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Campsite, campground, and camping pitch are all related terms regarding a place used for camping (an overnight stay in an outdoor area). The usage differs between British English and American English.
In British English, a campsite is an area, usually divided into a number of camping pitches, where people can camp overnight using , or caravans. In the US, the expression used is campground and not campsite. In American English, the term campsite generally means an area where an individual, family, group, or military unit can pitch a tent or park a camper; a campground may contain many campsites.
There are two types of campsites ( US) or pitches ( UK): one, a designated area with various facilities; or two, an impromptu area (as one might decide to stop while backpacking or hiking, or simply adjacent to a road through the wilderness).
Dedicated campsites, known as campgrounds, usually have some amenities. Common amenities include, listed roughly in order from most to least common:
Campgrounds may include further amenities:
Camping outside a designated campsite may be forbidden by law. It is thought to be a nuisance, harmful to the environment, and is often associated with vagrancy. However some countries have specific laws and/or regulations allowing camping on public lands (see Freedom to roam). In the United States, many national parks and have dedicated campsites and sometimes also allow impromptu backcountry camping by visitors. U.S. National Forests often have established campsites, but generally allow camping anywhere, except within a certain distance of water sources or developed areas. Camping may also be prohibited in certain ‘special areas’ of national forests containing unusual landforms or vegetation. And if conditions allow campfires, a campfire permit is required for campfires outside of developed campsites.
In Britain, it is more commonly known as wild camping, and is mostly illegal. However, Scotland has a relaxed view and wild camping is legal in most of Scotland.
In many parts of Canada, "roughing it" or "dormir a la belle etoile" (French) is considered to be wilderness camping on government owned, public land known as crown land and commonly called "the bush". There are no amenities of any kind and typically no development except for possibly logging roads or ATV trails, and few rules beyond the requirement in some provinces to move the site at least 100 metres every 21 days.
Both commercial and governmental campgrounds typically charge a nominal fee for the privilege of camping there, to cover expenses, and in the case of an independent campground, to make a profit. However, there are some in North America that do not charge a use fee and rely on sources such as donations and tax dollars. Staying the night in a big-box store parking lot is also common (called "boondocking"), and some retailers welcome RVs to their parking lots.
Holiday parks vary in size and type, as do the kinds of accommodation available within them. Caravans are a popular choice with holiday makers, and modern varieties come complete with features like double glazing and central heating, cookers, fridges, showers, hot/cold water supplies, electricity and gas mains input. A standard caravan is a single unit, built to a maximum of 14 feet wide.
Other types of mobile home include Lodges and Park Homes which are more expensive than caravans and offer more luxurious features. Higher end Lodges can be built using some of the same methods as traditional bricks and mortar buildings and include familiar materials like plasterboard and tongue and groove walls for an end result that's very similar to a standard house. A standard lodge uses similar materials as a standard caravan such as wood, gypsum board and plywood where the main difference being the extra width. Lodges and Parkhomes can come in sizes up to 22 feet wide and 45 feet long, making them a popular choice with big families and large groups.
Holiday homes can be rented on an ad-hoc basis or purchased – caravans can be purchased from around £30,000 while park homes and lodges can cost between £100,000 and £500,000.
Once purchased, holiday homes have various ongoing costs including insurance, site fees, local authority rates, utility charges, winterisation and depreciation. Depending on the holiday home and the park these costs can range from £1,000 to £40,000 per year.
While a handful of campgrounds, both public and private, could be found at tourist destinations, as late as 1936 it was still difficult to find places to stop along the route to these parks. Instead, it was common for motorists to pull off the road and set up camp on private property. This practice not only reinforced the negative, nomadic image of RV travelers, it was a detriment to expanding the trailer market. The Trailer Coach Manufacturers Association began to lobby states to establish sanitation standards and worked with civic and business leaders to establish additional campgrounds, emphasizing the economic benefits of a campground in their community. The Denver Civic Association wrote that a campground was just as essential to a town as a railway station. The trailer industry's efforts were effective. The number of campgrounds in the Trailer Travel Magazine's directory of campgrounds doubled to 1,650 by the end of 1936 and promised to double again by the end of 1937.
The campgrounds themselves also changed. Martin Hogue wrote, “The first public campgrounds in the United States were nothing more than large, dedicated clearings, free of trees, within which to concentrate groups of tourists.” A plant pathologist named Emilio Meinecke, was commissioned to study the effect of motor tourism in the Redwoods in 1929. Meinicke's recommendations explained that instead of allowing campers to park haphazardly within a park, the camper's impact on the environment could be minimized through campground roads forming a one-way loop leading to individual parking spurs next to each campsite. Although he would later continue to write of the effect of campers on nature, submitting a memorandum to the National Forest Service in 1935 entitled “The Trailer Menace,” he had established the basic design for campgrounds still used today.
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