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Lesson 47 |
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The great escape |
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What is one of the features of modern camping where nationality is concerned? |
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Economy is one powerful motive for camping, |
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since after the initial outlay upon equipment, or through hiring it, |
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the total expense can be far less than the cost of hotels. |
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But, contrary to a popular assumption, it is far from being the only one, or even the greatest. |
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The man who manoeuvres carelessly into his 20 pounds' worth of space |
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at one of Europe's myriad permanent sites may find himself bumping a Bentley. |
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More likely, Ford Escort will be hub to hub with Renault or Mercedes, |
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but rarely with bicycles made for two. |
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That the equipment of modern camping becomes yearly more sophisticated |
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is an entertaining paradox for the cynic, |
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a brighter promise for the hopeful traveller who has sworn to get away from it all. |
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It also provides--and some student sociologist might care to base his thesis upon the phenomenon--an escape of another kind. |
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The modern traveller is often a man who dislikes the Splendide and the Bellavista, |
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not because he cannot afford, or shuns their material comforts, but because he is afraid of them. |
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Affluent he may be, but he is by no means sure what to tip the doorman or the chambermaid. |
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Master in his own house he has little idea of when to say boo to a manager hotel. |
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From all such fears camping releases him. |
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Granted, a snobbery of camping itself, based upon equipment and techniques, already exists; |
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but it is of a kind that, if he meets it, he can readily understand and deal with. |
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There is no superior 'they' in the shape of managements and hotel hierarchies to darken his holiday days. |
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To such motives, yet another must be added. |
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The contemporary phenomenon of car worship is to be explained |
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not least by the sense of independence and freedom that ownership entails. |
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To this pleasure camping gives an exquisite refinement. |
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From one's own front door to home or foreign hills or sands and back again, everything is to hand. |
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Not only are the means of arriving at the holiday paradise |
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entirely within one's own command and keeping, |
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but the means of escape from holiday hell (if the beach proves too crowded, the local weather too inclement) |
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are there, outside--or, as likely, part of--the tent. |
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Idealists have objected to the practice of camping, as to the package tour, |
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that the traveller abroad thereby denies himself the opportunity of getting to know the people of the country visited. |
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Insularity and self-containment, it is argued, go hand in hand. |
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The opinion does not survive experience of a popular Continental camping place. |
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Holiday hotels tend to cater for one nationality of visitors especially, sometimes exclusively. |
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Camping sites, by contrast, are highly cosmopolitan. |
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Granted, a preponderance of Germans is a characteristic |
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that seems common to most Mediterranean sites; |
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but as yet there is no overwhelmingly specialized patronage. |
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Notices forbidding the open-air drying of clothes, |
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or the use of water points for car washing, |
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or those inviting 'our camping friends' to a dance or a boat trip |
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are printed not only in French or Italian or Spanish, but also in English, German and Dutch. |
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At meal times the odour of sauerkraut vies with that of garlic. |
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The Frenchman's breakfast coffee competes with the Englishman's bacon and eggs. |
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Whether the remarkable growth of organized camping |
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means the eventual death of the more independent kind is hard to say. |
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Municipalities naturally want to secure the campers' site fees and other custom. |
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Police are wary of itinerants who cannot be traced to a recognized camp boundary or to four walls. |
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But most probably it will all depend upon campers themselves: |
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how many heath fires they cause; how much litter they leave; |
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in short, whether or not they wholly alienate landowners and those who live in the countryside. |
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Only good scouting is likely to preserve the freedoms so dear to the heart of the eternal Boy Scout. |