My DW was negative a few years back. She knew of my craze about "safety". She used to get upset when I unplug ANY unused appliances around the house including the iron which she has left and is coming back to "in a few minutes". She has never adopted my view of being alert to possible sources of danger. And we almost always argued when we went shopping and I took a few extra jars of honey or poeanut butter.

It was something else that convinced her : higher food prices. So, now I buy most foods by the case, because it is the ECONOMICAL way !!! So there we go again : prepping camouflagued by something else.

Camping is about temporarily living elsewhere, usually with fewer modern conveniences, so yes it absolutely has relevance to survival/prep, whatever you call it. I've long camped for fun and don't need it as a ruse for acquiring survival gear.

I accelerated my camping gear acquisition twenty years ago precisely because a week-long series of ice storms and power outages made me thank God for the gear I had and its utility for comfortably surviving an emergency situation.

Car camping can be good practice for "bugging out" (my gear is always packed and I know how much can fit in and on the car and how long packing it takes) and for living in the backyard if need be because the house is uninhabitable for some reason. I have a teardrop trailer stored 100 miles west of Washington and that could prove useful in some evacuation scenarios.

After the week we've had around here (earthquake, Hurricane Irene), preparedness is a pretty common topic. Heck, since 9/11/01 it has been a perfectly normal conversation around here. But that's not to be confused with a TEOTWAWKI sort of focus. I'm not in that camp.

Nighthiker and Bacpacjac pretty much sum it up the best.

For us, camping and being prepared are one and the same. This does not matter if you are camping at a provincial or local state park or miles from the nearest civilization, there is a lot to be learned by simply camping that is easily applied in an urban setting. I would suspect that the recent hurricane/tropical storm that hit the US eastern starboard has a lot of people who have no power etc, using their camping gear and having their previously learned skills put to the test.

As for using camping to lure people into prepping, this not my style. I prefer to lure people into camping / hiking to learn about and enjoy the quiet peacefulness of the outdoors. This coming long weekend, we are taking my SO's 11 yr old niece on a 4 night / 5 day base camp and hiking trip where the nearest town will be 60 km away (35 miles.) Needless to say, niece is thrilled as her parents are not real outdoors people and this is her first time on a trip of this type. That to me, this is what it is all about...

You're right that these two camps are somewhat distinct socially, though they may overlap in function. I fall more into the prepper category. I love nature, but for me it's cheaper, less time-consuming, and far more convenient to go to the opera than to go camping. (I can tell you about surviving in the opera house. First rule: avoid any event that begins with "three.")

Does prepping derive from anxiety about the future of society? I'm not so sure. There has always been emergencies, natural or man-made. Emergency services are probably better today that they were 50 years ago (I'm just guessing here, so you SAR types feel free to correct me). I don't think civilization is going to fall apart, but I just don't want to take the chance of falling through the cracks of emergency services.

Now, a larger interesting issue, I think, is self-sufficiency vs. cooperation. (Am not trying to imply they are paragonal.) Observing the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster in Japan taught me that if we are able to prep and cooperate as a group, we can afford to do less as individuals. The Japanese maintained order voluntarily, there was virtually no looting or theft, lost properties were turned in to the authorities, people shared resources, made individual sacrifices for the group. As a result there was no mob chaos and additional man-made problems, stores remained open, and in general as much of normal life was preserved. This doesn't cost a cent. It takes a certain culture and a certain mode of behavior.

We, on the other hand, tend to focus on the materiel of preparation: which stove to get, which bag to get, etc. The assumption is that we're going to be on our own, in a possibly dog-eat-dog world. We regard this as self-sufficiency or personal responsibility. This is when some people start talking about "armament." Now, the Japanese do earthquake prep, etc., but I'll bet that they don't think much about armament. That just isn't a serious risk over there. We undertake greater expenses, at a greater individual cost, to prepare for disasters because our society tends more towards violence and selfishness in times of crisis. The chaos of Katrina is an example.

What is the point I'm making? I have no delusions about the pros and cons of Japanese culture, I hope, but I do think that prepping does not have to be equated with self-sufficiency or some analogue of camping. After all, our civilization is in a sense a big survival project. It is a complex network that transforms hostile nature into an inhabitable environment where a person does not have to spend all his time and energy finding the next meal. We pool our resources in order to afford services that we individually cannot afford: emergency services, policing, firefighting, education, etc. That might have been what happened in Japan: people were collectively sufficient in crisis, even though individually they were probably nowhere nearly as well-equipped. (I don't think camping is such a big hobby over there.) By contrast, in American culture we have this lone cowboy mentality, and as long as we are all lone cowboys, we cannot join force and make surviving in emergencies easier. I know some people on this forum are attempting to network via homeowners associations and such, but I look at my neighbors and am filled with pessimism.

Da Bing

IMO, recreational camping IS survival minus the urgency and possible misery.

The equipment and skills learned and refined in camping, backpacking, and hiking would transfer to nearly any survival scenario.

Look at refugee camps and in this country, depression 'ditch camps' for a look at what happens in hard times. Although dirty and ill-equipped, these people are 'hiking and camping for their lives'.

practical handgun shooting has been my principal hobby for the last 30 years...it has morphed into serious 3 gun competition in the last 15 or so...from comments, a lot of the members of this forum are firearm owners, but without competition how do you judge your skill level or competence? ....I go out of my way to promote the sport shooting games like USPSA/IPSC, and multi gun competition...although ammunition is some what expensive, compared to other hobbies it is not out of line...