While camping seems like a rite of passage for many, I have somehow managed to avoid the ceremonious event for most of my life. My anxious brain tends to associate camping with being eaten alive by bears and swallowing spiders in my sleep – both, things I usually try to avoid. We had a trailer when I was a child but we would only park it at my uncle’s lakefront cabin with unlimited access to running water, a bathroom and a shower (really roughing it). When I was 12 or 13 I spent one night in a tent with a friend and her family and couldn’t get the zipper open fast enough in the morning to call my parents and beg them to come pick me up. After that, I swore off camping for good.
