Customer Reviews

Roughing It Easy

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is super. It has practical and down to earth suggestions for real families, who use the local supermarket for their supplies. Thomas reassures you that you don't have to be a super jock camper or a back packer to enjoy the outdoors in comfort, or with small children.

I especially liked her suggestions for adapting camping tools, supplies and techniques to emergency conditions. It cuts through all the hype and doomsday scenario planning for Y2K with thoughtful and sensible suggestions.

I found her directions for putting together a family emergency kit with specific suggestions for the amount of food, water and sanitary supplies very helpful. In earthquake country we need to be prepared now.

So many of her tips were so simple, but so elegant. The constant hot water tank, the grooming apron and the nifty night time toilet tissue container were worth the price of the book alone. Then add the emergency toilet in a five gallon bucket...and the source phone number for getting a snap on toilet seat, and I was a convinced.

This is a must have book...not just for campers but for all of us that need to be prepared to use what we have around the house to keep ourselves and our families warm, fed and clean when our regular services are non-operable.

I first read this book as a teenage boy scout. I had camped once a month for many years and had tried all kinds of tricks to save money when camping, make your own gear, fun outdoor recipes, etc. but this book had tons of new ideas I had never heard of. 20 years after the first edition of this book means the author has updated it to our times, but it still great. This has always been indespensable to me. It really has made camping more fun and I reccommend it to anyone that takes kids camping, but you don't have to have them to try this stuff.
Lots of delicious recipes and methods to cook, but other stuff on first aid and making your campsite comfortable in many ways is featured. Features many ways to build a fire, how to make firestarters to speed up your firestarting, make your own waterproof matches, make your own campstove.

She shows you how to make a meal in a hollowed orange (cake in an orange!)or onion nestled in the coals! Cook eggs on a flat rock, recipes to cook on sticks, in foil, etc. Lots of ideas for home made items that will save you time and money in the woods. A hot water tank that sits in the fire; an outdoor sink made in seconds with a shovel and garbage bag; how to keep your pans clean the easy way; packing lists; use a can for a rolling pin in a pich; how to make lanterns from cans. One of my favorits was the tiny stove you make out of a coffee can. How to make a reflector oven for the woods, and 3 more types of ovens. (how about a cardboard box for an oven, it works).

Other books published since have borrowed some ideas from this one, but they were here first. Pictures and sketches on nearly every page are very helpful. The writing style is fun and easy to read.

"Roughing It Easy", volumes 1 and 2, were originally published in the 70s; this book is a combination of those two books in a "slick" package, but some of the information has been updated very little, if at all, and, in some cases, is still impractical or too complicated for most families. The "completely revised and updated" statement on the book's cover seems to refer to a section on solar cooking (with detailed instructions on constructing a parabolic-shaped solar cooker) and an "updated" recipe for s'mores. Most of the illustrations and several of the cooking/camping techniques are from the original editions of the books, and more than one shows its age - a wooden crate (p. 36 - haven't seen one of these in years); cutting "green sticks" for cooking? (hardly environmentally sound and illegal in all public campgrounds that I know of); aluminum muffin tins for open-fire cooking? (the light-gauge aluminum now available melts too easily for this technique); tent illustrations and other product-content descriptions that are outdated and non-specific (no dome tents? no specifics or name mentions on "synthetics", e.g., Polartec, Quallofill, Supplex, etc.); thread spools on a coat hanger for hot dog, etc. cooking? ( p. 140 In the 70s, wooden spools were available, but they've been plastic for a long time now, and wire coat hangers usually have a coating on them that can be unsafe when in contact with food).

The "new" book also leaves out some of the better recipes that kids like, e.g., "campfire stew", but includes heating a TV dinner! The recipes rely heavily on additive and preservative-laden "convenience foods", and canned foods, and fresh vegetables/fruit are rarely mentioned. And, my favorites, cooking on the car manifold, cooking hamburger on a shovel and hot dogs on a pitchfork!

There IS good information in the book - the old "tin can" stove, fire building, "oven" baking, different cooking techniques, and several other things - but impractical ideas and "equipment-rich" or complicated techniques, e.g., the "vertical spit", pp. 144-145, are too common.

