Throughout the past couple years, we have been attempting to find the best places to camp within a few hour drive of our home in St. Louis, Missouri. We started out with a tent and then quickly moved into the back of the truck to fulfill our Weekend Warrior Travel schedule. We’ve been trying to find a way to organize and rate the top places we have found for future travels as well as to share with all of you. We’ll rate each of the following categories on a scale of one to five with bulleted notes and photos for quick reference. Here’s a quick breakdown of our 6P system:
Points of Interest
What is there to explore in the area? Natural features? Historical sites? River access? Hiking? Depending on what we are hoping to accomplish on our trip, this can carry more or less weight. We try not to pack in too much in the itinerary, so usually we are looking for points of interest that we can walk to from camp, experience at camp, or within a short drive.
Planning
Vacation is supposed to be relaxing, right? All too often, we find ourselves in the throes of over-complicating packing, creating an itinerary, decision fatigue, and time keeping. This category is to account for how much planning is needed to make the trip happen: water access, convenience stores, cell service, etc.
Proximity
The majority of our trips will be within a 4 hour drive from St. Louis. While we look forward to a few larger trips through the year and in the future, this allows us to get outside once a month with minimal planning and finances. The goal of traveling is not to escape, but to dedicate sacred time to being fully present and getting in touch with ourselves and nature.
Privacy
Living in America, we are blessed with an abundance of National Parks and Conservation areas. We’ve had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people in these places! But, generally we are looking to get closer to nature and outside of the built environment. So typically, we are looking for a more private and primitive site to enjoy the sound of the river, do some yoga, watch the glow of the campfire, and enjoy the sunrise.
Parking
For most trips, we are camping out in the truck and need to be able to pull directly into the campsite. While we enjoy backpacking and getting off the beaten path, many of our trips are based around the comfort of the truck. So, this is an important factor to keep in mind.
Possibility
How many friends can come? Several of our trips are just the two of us and Dexter Dog, but we also want to know where we can comfortably bring friends and family to share in the fun. This also means looking at if four-wheel drive is needed to access it, and if it is suitable for tent-camping as well.
What do you look for in the ideal campsite? We’d love to learn about it!