Selecting a Camp Site

What makes one camp site good, and another bad?   What makes one better than the other?  It really depends on personal preference.  For me, it depends on who is going camping, and the purpose of the trip.

If it's just me going, and I'm going to be sleeping in my car, I don't have a preference on site size.  I really only need room for the screen house and the car, which all have.  If I'm planning to set up a tent and screen house, most sites also have adequate room for this too.  If I'm taking the kids with me, then I prefer a larger site, that will have plenty of empty space for them to play in.  Likewise if I'm expecting visitors while camping.

Finally, if I'm camping with another family, we try to get two sites adjacent to each other so the kids don't have to cross the campground road to go from one to the other.  Ideally, the two sites would not have trees between them, but you can't always count on that, lol.  If we have two sites, we try to get at least one of them to be a larger site, and that's where we would spend most of our time. 

I went camping with a friend's daughter, and my friend Muffin and her family a few years ago (I think 7....yikes!).  The kids were 3, 5, 7 and 9 (yes we might have been insane).  We went to Myles Standish (Fearing Pond, Loop 1, sites 13 and 14), and we got two adjacent sites with no trees between them.  We couldn't believe we lucked out!  We got there and decided to set up both tents on one of the sites, and both screenhouses on the other.  We assessed both sites and decided to set up the tents on site 13 and the screenhouses on 14 (thank god we didn't switch it!!!).  We opted for two screenhouses mostly to keep the kids out of the one we were cooking in and had everything else in.  So, once everything was set up we had a kitchen (my screen house), a dining room (her screen house), two bedrooms (the tents) and a living room (the open space between the two sites).  It was really cute, like a little house!

Well......a few days later we left Muffin's wonderful husband with 3 of the children and headed off to the store with the youngest.  It had rained a little while we were gone (or so we thought).....we returned to the campsite to find the four of them in the dining room, sitting on the top of the picnic table.  We quickly said 'uh oh' and wondered what happened.  We got out of the car and figured out real fast what happened.....it had POURED while we were gone, and there was about 1.5 - 2 ft of water in the middle of the campsite that had the screenhouses on it (this is why we were glad we didn't put the tents there).  We looked around, and at them in the screen house (Mr. Muffin telling them not to get off the table), and asked the stupidest question we possibly could have "what are you doing on the table?"  We got 'the look' from Mr. Muffin and we said "you could have told them to take their shoes off and let them walk around barefoot".  He hadn't thought of that, lol.  So, that's what we told the kids to do and they were quite excited, lol.  The water receded fairly soon after that.  We affectionately called it (and still do) "The great flood of 2004" hahaha.

So, back to my original topic...............

While I was walking around the campgrounds I noted whether the sites were wooded or open (this definition went from shaded/not to enough trees for clotheslines/not).  I should have been a little more specific, but there's always another trip out there, lol.  I also noted to what degree of privacy the site had.  A few of the campgrounds in Myles Standish have pretty private sites, at least in my opinion. 

I, personally, prefer a more open site, so I don't feel isolated from other people.  I know others like their privacy, so to each their own!  I also looked for low spots, flat spots, tree roots, etc.....  I ended up with a pretty decent list of awesome and good sites at all the campgrounds.


I also evaluated the bathrooms and showers at the campgrounds, because let's face it, you have to use them.  I am not squeamish about using public bathrooms and/or showers.  I even *GASP!* shower in my bare feet (oh the horror!!!).  Most of the bathrooms in Myles Standish are tiled ,as are the showers.  There was only one that is an older bathroom (and coincidentally the only campground open year round) that is poured concrete throughout.  The shower looked like it had seen better days, but since they were still getting ready for the regular camping season, I gave them the benefit of the doubt.  I'd still shower in it, but I know some people that wouldn't. 

So, there's my take on good and bad sites/campgrounds, lol.

I prefer the state parks, I have found over the years, that the kids are no more happier with a playground/arcade than they are without them.  And I think they make more of their own fun without that stuff anyway.

~Chelle