Generations of Americans got their first taste of national parks via car camping, that venerable tradition of driving to a park and setting up a tent or two in a roadside campground. That genre of park visitation seems to be slipping these days, though, and at least one car-camping aficionado blames it on economics -- there's more money to be made in lodgings than campgrounds.
That's the point driven home in a recent story in the Los Angeles Times by Eric Bailey.
The past quarter of a century has seen a shift in lodging tastes — and as baby boomers have given way to Generations X and Y, the number of tent and RV campers in national parks across the U.S. has dropped 44%. Meanwhile, the number of visitors in fixed-roof park lodgings has barely changed at all.
The camping decline comes amid debate over how to balance nature's needs with the recreational agenda of national park visitors. (Brian) Ouzounian believes Yosemite's planning efforts "have profit motives written all over them." The valley now has nearly three times more lodging units than campsites, and in that he sees a socioeconomic plot, a push to place more valley visitors in expensive accommodations.
Campers, he says, are the underdogs: "We're at the bottom of the food chain. You've got a camping culture that's more than a century old, but the park service really doesn't want to hear from us."
If Mr. Ouzounian is right, that the Park Service is going along with the move to boost lodging at the expense of campgrounds, perhaps that could be linked to the soft visitation numbers the national park system has witnessed in recent years. More so, such a move possibly could result in a disparity of economic diversity of park visitors, as those of lower incomes who rely on, and even prefer, car camping are effectively squeezed out of the parks.
For his part, Mr. Ouzounian is pushing a campaign to draw Congress' attention to this perceived slight.
His latest effort is an online petition calling for the return of (Yosemite's) flood-closed campsites. His goal is to send the thoughts of 10,000 campers to Congress. At last count, he had collected more than 700 signatures and testimonials from as far away as Massachusetts and Florida.
Diane Mello wrote that camping provides a more "intimate" Yosemite experience than hunkering down in a hotel room. Joel Swan of Illinois spoke of the slippery slope if the National Park Service discriminates against those of modest means. Richard Conklin suggested that "John Muir is turning over in his grave."
Comments
Jim, I hear what you're saying (we've had a similar conversation before) but I don't think you can really speak for everyone who's considered to be "lower income". ("campgrounds still don't appeal to the lower class because they still cost about $18 a night"). I would say they actually do appeal to the "lower class" because they're the cheapest accommodations available in the park, hands down. On what are you basing your generalization that lower income people don't like campgrounds at Yellowstone?
PS - People do waste a lot of money -- if someone quit smoking they could afford an entire fortnight of car camping every year for the rest of their days.
I'll be staying in the park slums with my son at Yellowstone in a few weeks -- proud to be at the bottom of the rung. I'm so cheap I sometimes stay in a nearby state park or forest to save a few bucks, but $18 is still a great deal compared to the high-priced alternatives.
-- Jon
Jon,
I'm basing it on the cost of a trip to Yellowstone against the income of a person who works at or below the poverty level. If that person is an hourly worker without vacation benefits, if that person doesn't have a job at all, if the person has a family, if the person has severe medical issues or medical costs, if the person lives far from Yellowstone, as most Americans do, then you will not find an easy trip to Yellowstone for you.
What is the federal poverty line for an individual?
$10,210 for 2007
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml
How many people live below the poverty level?
Roughly 13% officially - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
Those totals are believed to be significantly low for a whole host of reasons we do not need to go into.
I'd suspect you can make above the poverty level and be considered lower class, but let's just take this particular measure for our purposes.
How much does a trip to Yellowstone cost, staying the 3 days minimum it would take to see all or most of the on-the-road tourist sites in Yellowstone. Of course, that depends on how far you had to travel in the first place. I'd venture a guess that the average American is two days drive from Yellowstone, assuming they aren't seeing much of anything else. In my case, I'm four days of hard driving, and so two may be a low number. Anyhow, how much of a percentage of your income do you use? What's more, consider that a large number of people live far below the poverty line; others barely above it. Others lose income they have while they are in Yellowstone, some cannot pay rent while they are off vacationing. If you don't have a car, the costs rise. If you have to fly; rent a car; borrow a car from a friend.
It's not hard to see that Yellowstone and most other national parks are inaccessible to a significant number of people no matter what they spent their money on. In fact, you can see it would be a hardship for many making twice as much money, though conceivably they could find a way some of the time.
But, as for the issue of being frugal. Yes, I'm all for it. I don't smoke, don't drink coffee, have even lived in a house of fregans (people who eat from dumpsters). So, there are ways of saving money that I'd encourage anyone to do as a way to break consumerism, but that's not the issue. The issue is equity. There's no reason a rich person should be entitled to be able to waste all their money on all kinds of things and sleep however they want to sleep whereas a poor person is expected to be frugal, unless one thinks being rich comes with certain moral entitlements of largesse that poor people aren't allowed. If that's the case, it's hard to understand what the issue would be. Of course, fill up the lodges and take a poll of wealthy people to see what it is they want and what they're willing to spend money on. You could do a calculus that would maximize profits on a good from the greatest number of people with means. But, if people really believe that there is a public good in the parks, then the cost to poor people matters, and their particular behavior is irrelevant to any change in cost.
