Oh gosh I'd love to go hammocking....but....

[MacCherokee]

Some county sites a a available in 2 adjacent counties- but they are $35 a night for out of county reservations!
2-3 hours to Allegheny national forest or 3-5 to Wayne or Monongahela.
My little finger of woods between two fields is an option if I am hard pressed to get out and can't spare the time to drive.

OP, are you in a an urban area?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DragonGuide]

Wow! I wasn't expecting such a response from everyone, If I knew so many of you were replying I would have checked back in sooner!

I live in Houston Tx, so yes, super urban area. The first "hour" of the prospected 2-3 hour trip to a campsite is simply getting out of the city. (Even then I fear suburbia is going to be terribly close even then.) Sadly, moving out of the state isn't an option, and no family or friends with land nearby. I'm orginally from eastern OK and used to being surrounded by the woods 24/7. It's sure a jungle here, but when it's made of concrete it's not nearly as nice as the real thing. Ha. We do plan on going camping back in OK, but that needs more than a weekend trip, as it's a 9hr drive to make it there.

I have actually looked into the hangouts thread, and we did manage to snag a site at Fairfield Lake SP thanks to reccomendations from here. I wish we could go in November for the group meetup, but we already have plans for that weekend. Unfortunately, it's still going to be roughly a 4-5 hour trip to get there. I really wouldn't mind the drive, if it weren't for the fact that we can only go on a normal weekend schedule. Leaving Friday, coming back Sunday. 4 hours there and 4 hours back takes up a lot of time we could be spending with our butts in a hammock.

@CampDavid - We're in the same situation. The 2-3 hour range is for state parks, with tiny overcrowded camps. But we are still newbies when it comes to hiking or backpacking, so we don't feel as comfortable with the idea of backpacking into a national forest. Having no access to water unless we carry it in, gear being overly heavy because most of our stuff is hand-me-down or intended for car camping, among other issues. Our goal is to use the campsites at the parks to test out our equipment and get comfortable with everything where if we completely screw it all up, we just rent a cabin or shelter for the night, or drive home. Instead of having to "rough it" in the middle of nowhere, or having to hike out in the middle of the night for 2 hours to reach the truck.

For now I guess we'll just have to plan our trips well in advance, and use the REI Garage sale this weekend to keep us busy in the meantime.

[karbo]

The way i solved it was to go buy my own land. I have 28 acres of pretty much all woods. I camped there last night. I am thinking about letting hammockers come in and camp. It's private and really no rules as long as people behave. It's a natural area plenty of firewood i have a well and electricity. It is on 34 between Kaufman and Ennis Texas in a town called Scurry. If you need a place get in touch with me, well see what we can work out. I am the only one that uses it. I am planning on putting in some trails and trying to fix it up for hammockers to come play with there stuff. It's about 45 mins to a hour out of Dallas. Hope this helps and happy hanging.

[McPickle]

The way i solved it was to go buy my own land. I have 28 acres of pretty much all woods. ....... Hope this helps and happy hanging.

Wow, that's really nice of you. It's really hard when you live in a place like DFW to find a good place anywhere close by.

[medinfoto]

I really feel for you guys. Used to live in Atlanta but was not into outdoor activities then; these days I am in Sweden which makes things a bit easier. This is how it works here, per Wikipedia:
"Allemansrätten gives a person the right to access, walk, cycle, ride, ski, and camp on any land—with the exception of private gardens, the immediate vicinity of a dwelling house and land under cultivation. Restrictions apply for nature reserves and other protected areas. It also gives the right to pick wild flowers, mushrooms and berries (provided one knows they are not legally protected), but not to hunt in any way. Swimming in any lake and putting an unpowered boat on any water is permitted unless explicitly forbidden. "

I generally just wander out wherever it looks interesting.

[UncleMJM]

In the Houston area there are a lot of options, however the weekend you picked may have been part of the challenge. A lot of schools are out for Columbus Day so many families are making that an extended weekend and when that happens sites fill quickly. State parks do allow site reservation months in advance.

Within a short drive from Houston is the Sam Houston National Forest, and there are many options for camping on public land there. There's also, to the south, Brazos Bend State Park which is hammock friendly and Huntsville State Park to the north. Both tend to fill rather quickly since they are the closest to the big city.

There are a lot of folks from Texas on here and many go on hangs throughout the year so keep watching the threads for planning outings.