MOTOR CAMPING
CHAPTER I
OVER THE HORIZON LINE
Introductory—Extent and Growth of Motor Camping—The Touring Spirit—The Economy of Motor Camping—Week-enders.
Most of us are possessed of the desire to be somewhere else. Since the dawn of history hordes of men have pressed into new countries. Sometimes the expeditions have been in search of food and plunder, but mixed in with these motives has been the human passion for something better, the hope for sunnier scenes lying over the horizon.
Hemmed in by the restrictions of modern business life, people no longer, even in this Western World, move by tribes or companies into new homelands. But the restlessness remains.
In the United States a new and increasing way of satisfying this desire for recreation and adventure has swept over the country. Motor camping has become a leading national pastime. Thousands play golf every year, tens of thousands play tennis, hundreds of thousands engage in baseball, but in the past few years millions have gone in for motor camping. There are over ten million cars in this country. Each [[2]]year the number is increasing, and each year the number of families that join the national horde of motor campers mounts higher.
The New York Times estimates that at least five million cars were used in camping trips during the past year.
The number of visitors to the National Forests alone now mounts up into the millions. As far back as 1917 the U. S. Forest Service reported a total of three million tourists during the summer. In 1922 this had increased to 5,350,000, of which 3,692,000 were motorists. The motoring visitors to the National Parks during the past season totaled nearly 700,000. More than three-fifths of those visiting the National preserves to-day come by motor car and a large proportion of these are touring campers.
In Colorado during 1922 there were 1,173,000 motorists visiting the parks and forests in that state, as compared with 277,000 who traveled by other means.