up with our coffee and thick stack of hot cakes, we sat next to a smiling older couple dressed in matching flannel pajamas. If there was any reminder we weren’t in the woods, or anywhere close, they were it. Randy wore a mustache over a morning smile. Wendy, tucked by his side, looked at us with eyes shining, nodding in approval before we’d even said a word. They both spoke with excitement, curious about our plans and eager to share about their RV trip up the coast of California.

Randy and Wendy made a point of staying exclusively at established campgrounds along their yearly road trips, favoring the KOA chain for its on-ground swimming pool and, of course, the free breakfast. They had started their own jerky company decades before (in fact, did we want some?), and were settled into semi-retired life on the road. They loved camping, but said one of the best parts of travel was meeting new people everywhere they went.

During my decade pitching tents around the West, the point had mainly been to get away from everything and everyone. But, as I stayed at the campground chain, I saw a different side to camping: the communal one. Camping isn’t a singular box. For many people, the joy of just getting out of the house for a night or two is an adventure in and of itself. I always thought that was a good thing to remember—even if it didn’t feel natural right away.

As Wendy welcomed more people to the table—a small family from San Jose—Randy returned with two bags of cured meat. We stayed a little longer before clearing off our plates and heading back to pack the car. It wouldn’t be long before we were back on the road, winding up the Oregon coastline and into the depths of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Over the next few weeks we would swim in the Pacific, climb mountains, skinny dip in hot springs, and sleep deep in the woods. It was, in many ways, the trip of our young lifetimes. Years later and states apart, we still reminisce about it like it. But we rarely recount the off-path adventures or the wild serenity of the Pacific Northwest. We talk about Randy and Wendy.