The Best in Tent Camping: New England: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos

by Lafe Low

If you subscribe to the opinion that televisions, Japanese lanterns, and electric guitars are not essential camping equipment, The Best in Test Camping should be your constant companion. The Best in Test New England is a guidebook for tent campers who like quiet, scenic, and serene campsites. It's the perfect resource if you blanch at the thought of pitching a tent on a concrete slab, trying to sleep through the blare of another camper's boombox, or waking to find your tent surrounded by a convoy of RVs. The Best in Tent New England will guide you to the quietest, most beautiful, most secure, and best managed campgrounds in the majestic Centennial State. Painstakingly selected from thousands of campgrounds in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Each campsite is rated beauty, noise, privacy, security, spaciousness, and cleanliness. Each campground profile provides essential details on facilities, reservations, fees, and restrictions, as well as an accurate, easy-to-read map, making the campground a snap to locate. (6 X 9, 256 pages, maps)

Genres: Travel, Reference

239 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

Reviews

[Amy]

Best Tent Camping New England is a good intro to campsites in the new england area. However, I would have appreciated more information about the activities available in and around the campsite, rather than a deluge of information solely about the sites themselves. My family is mostly interested in car camping as a way to defray costs associated with traveling far (2 or more hours) to get to beautiful hiking locations. Knowing that Gilson Campground is about a 5 minute drive to Mount Monadnock and accesible by hiking from the campground itself makes it very attractive because I know there are great hiking opportunities accessible without having to backpack. The same cannot be said of other campgrounds in the book, as their profiles do not contain information about what else is at the campground besides the campground and its facilities. Best Tent Camping New England is still a good place for start for those who have no idea where to start looking for good campgrounds or even what constitutes a good campground, though.

[Sarah]

SO helpful. finally, a series of books that give the same advice i would... if i'd been there before. i totally agree with the beartown (MA) notes; also gifford woods (VT). - what they don't mention about g.w. however, is that there are also amazing cabins available, should the weather take a turn for the worse.

the writing is descriptive, concise, helpful, and from what i have seen, honest. i am hoping that my next trip, based largely on camp/site suggestions from this book, holds true. if it does, this might just become my camping bible. :)

to note: i got the version for new york state as well, and have pinpointed a couple spots to try out, although i must admit... i feel a bit more trepidation there. i currently live in NYC, so i guess i just don't see NY as a great outdoors kind of state. we will see; i've decided it's worth a try!

[Marge Price]

Found a copy of 2nd edition at a yard sale....50 cents; score! Great reviews of the best campgrounds in NE. He is pretty spot on with his choices, as I've been to a handful of them. I really like how he gives you review, opinion and specs on sites. That will def help next time I want to pick my site! Looking forward to hopefully getting to one of the "kayak to" campgrounds!

[Danielle]

Great details about campgrounds in New England. I love that the author recommends specific sites at each campground as well as which sites to stay away from. Our family loves camping and we have lots of campgrounds marked to try this summer!

[bunnymouse 🐰🐭 alyssa]

Excellent book. Great suggestions. I booked several sites after reading. My one problem with it (& why it didn't get a 5 star) is the map numbers in the beginning don't correspond with the campsites suggested later on. Makes it difficult to find exactly where something is on the map.

[Aimee]

Gives very detailed descriptions of each and every tent site listed. This book has been very useful in determing where we camp.

[Sarah]

Organized in a strange and clunky manner, but the info has never lead us astray, and has, in fact, led us to some spectacular campsites.

[Arabesque]

If you want to camp in New England, and don’t like crowds or campers or noise, this book has the best spots!