To launch this new category, The Stupidest Thing Ever™, I’m going with “glamping“, a concept that comes with its own stupid word.
“Glamping” is a portmanteau of glamorous and camping and describes a style of camping with amenities and, in some cases, resort-style services not usually associated with “traditional” camping.
Apparently, this stupid practice has been going on so long that the American Glamping Association launched in August, joining World of Glamping (whatever that is) to promote the growing “industry.” There’s also Glamping Hub.
It looks like I’ve been totally out of the fucking loop, as usual, but I’m trying to catch up. As I understand it, glamping is for people who want to be outdoors but don’t want to rough it. In millennial speak, it’s for people who want unique experiences.
Now here’s where I know I’m not a millennial: I DON’T WANT A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE! If I’m traveling, I want a 100% normal experience! When I went to London in September, I didn’t think, “Shit, I’m staying in a nice hotel in a nice part of the city, right near an underground station”. I didn’t wish I were in a teepee in the countryside or a barn with sheep. I have actually had some “unique experiences” while traveling, such as someone pointing a gun at me (England), a stranger slapping me (Italy) rape (Greece) and a really terrible acid trip (Wales.)
No thank you!
Also, how stupid would you feel to stay in an actual cave that had room service and a designer bathtub? How could you pretend this wasn’t stupid, you know? I discovered the cave hotel while scrolling through the offerings at glamping.com. The destination for this experience is Sextantio Le Grotte Della Civita, in southern Italy.
The restored ancient caves will provide “an out-of-time journey through the traces of the uninterrupted presence of the man in this area, from Paleolithic times to the present.”
The hotel rooms occupy the caves themselves. What separates Sassi di Matera from merely sleeping in a cave is a certain dedication to luxury. Your bathroom may be a bare rock cavern, but you can trust in your Milanese host’s taste in fixtures and fittings: your bathtub is the finest money can buy. Prehistoric man might never have ventured outside the caves if they had bathrooms like these!
For fuck sake.
But let’s say you don’t want to pretend you’re Fred Flintstone. What else is there? The co-founder of the American Glamping Association notes that people have different needs.
For example, if you really need complete isolation, then a glamping location that has just one very unique tent is the place for you.
What kind of motherfucker needs one very unique tent???? The kind that takes an hour to describe what kind of beverage he wants at Starbucks? As if such a person would even go to Starbucks when he/she/they/it/x could only be happy with single origin coffee, reverently prepared in a kabuki ritual by a barista wearing a crisp hemp apron.
So much privilege. So much stupidity.
Are you a glamper? Is glamper even a word? If you have any firsthand (or secondhand) glamping stories, let’s hear them!
Thanks Sister Wolf, sheds additional light on my last year’s first acquaintance with the term.
I’d asked the woman who was asking if I’d enjoy coming over to Eureka Springs to do “some glamping” me dutifully inquiring “Might you, in ten words or less, explain what the fuck exactly is, glamping?”
“The privies,” she helpfully began “Are stocked with store-bought toilet paper.”
I drove over in the RV.
As always, this blog is an education! First of all, I can sympathise with JK’s caution on being asked by a lady whether he fancied some, er, “glamping” and I am mightily relieved that he did not, in his usual ex-sailor’s way, jump to the wrong conclusion!
Also, I am grateful for my ‘introduction’ to Eureka Springs, of which I had never heard until now. It looks gorgeous and eccentric and is set in the beautiful Ozarks – dammit, you Yankee-doodles have all the luck!
The love of experiences always gets me into a weird mental loop. First i think of the Italian Futurists and their love of speed/death— and the idea that we get to worship new things this century but we’ll also get to experience the horror of that— then I think of the 1996 film Cronenberg film Crash // Ballard’s Crash. There’s a spectrum of experiences.
We have a RV thing. It is useful when it isn’t in need of repair. What I really hate is stuff like this: https://burningman.org/event/camps/turnkey-camping/.
Hate to say it, but I’d rather be glamping than setting up a grubby little tent, a rickety propane stove and hope it doesn’t rain. I want floors, bedswith sheets, meals served and bathrooms please. Did it in four camps in Africa, although one did not have electricity or running water…. loved it. Too old to be a pack mule hiking around with a huge backpack looking for high and dry ground…you would change your mind Sister….
I. Just. Cant. Even.
I am in my yurt, having a craft cocktail, and on my Vertu.
Just being lowkey and getting back to nature.
I went glamping in Rajasthan in March this year. It was very opulent, but by the time I got to Jodpur (where I ‘glamped’) I had a hardcore case of Delhi Belly and rather than relishing the luxury I spent the night feeling like I might die before sunrise.
So nobody’s going ask about the rape in Greece? If you want to talk about the rape in Greece we’re here for you. If you don’t then that’s OK.
Photos of that cave hotel look nice but I bet the reality is all unpleasant textures plus odors left over from the monthly paleo orgies that the local bigwigs surely have there.
it’s funny bc while i KNOW glamping is the worst possible thing to say out loud it’s the only kind of camping i would do. bc it’s true for me that i do love being outdoors but i don’t like being dirty. or if i DO get dirty doing outdoorsy things i want a hot fucking shower with premium soaps and shit. also i want to sit by the outdoor fire but i don’t want to build it. and i want that fish that someone else caught in the stream that i am sleeping 5 feet from, cooked and in my mouth.
I fell into a brief rabbit hole of consuming the whole of Patriot S2. What a great way to check out for a brief while and avoid the pain of reckoning with Trump news or being confronted with some horrible new lifestyle trend.