Stumbled across this Better Homes and Gardens Family Camping 1961 and had a hoot looking at the pictures and reading the author’s commentary.
This was the glory days of American Family Camping, even before the peak in the mid-60s. I vaguely remember this type of camping, where the goal was not just to insulate your family from the cold ground, but also to insulate them from the outdoors while keeping most indoor comforts. Many of these items are still available from REI and EMS today in their aluminum and plastic, maybe titanium, versions.
Most families back then (I guess even today’s too) didn’t have all that fancy camping stuff from that magazine; most of ours was (what I remember) army surplus. I remember the short squat beverage coolers, the propane lanterns (with super-fragile silk mantles), and the big gnarly cotton tents. We didn’t have those fancy Coleman stoves; we cooked on open fires, on camping grills or mom’s old cast iron frying pan. And I’m not sure, but I believe we used blankets instead of sleeping bags. Somehow we had eggs and milk, the former kept in a metal cooler, and the latter kept in the nearby stream. It was simple and we loved it.
