Larry has just informed me that we are going away for a week in August. After complicated negotiations, wherein he learned that we are NOT driving all the way to Maine and wherein I learned that he considers a week in the deep woods far from a laundromat to be a fun idea, we settled on Cape Cod as a camping destination - a little wilderness for him, civilization for me, and hopefully his relatives will decide to join us there for a few days.
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| Please, just tell me which is the best part... |
And now here is where I curse that formerly beloved creation known as the Internet. Used to be, you'd find a campground (somehow) and make reservations. Then you'd show up and you'd either like it or hate it. End of story. Now, however, I have wasted countless hours of my life reading reviews (which contradict each other) on Trip Advisor, squinting at photo galleries on the campground websites, and trying to familiarize myself with Cape geography well enough to make a good decision about our camping destination.
Did you know that, if you research 10 campgrounds all at once, you can't remember which one has the lousy laundry facilities and which one has the tent sites too close to the road? Fun fact.
And I've done all this while knowing that really? It is a total crapshoot. I should just make a list, use a randomized number generator thing-y to pick a number, and -
voila! - the campground decision-making process would be complete. Will I do that, however? No. Of course not.
Any recommendations? The one campground I had confidence in is full, by the way - Nickerson State Park. Maybe it would have been a good idea to plan a Cape vacation MORE than one month ahead of time?
Holy moly! You guys should come visit. Depending on where you camp we're somewhere between an hour and two hours forty-five minutes away. Let me know where you guys settle and how it goes. The cape is great. Bring bug spray. Salt water taffy is weird.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was planning our vacation and looking into different destinations/accommodations, I made an Excel spreadsheet for that same reason - I would remember that there was one place without air conditioning, but with awesome playground, but which one of the 15 I looked into?
ReplyDeleteI have no campsite advice but am amazed that people sign up for camping months in advance. I guess this gives them enough time to stock up on steaks.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to Cape Cod in 30+ years. Mom's aunt's vacation house is there. Her cousin inherited it, and allows family members to use it. I should go to Cape Cod for vacation this summer? LOL
ReplyDeleteNah, vacation will allow me to finish the patching of the boys room walls, and painting their room. I'm seriously thinking of put down laminate floors, as the old wood floors need too much work if I want to refinish them properly.
And who says mothers of large families don't know how to kick back and relax?
DeleteNickerson is the only campground I've been to on the cape. Keep checking, maybe there will be a cancellation?
ReplyDeleteMy best memory of that trip is to go to the Brewster Historical society and take a walk down past the house to the dunes and waterfront. If you ask someone in the house, they'll tell you about it. No houses really in sight, quiet, beautiful. The bike trail is fun, and flat, too. Be sure and bring/rent bikes.
Thanks for this tip - I'll be sure to put this on the to-do list!
DeleteI'd rather be shot in the face than go camping. I hate bugs, I hate dirt, I hate sleeping bags and running for a bathroom in the middle of the night. I vote Holiday Inn.
ReplyDeleteI never said I liked it! We use a pop-up camper at campgrounds with plumbing and electricity - it's a compromise between a hotel (which we can't afford and might have bedbugs, gah) and backwoods camping with a trowel to bury your own poop (Larry's apparent preference, and no, I don't understand it, either).
DeleteThat's got to be overwhelming to plan. I hope you get good advice to follow and end up having a great time.
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago, we had a great time at Maurice's Campground in Wellfleet. There is a wonderful crab restaurant nearby (forgot the name, they'll know at the campground). We liked the Lower Cape far better than the other two parts. A bit less crowded, more sea / weathered wood etc.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne from the Netherlands
No camping advice, but for the research? Spreadsheet. Or make a table in Word. Then you paste in the name and website, columns for comments on location, amenities, etc. Then you decide what you can live with, cross off the rejects and start checking for reservations at the acceptable choices.
ReplyDelete(I iz engineer- haz mad data skillz.)
I totally should have done this. Or maybe left it to Larry - he's the one who loves spreadsheets around here.
DeleteAh, but see aforementioned comments about trowels...would you really want to trust him to select a place with appropriate amenities?
DeleteI have no information on Cape Cod, but I completely understand about the vacation planning thing. We haven't been on a vacation in 4 years, and this must be why. My husband assigned me to find a place to go this year, for the 5 days we have managed to find free, and I did, but was completely overwhelmed by too much information about the place.
ReplyDeleteWell, we just went camping, but it was way out west in Utah, so that probably doesn't help you. Sometimes crapshoots turn out ok. At least it's an adventure!
ReplyDeleteMy husband makes spread sheets as described by several other posters. Me, I look at websites and get confused. No matter -- I don't think I'm getting a camping vacation this year. I'd be sad but I'm too overwhelmed at work to think about packing for a trip.
ReplyDeleteI'm also confused as to why the upper cape is further south than the lower cape... but maybe that is the lack of New England influence in my upbringing?
Karen- the Cape curls around in a reverse J-shape. "Upper" in this case means the part closest to the bulk of the state. So when you drive 'down' (toward the end of the peninsula), you refer to it as 'down' even though the route has turned back north.
DeleteI have this discussion with my husband. If a road goes north-south, and I say I'm going 'north' he'll complain that the car is actually pointed west at that moment in time. Which I feel is largely irrelevant...I tend to think of routes more as schematics (like a subway map) rather than paying strict attention to all the twists and turns of the route.
It took me a while to figure it out, also, Karen. When in Rome...
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