Is there such a thing as a "New Jersey Camping Guide"?
Yes and no.
There are a couple of "guides" out there that talk about New Jersey camping areas and facilities. There is one that I think is really, really good. My only problem with them is that they don't seem to be complete to me.
They talk about camping in the northwestern part of the state, they talk about the shore regions, they talk about the pine barrens but unfortunately none of them seem to be as complete as I would like to see. It might be that the publication might be focused on one particular region and cover that region incredibly well but they might not be as familiar with the Skylands region or the Gateway region.
Here is what I would like to see in a New Jersey Camping Guide:
1. Cover each of the six major regions in the Garden state: Skyland, Gateway, Shore, Delaware, Atlantic and Southern.
2. List each and every known campground, public and private, that can be verified to exist at the time of publishing.
3. Give details of each campground to include at least:
a. Contact Info: address, phone, email, web address, etc…
b. Proximity to major attractions: beach, theme parks, cultural areas
c. Campground Map
d. Size of Sites
e. Prices for sites
f. Details of facilities: pool, playground, lake, fishing, sports, arts & crafts, etc…
g. General Info: do they charge for visitors, how many vehicles can be on site, cancellation policy, etc…
h. Calendar of Events
i. Dates of Operation
j. Some reviews of facility
4. List Major attractions for each region:
a. Theme parks
b. Beaches
c. Arts
d. Sports Arenas
e. Local Attractions
f. Anything that a tourist or local would like to visit
5. Provide details of the type of camping available in each region. Mountainous area? Sandy area? Lots of grass? Traffic congestion? etc…
6. Average temperatures in region during "normal" camping season (March to November).
I'm basically looking for a camping guide that I can turn to that will answer just about any question I have about where to go camping in New Jersey. I don't want to have to look in this guide if I want to camp down south, another one if I want to camp up north and then have to look online for average temperatures, local attractions and campground prices.
See when my family and I plan out our camping schedule for the year (usually in February) we usually sit down around the kitchen table with our calendar(s) and try to plan a trip or two per month from March to November (we would go all year round but my wife refuses to go camping when the temperature doesn't even have the chance to go above freezing!). Right now when we do this I grab the couple of guides I have, our calendars, our maps of the state and my laptop and it takes us multiple hours to do this planning. If there was a single exhaustive guide as I am suggesting it would make our lives and our planning much, much simpler.
I don't even know of any website that has all of that information in one place including mine!
Till Next Time…
Eric