Yes, we have talked about this before; I have been frugal; I've found ways to go to Yellowstone at times; at other times, it was outside the realm of financial possibility for me. Now, I could afford to stay a week at the Old Faithful Inn (a few years ago, I was almost living out of my car). But, I don't think justifying my choices, justifying the choices of the poor is a reason for determining any kind of fee increase. I'd actually tend to think it works the other way around. Why are there people spending so much money so as to adversely affect the rest of us? In the parks, we see it in the price of lodging; in the cities, we see it in the cost of owning a home (in gentrification). People are being squeezed out because some with a great deal consume an awful lot. It's absurd that the good and bad choices of people without much to affect the whole system should be used to justify or not justify an increase in prices.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
Car camping is for poor people (?) bull crap! Where did that come from?
For me the hotel situation in Our National Parks is out of control. I would like to see them all removed.
If it is the duty of Our National Park system to preserve and protect for future generations the wilderness experience, we have fallen way short.
P.S. I have not been to downtown Yellow Stone National Park in decades.
I don't mind the hotels that follow the Parkitecture style... giant log cabins with huge fireplaces in the multistoried lobbies... I probably won't opt to pay for them until the day I'm too old to get up off the floor of my tent, but they serve a definite need. Grand Canyon NP did a good thing in removing the Thunderbird eyesore a few years back -- I'd venture that's a slow yet eventual trend the rest of the parks will follow as well.
Jim I don't agree that spending the money you have is some sort of affliction to avoid. I choose to live in a house probably half the size I could afford if I found that to be important. Thankfully I don't. The equity issue isn't the fault of the National Parks, nor is it the government's sole responsibility to equalize everything to the point where we're living under Brezhnev rule. I believe that everyone in this country has a decent opportunity (albeit not equal, but decent) to earn a respectable wage and do pretty well. I see people coming into the U.S. with absolutely nothing -- don't even speak the language. Yet after a single generation many of them are sending their kids to the college of their choice. How is that possible when people whose families have lived here for generations are absolutely stuck in their communities, unable to read, barely able to speak passable English (or any other language for that matter) and have zero or negative net worth by the time they're 30? We can go down through the same topics again -- fatherless homes, lack of "outdoor sense" (the outdoor equivalent of "street sense"), etc...
If you made a list of the Top 20 reasons why people of limited income aren't visiting the parks, the price of admission and price of the campsite wouldn't be on it. The price of gasoline, however, would be on that list several times both directly and indirectly. In fact I'd wager that half of such a list wouldn't involve economics of any kind.
-- Jon
Tenting is not disappearing. It just depends where your are in the US will determine whether you will see more tents vs campers. Growing up in the mid-west we camped in a camper which only made sense since summer thunderstorms can ruin a trip because you can't cook in a tent. Also the mosquitos are awful. In the West where I have lived for the past 10 years you see more tents. When my daughter was young we tent camped and had a great time until my tent got sniffed by a bear in Yellowstone about 6 years ago. Since we go to bear country in Aug since it is cooler in the upper West I bought a small camper. It is very untrue that people who use campers need electricity, running water and concret pads. In the last three years I have not had any sites with water or concrete pads. Only in Zion have I used electricity (which I pay extra for). As for the dump station everyone whether they tent camp or use a trailer use the dump station it's called a Bathroom. When you tent camp and wash your dishes or go to the bathroom where do you think that waste water goes? It surely does not evaporate. Trailer's just happen to hold theirs in a tank and dumps it all at once. When ever I take my trailer I use buckets for my water (since to tow my trailer with a full water tank adds a thousand pounds to my tow weight and that sucks gas like you won't beleive I tow with empty tanks) that I use to wash my dishes and I use the bathrooms provided at the campgrounds because I don't like using the chemicals you need to use for the toliet I think those chemicals are dangerous so it is easier to use the campgound bathroom. Also being a single women it is safer to have a hardsided camper than to tent camp. So please stop complaining about trailers.
I don't think camping is going away as long as parents like myself take their kids camping. My daughter loves it and I am sure she is going to continue the tradition of camping when she has kids. Camping has been a tradition in my family for 4 generations and I think those of us who love to camp whether it is in a tent or a camper will pass that love onto our kids and as long as we do that camping will not die.
Constance
no, no more ed. he's overplayed, showing up on interp signs and whatnot... he needs his rest... he's done his time...
You all apparently missed the stat in the article. Tent and RV camping is down in the National Parks by 44%. If there' less demand, why increase the supply of campsites, particularly in Yosemite Valley, which is the location that the man featured in the article is so incensed over. The average age in this country is getting older and older folks don't want to sleep on the ground. And RV's? When gas is $3 per gallon? I always wonder at the economic logic of people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on an RV and think they're saving money. I look at an RV and think I could spend X number of nights in a nice lodge for the price of that RV.
It would be interesting to see a study on which form of lodging is gentler on the environment. Campgrounds use lots of square footage, perhaps more than housing the same number of people in a lodge. And they create more wildlife management problems in bear country. But lodges use more water and electricity, need employees, who need housing, etc. etc.
Matt:
Arizona has had extreme fire regulation due to drought here.
Kath:
my sentiments also
If I could use the ground I would not need to use the Lodges, but when I use the ground to sleep on in the morning I wonder if I had slept in it and this was the resurrection and I was having to pay for my transgressions with the pain.