Pampered Campers

First there is the search for a level patch of ground, then the epic struggle to pitch the tent. After that, the traditional U.S. camper eats out of cans, bathes in an icy stream, and strangles in his clammy sleeping bag--all the while fending off the onslaughts of hungry bears and raccoons and innumerable species of creepy crawly insects.

Who needs it?

Not the pampered and affluent sons of the pioneers. Using a variety of camping trailers and buses that can cost as much as $20,000, today's campers are increasingly taking all the comforts of home into the wilderness, or what passes for it. Actually, most pampered campers turn up their noses at campgrounds that do not offer all the necessities: umbilicals for electricity, water and sewage, plus coin-operated washing machines and dryers, vending machines and infra-red ovens that will cook up a hamburger in 30 seconds.

Cruising on Land. Thus equipped, the new breed of pioneers can gather around the old late show on TV, sleep beneath their toasty-warm electric blankets, and wake up to shave with plug-in razors while the coffee makers perk merrily away. If the old object of camping as a spartan way of getting back to nature has thereby been lost, it is beside the point.

"As far as we're concerned, we're roughing it now," said Daniel Hawley, lounging with his wife in front of their self-contained, $13,000 Cortez bus camper, while their three children splashed in the swimming pool at Florida's Fiesta Key Resort. Near by, Joseph Haigh and his wife took the sun beside their Dodge camper, a 27-ft.-long bus that, when fully equipped with stainless-steel galley, stall shower, toilet and bunks for six, can cost more than $16,000. "We're land cruisers now," says Haigh, who gave up a lifetime of boating after it got to be too much work.

So popular have camper buses become that of the 1,400 families that "safaried" into West Springfield, Mass., recently for a gathering of the New England Chapter of the Family Camping Association, only 462 came with tents or tent trailers; the rest arrived in motorized cabins on wheels. "It's not the camping, it's the traveling," explained Connecticut's Earl Ferrin, father of three. "We couldn't afford it using motels." Ferrin, who had not camped a day in his life until last year, when he converted a 60-passenger school bus, is planning to pack his family along to Montreal's Expo 67 this summer.

Seducing the Diehards. For the budget-minded, refurbishing old buses is the cheapest route to luxury camping. "We went tenting in the Smoky Mountains one time and spent an entire week inside the tent in the rain," recalls Bill Roberts of Clearwater, Fla. No more. Roberts and his wife spent $2,000 buying and transforming an old bus into a mobile three-room apartment, now go out almost every weekend with friends who own similar rigs. Camper buses are ideal for families with children. Reason: the kids get less restless en route because they have room to play in and bunks to nap on, not to mention refrigerators to snack from and --best of all--toilets.

Indeed, mobile campers are even seducing diehard outdoorsmen from their old ways. "The family got so big that it took forever to organize with a tent," says Myrtle Savoie of Ludlow, Mass. Though Mrs. Savoie has been tenting for years, she now takes to the road with her husband, seven children and 69-year-old mother-in-law in their converted bus. "With our camper," she explains happily, "everything is built right in. We just add food and clothes and take off."

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