It's Official, We Won't be Camping Any More

[dioxide45]

Before we got in to timesharing, we bought a bunch of camping gear. This was back in 2004. We had a tent that we returned because it leaked. The next tent we bought came from Sam's club. We camped a total of three times with those two tents. This is mainly because we found timeshare in 2006 and ended up buying in 2007. So our need for a tent went away. Not that we couldn't still camp, we just never did. So for the last 10 years we had camping gear just sitting in our garage.

A couple weekends ago we pulled it all out and took photos of it; tent, cooler, tarps, grill, air beds, sleeping bags, along with some picnic stuff. My wife posted it to a garage sale Facebook groups, and within the day it was SOLD! She had literally 50 people responding to the ads that were posted across several groups. Makes me think we could have sold it all for more than the $350 we were asking and ended up taking. It was apparently the right time of year to sell. Unlike the inflatable snowman that is still listed...

In the end, it freed up a couple of shelves in the garage and made a young family rather happy.

It seems that the garage sale Facebook groups are rather cut-throat. My wife had the gear promised to one person for delivery later in the afternoon. People were PMing her trying to undercut each other by being willing to come over right away to buy it. Sure, it would have been gone sooner, but it was already promised away. We preferred to deliver instead of having someone come and get it. She had to finally mark it sold on all the ads before it was officially delivered. That still didn't stop inquiries.

 

[Passepartout]

That's Excellent! We have had our 30' 5th wheel on consignment for a year with few bites, and a garage full of stuff removed from it. BBQ, bird feeders, sewer hook-up and cleaning out stuff, bedding, kitchen tools, etc. It's unreal how much accessory stuff it takes to RV. Then of course there's the heavy pickup and 5th wheel hitch. There will be a MAJOR celebration when it goes away!

I tried Craigs list multiple times, but all I got was bottom fishers who wanted it for nothing.. Disheartening.

Jim

 

[dioxide45]

That's Excellent! We have had our 30' 5th wheel on consignment for a year with few bites, and a garage full of stuff removed from it. BBQ, bird feeders, sewer hook-up and cleaning out stuff, bedding, kitchen tools, etc. It's unreal how much accessory stuff it takes to RV. Then of course there's the heavy pickup and 5th wheel hitch. There will be a MAJOR celebration when it goes away!

I tried Craigs list multiple times, but all I got was bottom fishers who wanted it for nothing.. Disheartening.

Jim

My wife had had much more success selling on the Facebook garage sale groups than Craigs List. She has been selling some of her Vera Bradley and Thirtyone purses and bags. Much more action on Facebook groups. Listing stuff is a lot of work, we always take a lot of photos. For the camping stuff, she posted 21 photos. We even went back and found an old photos from one of the trips we used it on and were able to post a photo of the tent up. She posts them across several groups that are in the area. I think she listed it on 10. It doesn't eliminate the bottom feeders. I have heard that Facebook is the new Craigs List when it comes to selling.

 

[DaveNV]

I could have written your post. I also found timesharing in the 2006-ish timeframe, and I haven't used any of my huge collection of camping gear since. It was all in fine shape, some of it virtually brand new, nothing worn or broken down. I had tents, chairs, campstoves, lanterns, cooking gear, two large latching clamshell storage boxes filled with various pieces, parts, and whatever, tarps, several folding tables, flashlights, kitchen stuff, and on and on and on.

I briefly considered trying to sell it, as there was certainly hundreds of dollars' worth of things there. And then I figured I didn't want to bother - that I'd rather do a "pay it forward" kind of thing, and just let it go.

I called my nephew, who will be getting married soon, and who loves to camp, fish, and do all things outdoors. He doesn't earn a lot of money, and I knew it'd be expensive for him to try and acquire things like I had just sitting here on the shelves in the garage, I offered it all to him, free for the taking. He was delighted, and came to pick it up the same day. He was a bit taken back by the sheer amount of stuff I had, and the good shape everything was in.

The one caveat was that he had to take everything, even if he decided not to keep it all. I told him anything he didn't want, he had to give to someone who could use it. He said he'd be happy to do that, and he was grateful for the gift. I was happy to give it to someone who could use it, rather than have it sit here getting older by the season.

His fiancé called me the next day, in tears. She said she was overwhelmed by my generosity, and promised she'd make me all the cookies I could eat, as a way of paying me back. I laughed and assured her it was my pleasure to give everything to them, and I hoped they got as much enjoyment from it as I did, back when I was going camping all the time. But sure - cookies would be fine.

It felt pretty good.

Dave

 

[MuranoJo]

That's a great idea to sell these things on FB!

We still have a lot of camping gear, but we use some of it with trailer camping and for white-water rafting--so it will continue cluttering the garage for a while.

Funny story: Years ago I used to go into work every Monday and describe our exciting weekend of backpacking into various mountain lakes, etc. One day, an older, near-retirement lady who worked in our department told me, "Sure, you're backpacking and sleeping on the ground now, but just wait...next you'll move up to a pickup & camper, then you'll move to a trailer or motor home, and finally you'll move to a vacation home." I told her, "No way--we love backpacking!" As it turned out, she was right...except for the vacation home (though I consider our timeshare trips as our second homes).

