Customer Reviews

The Best in Tent Camping: Washington & Oregon, 3rd: A Guide to Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos

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This book saved me from spending my vacation in motels. I was driving around Oregon on a Saturday morning last August wondering where on earth I would find a campground that wasn't full. I checked the book and sure enough it listed some beautiful but not so well known sites. The directions were easy to follow and I found a place to camp for the weekend. The descriptions of the two places I camped at matched the book exactly. I'll never travel in the Pacific Northwest again without taking this book along.

I used this book during a 45 day camping trip that included Oregon. The content is usually helpful, but sometimes misleading. The infomration about Page Springs was truly helpful and led to a delightful time, including a trip up the Steen Mouintains. The information about Two Pan, on the other hand, was misleading. Actually, beside the summary of Campgound Ratings, there is very little information. What is misleading is the description as five-star quiet and five-star cleanliness/upkeep. The campground is right next to a large parking lot with horses, donkeys and lamas all about and many, many cars and people. It is anything but quiet. It also looks quite unused and unkempt; no one was there when we visited it. Suggesting that is the "jumping off spot for extended backpacking" does not give an accurate picture.

In the front pages is a map of the campsites in Oregon and Washinton. The number then can be matched on another page with the name of the campground. That name can then be matched with a page number on yet another page! Not convenient or immediately obvious.

By all means use this book; but use it with care and intelligence.

Considering the multitude of campgrounds in Oregon and Washington that exist with the same qualities presented in this book, I'm not sure the 12 bucks will get you anymore information than you could get from a more comprehensive guidebook. But if you are a first time camper, it lists 50 of the finest campgrounds in the northwest.

Love the information in this book, hate the way the table of contents and map is set up. Very confusing and hard to find what you are looking for when you have to flip back and forth between a map, find the map number in the table of contents and THEN you can find your page number...why not just put the page number on the map? It's annoying.

I've purchased this whole series of books for the western US, plus a couple for the Northeast. These are the best books ever (only wish they would be on Kindle) for those who want to really camp, way away from RV's and such. In fact, if you're an RV "camper" (let's be honest, RV's are just houses, not really camping), this book is not going to be very useful to you.

First of all, these books are written by people who really go camping. They give excellent information about the best tent sites, the facilities available, what's nearby, and how to get there. Just be aware, that a lot of the sites are on Forest Service roads which may not be in conditions for cars. I'm a motorcycle camper who wants to get away from it all, and this book is perfect. The first few pages give a map that allows you to see locations near where you want to go, then you go to that page, and read the review. I actually found myself reading every page, because I saw things that I wanted to explore!

Given my enthusiasm, I think this books isn't 100% accurate, especially the locations near the big cities like Portland. Either everyone bought this book, or the authors haven't been there in a while. When I read a book that says "Hate RV's", I don't want to see them. I think that some of these campgrounds should ban RV's, which defeat the purpose of being away from those monstrosities to green. I haven't visited every campground, but I'd say this book works more often than not.

What I particularly like about the book is that it gives information about campgrounds that are unique, whether it's the river nearby or the hiking paths that you can take from the campground. If you want to get away from the noise and get into fresh air and solitude, these books are perfect. I've entered a few of my favorites into my GPS system for future returns, because they give you accurate GPS coordinates.

This book is a good launching point but it's not very in depth. There are no pictures, which I always like because it gives you a better idea of the place which you are about to embark on, and the directions are sad at best. In addition, the maps are confusing. There is one big map in the front cover showing all the camp sites, however, the major mountains are not on the map so if you were planning on camping near Mt. Rainer suppose, you would have only the most vaguest idea of where to look. And all the camp sites on the main map are numbered, however, in the body of the book, none of them are numbered, so it gets really confusing when trying to reference. Lastly, my hubby and I tried to go to a camp site in this book last month. The book stated that camping sites were available and come to find out, the park had changed the site to day use only over a year ago. :(

This is an okay starting point, but I would recommend spending a little more money and getting a Sullivan book.

this is a great book to piggy back the good ole foghorn pac nw series on hiking/camping. the tents sites are very spread out in this book(which has good&bad points) we love the premise of this book and keep it in the car next to our favorite (foghorn)!!