I have always camped. Have hardly slept in hotels during vacations.
As a child, there was a long period of time where my parents couldn't afford to go on holiday. Then we stayed at home, at the local swimming pool or at the beach, one hour driving away. When I was 12 we started camping with car and 2 tents. I really liked it, especially when the campsite was small and charming. I really hate big, crowded campsites.
As an adult I have always been camping. It started with carrying a backpack and tents on our backs and following marked hiking routes in Britain. Sometimes taking a B&B when the weather was awful. Now we hike a lot in Norway in the mountains, improvising our own route by reading a map. The main goal is fishing for big trout. We often do this for a week at the time, as that is about the maximum weight we can carry on our backs. We eat dried food, since a year or 2 those dried meals are homemade. In those areas in the summer, the bugs are terrible. That is why our tent has a good mosquito netting. The rest of the time I cover in long clothing, wear a cap with mosquito netting and put DEET on any parts that are uncovered, as well as on my face when eating.
Still, sometimes these camping places we find out in the wild are very special. I really love the fact that we are in a quiet place that seems quite untouched.
When we are not hiking in the mountains during a vacation, we are car camping. That is quite different. We usually stay at camp sites where there are other people. We try to pick small campsites, with not too many camper vans. But those small campsites are often disappearing when the owners become pensioners. The big ones remain. As long as we find a nice one, we enjoy it. We still sleep in a small tent, but the very smallest. We now have a 3-persons tent with 2 entrances and equally high over the whole length. This is a lot more comfortable than the older tiny tents we used to have.
Sleeping on the ground on a thin foam mattress has never been nice for my back. But we now have mattresses that are comfy enough and still light weight. On car camping trips, we just buy food at the grocery stores and prepare it on the primus.
I don't think we will be car camping with a tent forever. We might fall for the temptation of buying a camper van, as we have already started to discuss it. Just to make it easier to camp other places than on campsites. It is easier to park a van than to find a parking place with a good pitching ground. And to make it more comfy to sleep. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that so many people are camping in campers nowadays, that we are often the only ones on the campsite staying in a tent. And then I sometimes feel slightly awkward about it, sitting on the ground, cooking on the primus.
In general, when tent camping in the wilderness, on a days that the mosquitos are behaving well, I fell rich. Doing the same thing on a campsite I sometimes feel poor. This has to do with seeing many other people staying in a more luxury way close by. My conclusion: maybe we should concentrate on staying in the wilderness.