How I Went from a Backpacker to a Camp Glamper

Polly Wilson / Jan 2026

Swing Camp 2026 is filling up! All of the indoor accommodation at SWJS Swing West Camp has been booked, but do not despair! Sorrento Centre has a list of nearby accommodations, as well as an RV company will set up a unit on your RV campsite before you get there, and remove it when camp is over. Contact the Centre for more information.

My own preference is tenting, something it is possible to do without putting your clothes on while lying down, or sleeping on the ground. Cabin tents and inflatable beds or cots can make for a very comfortable camping experience. If you have an inflatable bed, it is important to also have some sort of insulating topper, as even summer nights are cool. Keep these options in mind.

If you are curious about my journey from backpacking to glamping, read on.

As kids, on our annual family camping trip in the Sierra Mountains, our Dad packed two canvas tents, a small for the grownups, and a big cabin tent that would fit all eight of us kids. Air mattresses and flannel-lined sleeping bags for each of us, spread from wall to wall. Tarps were spread under where each tent would go, and after the tent was raised and staked, we dug a trench around the outside, in case it rained. Oh, and rain it did! From the inside you could see a bloom of dampness in the canvas, but if you didn’t touch it, the water would swell the canvas but not permeate. But put one fingertip on the canvas and a dark spot would appear, and soon drips would be coming in at that spot and sliding down the wall. Ask me how I know.

The adults’ tent was a short distance away from ours, in a slightly lower, sandy level spot — perfect! Well, as I said, the rain came on, and on, and on, and that flat spot turned out to be a bit of a draw where the water first collected, and then simply flowed. Unfortunately, it did not flow around the tent, but rather right underneath it. Around the kids tent, our trench filled, and overfilled, with water coming into the floor from the sides. Also, the rainfall was enough that the canvas roof started to sag between each support, the low parts pooling with water, which started to drip onto us.

It was a black, wet night out in the mountains. We heard a bark of Dad’s laughter from their tent, and some swearing. At midnight, I turned 12 on August 12th.“Happy Golden Birthday. Polly,” one of my brothers said, glee in his voice, because what could you do but laugh and shuffle sleeping bags to the driest part of the tent?

Fast forward 10 or more years, and I go to California for my stepsister’s wedding. The house is full of family there for the event, but somehow, I get the best possible place to stay: the canvas cabin tent set up in a wooded area behind the house, with a single bed, a dresser, a small table, and a lamp! What heaven. Amidst the chaos of so many people there for the home wedding, all the visitors, all the food preparation, all the great moments of seeing each other, I have this secret place, out by the fig tree, where there is nobody but me.

Along with those two important cabin tent experiences is my life as a back packer. I went to what many would think of as a wilderness school for my last two years of high school, although when you are living on the civilized edge of the wildness you do know the difference. We started and ended each school year with a school hike, all the old backpacks dug out of basements or attics, checked for soundness, one for each of us, to pack with enough, but not too much, clothing and especially socks, and a portion of the shared food load. The real hikers, with big, modern backpacks, carried the bulk of the food and pots we needed, and both lead and were last on the trail, with the rest of us strung out between in between.

Why is there always so much uphill? We learned the basics of backpacking etiquette: stay close enough that we could see the person in front of us, and the person behind could see us, to make noise so we wouldn’t surprise any bears, whether with bells, or talking out loud, or singing, which we liked to do, although uphill wasn’t the best time for it. Where to poop, (yep, carry a trowel), and all about carrying out what you bring in with you, leaving no garbage. We made camp, sometimes where there was an old miners’ building, or beneath trees; made fires, had hot drinks, cooked food. Sometimes there was rain, sometimes there wasn’t, but a dense conifer could provide good cover from the elements, if not restrict the mosquitoes.

