Last weekend when my husband Tom and I pulled into our campsite I immediately knew there were going
to be problems. We had a campground neighbor that broke three of the six campground camping
etiquette unwritten rules that I'm gonna tell you about and it really put a damper on my weekend.
And I don't want you to be one of those people. So please watch this full video. Hi, I'm Randi and
every Thursday I help weekend warriors make big memories in small campers. If you're an RV newbie,
and we all were at one time, you may not know that their unwritten campground rules also known as
campground etiquette. So how do you stop people from thinking you're a campground [ __ ]? By
following these unwritten rules. So I have to tell you what happened last weekend when I was camping.
We arrived at the campground on a Friday afternoon around three o'clock. And as we were
getting closer to our campsite we heard some loud music. And I mean it was loud. When we pulled into
our campsite I realized that this loud music was coming from the campsite right across the street
from ours. So this is my campsite and it was a really nice campsite with a lake view. As we
unhitched our Little Guy Max and got unpacked the music just continued to play. Now I was thinking
to myself this is a bad sign. But I thought hey at least they're playing classic rock and roll
from the 70s and 80s and this is music that I like. They were playing Journey, and Aerosmith,
and Tom Petty. So it was really good music. So the first unwritten rule is noise control. Now, most
campgrounds have quiet hours usually between 10 pm and 7 a.m but regardless if it's quiet hour or not
you should never play loud music or make noise that's going to affect your other campground
neighbors. Especially for extended periods of time. This is not good campground etiquette.
With that said this also pertains to your voice. They were playing the music so loud
they had to talk really loud to hear themselves. And they were dropping a lot of f-bombs. So not
only could I hear the music as if it was playing right next to my ear I could hear what they were
saying. And these weren't conversations that I wanted to hear. If you're going to have a
party with loud music a campground's just not the place to do it. Unfortunately, they played
their music all weekend long. It was playing when I woke up and it was playing when I went to bed.
The next unwritten rule that my noisy campsite neighbors made was not controlling their dog.
Their dog was just as loud as they were and they allowed their dog to continuously keep on barking.
Now I know dogs are gonna bark. In fact my dog Princess she'll bark any time another dog is
walking by our campsite but I don't allow her to continue on barking. If you're a pet owner it's
your responsibility to supervise them. And dogs also need to be kept on a leash at all times.
Last year when I was walking Princess at a campground another dog just came running up to us
and in a flash I heard Princess yelp out loud like I've never heard her yelp before. I was so scared.
I didn't know what had happened. Thank goodness I didn't find any bite marks on her. So please keep
your pets leashed so you can control them. While I'm talking about pets the next rule is probably
a written rule but it's one that I see that people don't often follow. And this one really gets me.
You need to always pick up after your dog. I don't want to walk by a pile of doggy doo doo or worse
case step in it. It's really easy to carry doggie bags with you when your dog's outside. Please get
in the habit of doing this. Now I'm guilty of breaking the next unwritten rule but first,
I want to know what is your number one pet peeve that you've seen other campers do? And let me know
if you think I've missed an unwritten rule in the comment section below. Okay as I said this next
unwritten rule is one that I've broken and that is never walk through someone else's campsite. I know
I did this a few times when I started camping. If I saw there was access to a hiking trail
I'd cut through someone else's campsite to get to it or if I needed to get to the dumpster and
walking through someone else's campsite was the shortcut I'd take it. Now looking back I know why
I got so many unfriendly looks. When somebody's occupying a campsite it's theirs, not yours. It's
rude to traipse through someone else's space. Now that this has happened to me I understand
why people get annoyed when someone does this. And there were numerous times that my noisy campsite
neighbors ran across my campsite to get to the lake. It wouldn't have been much further of a walk
if they had walked down the road to get to the lake. I kind of think they knew they were doing
something wrong and that's why they were running so fast every time they ran across my campsite.
The unwritten rule number five is don't put trash in your fire pit. I can't tell you how many
campsites I've been to where people leave trash in their fire pit. A fire pit is not a trash can. I
don't want your trash in my fire pit so take your trash with you and clean up after yourself. And if
you do get to a campsite and there is trash around just pick it up and leave the campsite cleaner
than how you found it. Unwritten rule number six is don't approach somebody when they're backing up
into their campsite or they're hitching up to leave unless they ask you to. It can be stressful
for the person that's backing up into a campsite or hitching up to leave. Even if you're just
trying to help or you just want to say goodbye this is not the time to be chatty. There are
important steps to the hitching up process and if I'm in the middle of doing this and someone comes
up and starts chatting with me I may forget one of the important steps I need to do. So let people
focus on what they need to be focusing on during these situations. There are more common mistakes
that RV newbies make and in this video right up here are tips and tricks to help you avoid making
those rookie mistakes. So click on this video right now or if you don't see a video here I'll
also leave the video in the description below and I can't wait to see you over in that video next.