Theft and tent camping
I used to go tent-trailer camping as a kid ('60s and '70s, west coast US and Canada) and don't recall worrying about people going into our campground and stealing things. Now I'm thinking about getting back into camping (tent, not tent-trailer, and now in New England), and am worried that, if we pitch a tent, then go off to the beach or something, someone will steal our stuff.
Is that a reasonable concern? If so, is there something I can do to keep from getting ripped off?
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I've probably been car camping at a public campground a few 100 nights in my life. Of all those, I can only remember having stuff stolen from the campsite once. For some of the early experiences I was too young to remember such things, but I didn't hear any stories of getting ripped off from my parents either.
The one time was when my son and I went to the White Mountains of NH for a few days. We stayed at the Russell Pond Campground in Thornton and Woodstock. It must have been around 2000 since my son was in grade school at the time. We left a Coleman stove and a pot on the table in our campsite and went hiking for the day. When we came back, the stove was gone. This stove was at least 45 years old, and not particularly valuable monetarily. Fortunately a neighbor let us cook our dinner on their stove.
It turns out this was just some urchins going around and causing trouble in the campground. Apparently the police got envolved due to other things these kids did, but didn't know about our stove until after they let them go.
So the answer is, don't leave obviously valuable things in plain sight, but things are generally safe. However, you can't count on your stuff being absolutely safe in any one instance.
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In most places I think the risk of theft while camping is generally low. People who choose to do camping for their holiday often don't give the impression of having lots of expensive gear. Even if some camping gear is quite expensive you either need specialist knowledge to know its value and/or its resale value is quite low. Added to the relatively low payoff there are often people around campsites even during the day (although this varies a lot by location) which would increase the risk of thieves getting caught. Therefore, campsites rarely attract dedicated thieves.
However, you are still leaving all you possessions in your tent easily accessible/unlocked so some precautions are advisable. Mainly, I would try and lock any valuables, particularly electronics, in your car or similar. At least hide then somewhere not obvious.
While things such as sleeping bags can have significant value I think the chance of anyone stealing them is very low. Personally, I would be more concerned about people breaking into my house while I was away.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/8714. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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