After I graduated, I went on a 5 day hike with my sweetheart in the East Kootenays. He had topographical maps and, six years older than I, he had a lot more backpacking experience. I had received a big, modern pack as a graduation present, and loaded up, it towered over my long skinny legs and big new boots. We were ready to go! We had our dried meals, our trail mix, a wee backpacking stove, and a set of lightweight pots. We parked his VW Beatle as far up the rugged logging road as we could find safe parking, and continued up the road on foot until we could find a place we could cross the rushing creek, which was more like a small river, and find the trail. We passed a lot of bear poop on the trail on the way up.

I find myself falling into the long walk memory of this hike, but will skip ahead to the highlights: waking up in total darkness in our little tent the first night, with something bellowing right outside, probably a moose. And then, in the morning, my partner waking up with an attack of bursitis in his shoulder so painful that he was unable to move, telling me I would have to hike out by myself and find someone to come and rescue him. Uh, nope. Fortunately his pain eased in a couple of hours, and we were able to pack up our gear and carry on with the hike, although it meant shifting more weight to my pack. Lots more bear poop along the way, and the dried shrimp we got in Chinatown and mixed into our dehydrated rice and soup mix turned out to be full of sand and small bits of stone or shell, as well as being alarmingly fishy tasting. But it was food that sustained life, and we were very careful to hang our food in a bag way up high and far away from our tent, to protect it, and us, from bears.

An amazing sight in the morning, down towards the creek where we had cached the food, was a whole area of big, vividly red and orange Amanita mascaria mushrooms in amongst a grove of young poplars, with the telltale white crunchy popcorn-looking bits across the tops. It looked like fairyland. I picked a big one and put it in a plastic bag to takeback to my sister, who was into things psychedelic. We hiked on for another day, and at one place where we needed to cross the creek on a log, well above the water, my inner voice said ‘forget it, and I decided to wade across instead. Half way across one of the straps that connected my pack to the waistband broke, causing the pack to suddenly lurch sideways, but I was able to keep my balance and finish wading across. The wet feet were well worth having avoided a fall off the log into cold rushing rocky creek below. By the end of the day we got to a high point on the trail, where the remains of old log cabins that had almost completely returned to soil, just rust-red lines of crumble of rot where the logs had been. Severa lvalleys fanned out below us, and my partner studied his topographic map, and looked through his binoculars, looked at his map, looked through his binoculars, and finally admitted he didn’t know which route was the one we should take down. One would take two days to hike out, one would take five, and he wasn’t sure which was which. We had food for three days. Calmer heads prevailed, and we went back the way we had come, much faster downhill than up. So much bear poop! The whole way down I was so glad I hadn’t had to make that trip down by myself, then me, all of 17, having to get assistance from the loggers working there, to get rescue people up to him. We caught a ride part of the way down to the car, and by the time we got down to the little pub and hotel we were going to stay the night I could barely lift my legs to go up the stairs to our room, and my ankles felt completely fused and painful. Taking the pack off was like floating into someone a foot taller than I was.

Some 15 years later I still had that backpacking tent. On my own by then, I was going on a kayak trip from Tofino, around Flores Island, to Hot Springs Cove. I had my own kayak, and had taken some classes, but this is the first time I was really out there on a big paddle. I wasn’t sure whether I could do it, or not. It turns out that a loaded kayak is more stable, sitting deeper in the water, packed with my trusty tent, sleeping bag, clothing, all in dry bags, and the food for my part of meal preparation.

The first night we stayed on a small island, and I felt so comfortable there, on this misty, grassy place, surrounded by sea, our kayaks pulled up on the sand. It was my night to cook, and I made spaghetti and “well done steak,” (beef jerky), plus, instead of the planned arugula salad, the arugula having wilted in the storage area of my kayak, I cooked it like spinach instead. Nobody needed to know! Our next long day of paddling the backside of Flores Island ended at a rocky beach, where we saw wolves down along the water further up the cove. We had to find spots amongst the big rocks and storm-delivered driftwood logs to nestle our tents. Several of the gals were sharing a tent and they said I could join them, but I have always needed my own space, so I set up my own tent nearby. That night it stormed, and the rain was torrential. I had to get up to pee in the middle of the night and I swear that it was raining so hard I couldn’t even tell if I was still peeing or not! When I crawled back into my tent I just got back into my sleeping bag with everything on, other than boots and coat, in hopes that my body heat would help dry my clothing.

