Three years ago when we were in Provence, we had passed by some camping sites next to the Ardèche river. The people looked so chill, children bronzed with the sun and dust ran around unsupervised, there was a free/ party atmosphere – A stark contrast to our quiet Airbnb with the lavender fields and chique swimming pool. I remember thinking to myself – their holiday looks kind of cool. I hadn’t imagined that we would ever be back in the region and camp here ourselves. But we did this year! And I realised camping is such a white people thing to do. 😂 Read on to find out why.
Camping draws visceral reactions from people. Either they are in the “I hate camping” camp or in the “camping is life” kinda camp. We thought let’s try it too, see what the craze is about.
But before we choose camping love/ hate camps; let me begin by saying how big of a learning experience the whole thing was for me. Our camper van (rented) had an entire apartment inside it but everything was engineered to be folded/ compacted and kept away discreetly – little gems of mechanical engineering.
Since Ardèche is 450 km away from us and baby bunny needs to be constantly entertained when she’s not sleeping, we decided to make a pit stop near Geneva and slept there (on a real bed).
After about 25 hours of leaving home and 9 hours of “wheels on the bus” in different languages we reached our camping site!
It had largish plots marked by trees where we saw every shape, size, and pattern of camping tents/ vans/ caravans, you name it.
What we did
The next days, Swiss bunny’s brother made his wheelchair into an e-bike, we stuffed the children in the bike trailer that Swiss bunny pulled on a normal bike and up and down we went around the gorgeous gorge of the Ardèche river – me out of breath, the others without breaking a sweat.
The first day after biking for more than 25 km, 300+ m up and down steep hills, the Swiss bunnies said, we were going to have a melon for lunch. I was flabbergasted. Then they said, if I was hungry, there was some cucumber too. 🫥
I was really amazed that each shop was selling something unique – not like other touristy towns where everyone is selling the same souvenir made in China. We bought two dresses, some sable biscuits, and nougat!
In the evening we had cake for Swiss bunny’s birthday.
The next morning Swiss bunny’s brother arranged a nice birthday brunch. I am not adding a picture here because putting a bunny sticker on everyone’s face is too much effort.
The romanticism with camping
We dragged half of our flat all across Switzerland to live wall-less on the soil and in a parking lot, AND paid far more (*) than we would have to to live in a hotel with clean towels. What is the romanticism in cooking on a small stove and washing the dishes by hand in a communal sink? We were literally living without walls, and brushing our teeth and washing the mud off our kids’ bums by the same tap on our lot. It is THE picture of how poor people live in any non European person’s mind and no wonder the camping site was almost exclusively white. I and another guy (who came with a white guy and a chiwawa, if you are picking what I am laying) were literally the only non white bunnies on the camp.
*the rental was expensive not the camping site
But but but .. it was all very clean and it didn’t seem grimy at all (except our children and our beds- thanks to them). The wall-less living (as everyone lived outside their vans) experience was great – as if we were in a big open living room.
The kids roamed around freely in their diapers, they dug the soil in our front “porch” and were very happy despite (or because of?) the dust. The beds in the van were big enough for them, and the simple pasta we cooked was treat enough. Life was simple but good.
The holiday was a massive success and a great reminder that one doesn’t need much to live and be happy.
So are we only going to go on camping holidays now? Certainly not. I am too brown for it (especially mentally). 😅
bunnygoespoppoppop 