13 Camping Essentials for City People

Queen-sized beds and collapsible hot tubs make the great outdoors even greater.

Even if you love living near a variety of good restaurants and actually-functional subway lines, you probably want to escape the city sometimes—especially in the summer. No matter how much of a city person you are, it’s inarguably nice to breathe air that doesn’t smell like broiling garbage, go swimming in unchlorinated water, and be allowed to build a bonfire without breaking multiple laws.

Camping can be great, but it’s been largely co-opted by the kind of dicks who think that if you want to bring along even the most basic creature comforts, you can’t call it “real” camping, as though sleeping in conditions that don’t leave you with a busted neck and a centipede on your face is somehow preferable. They can keep the title: “real” camping sucks. But we won’t refer to this as glamping, either. That portmanteau is second only to “vlog” in its grotesqueness. This is simply camping made actually enjoyable for people who know how to vacation well: with beds, music, and cocktails.