[00:00.49]Economy is one powerful motive for camping,
[00:04.47]since after the initial outlay upon equipment, or through hiring it,
[00:09.48]the total expense can be far less than the cost of hotels.
[00:14.28]But, contrary to a popular assumption, it is far from being the only one, or even the greatest.
[00:21.19]The man who manoeuvres carelessly into his twenty pounds' worth of space at one of Europe's myriad permanent sites may find himself bumping a Bentley.
[00:31.47]More likely, Ford Escort will be hub to hub with Renault or Mercedes, but rarely with bicycles made for two.
[00:39.71]That the equipment of modern camping becomes yearly more sophisticated is an entertaining paradox for the cynic,
[00:47.38]a brighter promise for the hopeful traveler who has sworn to get away from it all.
[00:53.18]It also provides-and some student sociologist might care to base his thesis upon the phenomenon -- an escape of another kind.
[01:03.10]The modern traveller is often a man who dislikes the Splendide and the Bellavista,
[01:09.66]not because he cannot afford, or shuns their material comforts.
[01:14.31]but because he is afford of them.
[01:17.00]Affluent he may be, but he is by no means sure what to tip the doorman or the chambermaid.
[01:23.91]Master in his own house, he has little idea of when to say boo to a maitre d'hotel.
[01:30.32]From all such fears camping releases him.
[01:33.94]Granted, a snobbery of camping itself, based upon equipment and techniques, already exists;
[01:41.06]but it is of a kind that, if he meets it, he can readily understand and deal with.
[01:47.19]There is no superior 'they' in the shape of managements and hotel hierarchies to darken his holiday days.
[01:55.43]To such motives, yet another must be added.
[01:59.19]The contemporary phenomenon of car worship is to be explained not least by the sense of independence and freedom that ownership entails.
[02:08.86]To this pleasure camping gives an exquisite refinement.
[02:13.23]From one's own front door to home or foreign hills or sands and back again, everything is to hand.
[02:20.57]Not only are the means of arriving at the holiday paradise entirely within one's own command and keeping,
[02:27.34]but the means of escape from holiday hel (if the beach proves too crowded, the local weather too inclement) are there, outside -- or, as likely, part of -- the tent.
[02:39.60]Idealists have objected to the package tour, that the traveller abroad thereby denies himself the opportunity of getting to know the people of the country visited.
[02:52.57]Insularity and self-containment, it is argued, go hand in hand.
[02:57.94]The opinion does not survive experience of a popular Continental camping place.
[03:03.88]Holiday hotels tend to cater for one nationality of visitors especially, sometimes exclusively.
[03:11.26]Camping sites, by contrast, are highly cosmopolitan.
[03:15.88]Granted, a preponderance of Germans is a characteristic that seems common to most Mediterranean sites;
[03:23.26]but as yet there is no overwhelmingly specialized patronage.
[03:27.88]Notices forbidding the open-air drying of clothes, or the use of water points for car washing,
[03:35.12]or those inviting 'our camping friends' to a dance or a boat trip are printed not only in French or Italian or Spanish, but also in English, German and Dutch.
[03:47.41]At meal times the odour of sauerkraut vies with that of garlic.
[03:53.49]The Frenchman's breakfast coffee competes with the Englishman's bacon and eggs.
[03:58.94]Whether the remarkable growth of organized camping means the eventual death of the more independent kind is hard to say.
[04:07.43]Municipalities naturally want to secure the campers' site fees and other custom.
[04:13.12]Police are wary of itinerants who cannot be traced to a recognized camp boundary or to four walls.
[04:20.79]But most probably it will all depend upon campers themselves:
[04:25.51]how many heath fires they cause; how much litter they leave;
[04:30.35]in short, whether or not they wholly alienate landowners and those who live in the countryside.
[04:37.40]Only good scouting is likely to preserve the freedoms so dear to the heart of the eternal Boy Scout.