In the wee hours of the morning, the ridge pole of my tent snapped, and the tent collapsed on me. I stuck it out until daybreak, when I could crawl out and see that the hollow aluminum ridge pole had snapped in two. I found a small piece of drift wood the right diameter that I could stuff it into the two broken ends that would likely hold for the rest of the trip, but that was it!

When the trip was over, time to get a new tent! I did take the tent back to where I had bought it to show them the problem, but seemed to feel that 15 years or more was an adequate lifespan, certainly as much as I could expect. I got a new tent, from Mountain Equipment Company, a Tarn 3. Because what solo camper doesn’t need a three-person tent? The weight is not much more, and the space means your pack can come inside, and can be unloaded in the untidy manner that is my wont. At that point I had a group of friends, older than I, who liked to make one or two backpacking trips each summer, and I was able to tag along with them. Their favourite usual hike took them to a place where there were rarely any other people, and very few tent spots, so that was a concern. But I wandered around like a mountain goat and found a little grassy alcove in the rocks that just fit my tent, a spot none of them had ever seen. Heaven.

On the trip down I did discover that the hiking protocols I had grown up with were not part of how they did it; people hiked down in their twosomes, with me trailing along afterwards. I was fine with that, not wanting to ask them to wait, until my boot slipped on the muddy trail, and I ended up on my back down the side of the trail with my loaded pack beneath me, all on my own, like a bug on its back. There was nothing to be done but figure it out for myself, so unclipped my pack and wiggled out of it, got turned over, dragged my pack up onto the trail, got up, and managed to swing the pack back on. By the time I got to the bottom I was scratched up and pretty muddy, and the first two couples down were mad that the third hadn’t bothered to keep tabs on me, all wrapped up in their new love, as they were.

Well, my backpacking wound down in the next few years, as those friends, still older than I, quit hiking, preferring day walks around local lakes, or swimming in the ocean on the Sunshine Coast. I went to my first music camp! I opted for tenting, the most affordable way to attend the week-long camp. What a good choice it was, a campsite in the woods, and making new friends with the people in the campsites around me. I had my Tarn 3, and for all its ‘3-person’ status, it was a squat down or sit down space, perfectly fine for sleeping, but not the best place to change clothes, especially if some of that clothing was dresses or skirts for dancing, or stockings or tights of any type. I got a shout from a new friend to come to their campsite, because they were having cocktails. Sheesh. This is a new world, I had my trusty flask, but certainly no cocktails were being served at my campsite. I went down there and discovered these two friends were sharing a campsite, and his tent was huge. He had a clothing rack in there, with his shirts and pants all hung up, a blow-up bed, and around the fire were a number of folding canvas camp chairs, enough for guests, because they liked to entertain. My eyes were opened!

By my second camp I had gone to Canadian Tire and—gasp!—bought an adequate-quality family camping tent, for six people, that I could stand up in. Heaven. I brought a blow-up bed, and a couple of folding chairs, one to sit on, and one to put clothing on. Plenty of room for my suitcase, which could be left yawning open on the side, instrument cases, and the clutter of shoes that come from not being able to decide between them, and not needing to.

I learned things that year. How cold it can get at night, even in the summer, and that a blow up bed is cold underneath, no matter how good your covers above are. Lesson learned: by next camp I had bought a foam topper for the blow up mattress, and brought flannel sheets, which made all the difference. The next year we had the big storm during the Thursday student concert, and a staff patrol had gone around checking all the campsites and looking for blown down trees. Everyone was okay, except one tent had blown over, it was mine. It hadn’t gone far, weighted down my all my stuff, but had kind of done the tumbleweed a turn or two, scrambling the contents. I had been a bit lax with the tent pegs and guy lines.

