So Many Scouts<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nScout groups often make their summer camping plans at Texas State Parks (there aren’t really that many options besides the State parks). It’s happened to me several times where I’ve gone to bed around 9:00 or 9:30 and a group of scouts arrive late and set up their tents while I’m trying to sleep. This happened at Lost Maples one year and there were 6 or so vehicles that arrived, packed with 8-11-year-old scouts, at 10 PM. I’m glad I had earplugs that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Close Neighbors<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Texas is a wonderful state and has so many wonderful aspects to it. One struggle is the camping situation. Texas State Parks are an amazing reprieve from our busy lives but they are limited in supply. Consequently, many parks are full during the peak camping months. Several of the campgrounds are not planned with neighbor distance in mind so you may find yourself camping near many more people than you might have imagined. Most neighbors I’ve camped next to have been courteous but not all have. Earplugs help in some of those situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noiseless Nights<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Now, animal noises wouldn’t be so bad if there was some wind to help mask the inevitable night sounds. But one time, while camping in the Hill Country Natural Area during the summertime, I decided to sleep in a hammock and experienced the noiseless summer Texas night phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was about 3 AM in the morning and there wasn’t a sound. No wind. No insects, just silence. That silence unnerved me far more than anything else. To make it worse occasionally in the dead silence I heard the sound of wild hog and even a turkey in the distance. In the silence, those sounds were really hard to ignore without any wind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earplugs help to mitigate this situation because you can hear the sound of your own ears with earplugs and it provides a sort of white noise that can help you sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plan 2 Months Ahead<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
One thing you might not think about is that all the campsites might be taken, already! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Texas State Parks, especially during and after certain pandemics that shall remain nameless, are chock full–all the time. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn order to even camp at many state parks, you have to plan way <\/strong>in advance. Two months is a good amount of time where you’re likely to be able to find a spot. Weekends are notoriously packed<\/strong> so taking off work for a weekday is a good option. <\/p>\n\n\n\nConclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I hope this guide has been helpful for you. The bulk of it was about staying cool but there are a lot of other summer-related camping stuff to know about. Be safe and enjoy this beautiful part of the country! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wanted to write this post because I’ve camped several times in Texas during the summer and I definitely did hate myself. Southeast Texas summers are brutal–but I’ve learned some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":24,"label":"Camping"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/texas_hill_country_natural_area-1024x768.jpg",640,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Peter","author_link":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/author\/outsidedecider\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":24,"name":"Camping","slug":"camping","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":24,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":132,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","cat_ID":24,"category_count":132,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Camping","category_nicename":"camping","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4726"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7179,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4726\/revisions\/7179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decideoutside.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}