 

[klpca]

We haven't converted yet. We're headed back to Yosemite in August. Tent and all

I was on the computer early on March 15th to get reservations at Tuolumne Meadows in the high country of Yosemite. I wanted any two sites for mid August. No dice. So I'm back to looking for sites one day at a time. It's worse than timesharing. I was able to get backup reservations at the Crane Flat campground, which we like because it isn't as popular as the valley or Tuolumne, but my husband has a fondness for the high country so I'll keep trying to get what he prefers.

 

[x3 skier]

My late wife's idea of camping and roughing it was that the ice machine was on a different floor of the hotel.

Cheers

 

[pedro47]

All your camping gear have been sold, you have cleared more space in your garage and now you need that ts vacation.

 

[Elan]

Used to car camp and backpack. Now we minimalist trailer camp. Would like to go backpacking a few more times, so I still have all my ultra lightweight gear up in the garage attic. Ultimately, my kids will likely get it.

 

[stmartinfan]

My husband and I used to tent camp and enjoyed week end trips in our area..primarily because that's all we could afford at the time. By the time our kids came along we could afford nicer trips and hotels. When we tried camping with the two as preschoolers, the oldest didn't really like it, so we moved on to timeshares. Now in her mid-20s she and her fiancé are back trying camping! They even came and raided our garage for a few of our remaining pieces of equipment.

 

[clifffaith]

My late wife's idea of camping and roughing it was that the ice machine was on a different floor of the hotel.

Cheers

That made me smile! Cliff knows his first job at any timeshare is to go forth and procure ice. I don't know what the deal is about empty ice trays/ice makers turned off. Hey, let the squeamish folks dump the ice and make their own. I would be happy to find ice waiting for me in my freezer at check-in.

 

[easyrider]

In the beginning we camped in the 66 Malibu. The back seat was huge. Because it was a Super Sport we couldn't go very far off road. I did bury it on Long Beach but had made friends that pulled us out.

Then came the aluminum framed back pack with gear.

Then came kids so we camped in a Chevy station wagon.

Wifes family bought a family cabin. This was pretty small so we usually stayed in the back of the wagon.

Then we bought a Suburban and a tent trailer. This was pretty good until the kids got older. A couple of years latter we sold the tent trailer and bought a Kit Companion self contained travel trailer. This worked very well.

Then I bought my first timeshare. Soon after, with Tug help, I went on a timeshare buying frenzy. I was able to take my kids, grandkids, friends and family to different places, nice places that are fully furnished. We kind of like this.

Now the kids are older and we do still take our kids, grandkids, friends and family on trips to cool places. We rarely camp out anymore. One of our last campouts was the Lunch Counter on Mt Adams before summiting.

Then for some reason, maybe boredom, we bought a mountain cabin on the American River on Chinook Pass last year. The kids, family and friends love it. They use it often as its only an hour drive from home and really close to Mt Rainier. My wife and I use it seldom as we had trips lined up through March.

My buddy had bought a property about 10 miles away before we bought ours. We went up on Sunday to find that most of the snow has finally melted and the river was very high and only 12 ft from the back of the deck.

So far its been work and with the snow gone there is a big job of clean up to do. I need to start up the pump, cut wood, pressure wash the buildings, repair the fire pit and rake up then burn a bunch of debris.

My wife let me buy a KLR 650 last week. This is so I can travel the back roads and trails. I think I may need a Jeep Wrangler pretty soon as well. She said if I sold one of my boats or timeshares she was ok with the Jeep. idk if that will happen. I still like my stuff.

Bill

 

[Talent312]

These days, my idea of camping is a Holiday Inn, and I won't do that, either.

But I'll always have fond memories of a 10-day camping trip in California.
Alamo was out of small cars, so they gave us an aircraft carrier of the day.
On some streets in San Francisco, I wouldn't stop, lest we slide backwards.
.

 

[WinniWoman]

I always hated camping. I love being outdoors hiking, biking, whatever. But I like to come back to luxury.

 

[TravelTime]

Read my post. It might change your mind about camping. I call it Glamping on the Beach!

Travel Plans Summer 2020?

I banked our owned week at Cold Spring, but the other 3 trips for the summer are still on the books. We are hoping to spend a week in Lincoln, NH mid-June, mid-July at Smuggs, and late July heading to Missouri to see my parents. All will be driving trips. I know that the resorts will look very...

tugbbs.com

 

[Luanne]

We camped quite a bit when our dds were young. We could get away for a weekend and it was fun. My only requirement was there needed to be bathrooms and showers. There was another couple whose dd was our old dd's best friend and we all would go camping together. Some great trips to the Carmel area, Russian River, the Gold Country. I can't remember exactly when, or why we stopped. It wasn't because of timeshares as we'd had them since before the dds were born. I do know that we got rid of pretty much all of the camping gear when dh donated it. I think it was after one of natural disasters in our area, either earthquake or fire.

 

[moonstone]

The sales of RVs of all types are skyrocketing around here as more families realize they can cheaply and safely vacation in these times. We have camped all of our almost 44 years of marriage (& DH for years before) and still enjoy going camping with friends during the summer. We have a travel trailer complete with a full bathroom, hot water, a microwave in the kitchen and a good size fridge, so we are not really roughing it. Our Provincial Parks just opened up for camping a few weeks ago and that day I went online to try to book a site. Nearly everything within a 4 hr drive of us was already booked right through to the end of September.


~Diane