Friends helped me get it upright again and better anchored, and all was well. I will say, it wasn’t a great tent, and its rainfly was on legs that were a bit storkish, so I started keeping my eyes open for an alternative. I still felt a bit furtive, in the Canadian Tire tent aisle, looking at these family cabin style tents, such an anathema to backpackers, an attitude which still rode in my consciousness. But there it was: the 10 person Spider, an all-one piece cabin tent and built-in rainfly that could be put up single-handedly! Stake it down, then extend the legs up! Now, before you think ill of me for the excess of space that a 10 person tent would provide, I am sure they are referring to children who can be lined up cheek-by-jowl, not what any self-respecting and adult sized people would want. I bought it! It came in a large, solidly packed bag,(and you just know there is no way it will ever quite fit back into that bag, after you take it out), but it’s not like I was going to be carrying it down a trail! It turned out great. I got a better topper as well, for my inflatable bed, and there is something really great about sheets, pillows, and a warm duvet at the end an intense day at camp.

A few years in I started working at camp, and accommodation was provided, a shared room upstairs in Caritas. No more trips to the washhouse in the middle of the night, no more wondering how much one must dress before making that trip, or if you could just wait for morning. And it was right above the room where I would be working. I did that for two years, doing a job of long days with little chance for my recuperative hideouts. The second year I was reprimanded for walking around late at night, above where the director was sleeping. Actually, I was still working, finishing the Daily News, before I made the walkaround camp to post it before going to bed. That was it for me!

The next year I was back to camping in my favorite campsite, in the full joy of unembarrassed glamping! I flash back to that canvas tent I stayed in at my stepsister’s wedding, which remains the pinnacle glamping experience for me. I mean, a dresser, a bedside table, a lamp! The last time I went to Maui I ended up hosting more people than would fit in the little beach house, so I ordered an inexpensive cabin tent with big screened windows and a removable rainfly, and a cot, which was delivered just before we arrived. Oh sweet joy! It was just the best not-so-very-little private space, tied between some palm trees, and kept zipped up against the intrusion of bugs and centipedes. The private space allowed me to be a better hostess, what with all that air and the sound of the ocean soothing my savage soul.

The first time I heard the term “glamping” I did not know what it meant. This was back in my backpacking days. Someone I knew said she never went camping unless it involved her fluffy robe and fluffy slippers, as well as cocktails. What an admission! I was embarrassed for her! Ah, how far I have come, with my indoor Crocs and my outdoor Crocs, right there on the little mat inside my tent door. I no longer want to sleep on the ground, I no longer want to hop on one leg while I put my shoes and socks on, I no longer want to be lying down when I wriggle into my jeans or party clothes. My Tarn 3 tent? Still with me. I have been known to loan it out to other campers. In fact, one year I brought it to camp with me, for no particular reason other than I had the space in my truck. Kathy Francis asked me if I happened to have a spare tent, because a camper had forgotten to put hers in her car. Voilà! A hero, and a comfortable one, at the same time!

This year at Swing Camp all the indoor accommodation is already booked. But there are still good options: tents that attach to your car; sleeping in your van with a pop up tent for outdoor living space; RVs to be rented and set up before you arrive; (Sorrento Centre can fill you in on that option); local B&Bs. But don’t forget about tenting as an option, even if you think you are too old for it. Because there is tenting, and there is glamping! A tent you can stand up in, an inflatable bed, (some kind of insulation is imperative, as nights do get cold), a chair, and you’re set. Often, things you can borrow from friends, or not that expensive, and useful to have. If setting up a tent would be hard for you, let the Swing Camp organizers know. I am sure we can round up a band of volunteers to help with set up. For me, glamping is my preferred camp accommodation choice. I need to be able to walk in the woods, even if I don’t have time, so a camp site in the woods is perfect for me. Some campsites at Sorrento Centre are walk-in, many you can park near, at least while you unload your gear, some you can park right next to your tent, as well as having RV sites. You don’t have to get a big tent, but I do recommend one you can standup in! Something comfortable to sleep on, and a chair or two. And your earplugs! One thing a tent will not do is protect you from is the sound of other campers, as they talk, laugh, and play music.

We’re back for the music, and the friends.