Unfortunately, there are few, if any, books of this type available to the "novice" camping public; the book's continuing popularity confirms this. Perhaps a thorough "update" and revision of the book's material, photographs, and techniques is planned; it would be welcome, in my opinion.

This book would be great if you a) had never been camping; b)were trying to spend the least possible amount of money on campingequipment; or c) just enjoyed reading about surviving on little or nothing. But for my family (we're mainly car campers, already outfitted with tent, sleeping bags, and Coleman stove) it is nearly useless. I was mainly looking for creative recipes that are easy to fix outdoors, but there are only a few recipes, and about half of them are impractical for us. Lots of info about cooking without a stove, choosing a tent and sleeping bags, etc. OK, but not very useful to me.

This book is directed towards the campers that are like me- I prefer to be as comfortable as possible and give up as little as possible in the way of money, comfort, and ease.

This book is not directed towards those campers who are like my husband- the ones who want to go out and camp for more than a few days and are willing to live off the land. Although, even my husband found a few good ideas in here.

Dian Thomas provides a wealth of information regarding camping. She has many lists that are very useful, including what to carry with you when camping, a simple first aid kit, a preparedness pack and more. She has diagrams and drawings for creative ideas; for example, how to make a toilet paper holder that will keep the toilet paper clean, out of the dirt, easy to transport, and cheap to make. She also provides some good information regarding picking out camping gear (but this is not the majority of the book).

My only comment would be that if you tried to do all of this, you would have a car full of stuff. You will have to pick and choose what is important to you.

Very useful book. I'm glad I bought it. I have picked up quite a few hints on camping and roughing it with kids.

This little book is filled with information to get novice campers started out on the right foot, and yet has plenty of material to interest experienced campers. It includes the basics of camping, such as equipment lists, meal planning hints, unique outdoor recipes, basic safety, and environment-friendly camping techniques which should be of particular interest to new campers. In addition, it covers topics of interest to seasoned campers - everything from cooking with minimal utensils to creating your very own solar stove.

I've been camping with my Eagle-Scout son many times, yet this book suggested some new ideas which made us both say, "Why haven't we thought of *that* before?" This is an excellent companion book for planning a camping trip, whether this is your first trip, or your hundred-and-first, and will give its readers some fun things to try.

I had my "book searcher" searching for this book for the longest time it seems. Then I received it and used some of the menus and enjoyed them so much I had to search for "Roughing it Easy 2". I am a Girl Scout trainer and this book has proved itself again and again for great ideas! Not only are the ideas realtively simple but the girls enjoy recipes that let you cook "in the dirt"! I recommend this to anybody who loves to cook in a camping setting and doesn't always want to be "tending the fire"!

This really is a cool book, with all sorts of ideas for cooking in the outdoors, many that I had never thought of, (like cooking eggs and bacon in a bag stuck on a stick over the fire). The first part of the book talks about outdoor cooking at home, and has some neat frugal ideas for outdoor parties, then the book delves into camping for a chapter or so. (Dian has some really good organizational ideas for large and small groups.) The last 3/4 of the book is devoted to camp cooking. The ideas for cooking over the fire are really cool, and for someone who has done only a bit of camping and car camping at that, really unusual. However, if you like your food fresh and not from a can or packet, the recipes are pretty useless. Here are your cakes made from cake mix and canned fruit, casseroles with cream of whatever soup and all sorts of seasoning packets. If this sort of thing does'nt bother you, then the book should be perfect, if you're a health nut like me, it will.

I first read this book many years ago when my family consisted of 5 children between 1 and 10. Having humor to help me out was a godsend. We still laugh at the face drawn on the bleach bottle when we wash up, and at the thought of cooking the dinner on the old car's manifold. There were so many simple, common sense ideas that camping became a fun challenge instead of a horror! Today my kids take their little ones on the Dian Thomas method of camping. Through the years we have adapted so many of Dian's ideas to make camping easier. We look forward to each new book and the great ideas which seem to be never ending. Keep up the great ideas, Dian, and Thank You!

What a great camping resource! It's worth it just for the creative recipes and techniques for cooking in your fireplace. The photos and illustrations are helpful. I can't wait to read the "Backyard" edition!