Booking Hotel Online - Meet the Rest of the World by Camping

By Earl Hunsinger

How much more have we separated ourselves from Nature? How much more complicated have our lives become over the last 160 years? Thoreau himself regarded the two years he spent in the Concord woods as an experiment. The idea of living as simply as possible was considered a little unusual, in the 1840s, even then. Just south of Concord Massachusetts, " So wrote Henry David Thoreau to describe his experience living on the shore of Walden Pond. Discover that I had not lived, when I came to die, and not, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, to front only the essential facts of life, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

Even his experience with trees and plants may be confined to walking down a well maintained tree lined street or strolling through a carefully planned city park. Seeing a live cow or chicken may be as novel an experience as seeing a polar bear or wildebeest, to a city dweller. Limiting our experience, they are artificial, no matter how aesthetically pleasing these may be. Behind man-made walls, we spend our lives indoors. Most of us today live in an artificial world.

They too live their lives indoors, and video games, the internet, thanks to cable TV, now. Studying everything from how long it took ants to find a piece of candy left in the dirt to which berries were good to eat and which were poisonous, they were amateur scientists. Knew every rock and tree within a mile of their house, at least those in rural areas, children, in years past. Even children have become more insulated from the natural world. Or out the window of our car on the way to work or the store, we view nature through the window of our home or office. Their daily life is probably a small town reflection of the big city, unless they happen to be a farmer, while country dwellers may have more exposure to flora and fauna.

Some of which may be as close as his backyard or the empty lot across the street, it's ironic then that a man can consider himself worldly wise while knowing very little about the other creatures inhabiting the world. And animals, birds, fish, including insects, as reported in Science Daily some scientists estimate that there may be as many as 100 million different species of other living creatures, yet. There are over 6 billion people on the earth.

What's happening in the woods or water that you see flying by the side of the highway on your way to work simply doesn't seem to have any relevance, when you live your life indoors. They don't have enough experience to care; it's not just that people don't care. It's no wonder that species are going extinct at an alarming rate today.

Benefits them on a more personal level, or spending a few days camping in the woods, many though have found that spending a few hours hiking in the woods. Human life would be impossible, without other living things, like it or not, after all. That wouldn't hurt. I don't just mean benefit in an environmentally conscious way. We might benefit from spending a few days there, still. Fewer still have the desire to do so. Few today have the courage or circumstances to imitate Thoreau and leave it all behind for a life in the woods, of course.

Go camping, and clear your mind of the hundred sources of stress that assault you in the hectic life you have created for yourself, relax, if you want to unwind. They are similar to the express purpose of any vacation, while the health benefits of camping may be harder to quantify. These include both physical and mental benefits. The American Hiking Society has information on the health benefits of hiking.

Yet feeling refreshed and ready to face a new day, you find yourself waking with the sun. Food seems to taste better when cooked over a campfire and eaten under a canopy of leaves. Its cold water seems more refreshing. The crystal clear water of a mountain stream seems to sparkle more in the sunshine. Seems to heighten the senses, even for a short time, living in the natural world rather than apart from it. Many campers have found that stripping life down to such essentials makes such simple everyday things more enjoyable. Doing these things is relatively simple, with a little preparation and training. Etc, staying warm and dry, sleeping, your only worries are eating. Is life at its simplest, at least tent camping in the woods, camping.

Your heart rate will probably slow and you will probably find yourself becoming more and more relaxed, as you meet these fellow citizens of our planet and observe how they live their lives. Or the sound of a raccoon coming into your camp looking for food, the night air might be disturbed by the hoot of an owl. Or a beaver busily building a dam, you might see a mother deer and its fawn foraging for food. Going about its business in a rocky streambed, or a crayfish. Feeding its young by snatching fish from a lake, you might see an eagle. Or perhaps to become reacquainted with some old friends from your childhood, camping also allows you to meet the rest of the world.

Perhaps you too can learn what life in the woods has to teach, or camping in the woods, by walking through the woods on a hike. Go to the woods. Why not do as Thoreau did, so then?