I am at crossroads, so to speak. Most of my adult life has been pure wilderness hiking and camping where seldom, we would stay put for more then one night. Meaning, hiking all day, setup an expedient overnight camp, next morning pack up the camp then repeat for as many days as planned.

Now I find that although I enjoy hiking, the overnight hiking / overnight camping adventure is getting old, and not just for me but also for my SO. As well, some of our friends in the same age group (<<50 yrs old) feel the same. Perhaps it is not as much as the adventure getting old...rather it is us getting older.

What I am now finding to be more enjoyable is to setup a decent and better stocked camp with also a larger tent. This setup is then used as a jumping off point for a more broader mix of day hiking, fishing, canoeing etc where you can choose any given activity or all on the same day if we want to and still return to camp to sit around the fire later at night enjoying good company and conversation and not have to worry that we need to be up at 4:00 am, packed and on the trail an hour later.

By taking this approach and now with a much bigger vehicle, we can take all the various gear with us and not worry about if we go multi-day hiking, we cannot take the canoe etc due to the previous space constraints and also time constraints. Also in my area, the option to stay in place longer opens a lot more options in terms of suitable locations and distance as we fortunate to have virtually unlimited camping anywhere whether it be at a rudimentry .gov forest recreation site that only offers a pit toilet and a fire ring or just at the end of a forest service road turnaround/turnout 60-70 miles from the nearest civilization.

That all said, I still enjoy some multi-day hikes with overnight camping, albeit in smaller quantities. Next month i have a 6-7 day solo hike and perhaps a 4-5 day solo in late September but that will be it for this year which this is the least I have done in years. For next year, I have a 12-14 day solo tentatively planned of which, in all probability, will be my last big solo in terms of duration, but who knows what the future holds...