Oregon Camping

The Complete Guide to Tent and RV Camping

Fifth Edition
By: Tom Stienstra
Series: Moon Outdoors
ISBN-13:1640498079
Pages: 432
Price: $19.95 US
Published: April 2018

If you are looking for the perfect place to camp in Oregon, your trip starts with Moon Oregon Camping. Stienstra brings you: descriptions of camping options, ranging from state park campgrounds to RV parks; complete contact information and summaries of each campground’s scenic features, facilities, and nearby recreation opportunities; expert tips on gear, safety, and first aid, weather, low-impact camping, and camping with kids; easy-to-use regional maps, driving directions to each campground, and details on fees, reservation services, and helpful websites.

If this book looks different than anything you have ever seen about Oregon, that is because it is.

We have made it a personal mission to win your trust and put the best of Oregon’s great outdoors right in the palms of your hands in this book.

In this mission to make Oregon Camping your book of choice, we started by incorporating the information collected over the course of 25 years of roaming around the West as full-time outdoors writers. We then faxed out 700 pages of galley proofs to more than 100 rangers and recreation specialists at field offices, as well with the owners of each privately-owned and operated park. In the process, each word of every page has been reviewed by three or four specialists, with hundreds of people involved in polishing the final product.

There are several reasons we wrote this book.

The first reason was simple: We never wanted to get stuck again for the night without a spot. That is why we searched them out. In the end, that is the best public value of the book: You will never get stuck for the night again. With this book, your days of being a prisoner of hope are over.

Another reason was that our publisher found that other guidebooks available were extremely incomplete, loaded with mistakes, and often included directions to destinations that were simply wrong or incoherent. If you have an old edition of Pacific Northwest Camping, for instance, throw it in your campfire. That is because there has been thousands of changes since that book was published. A lot of other books out there deserve a far less honorable fate.

We have written every direction in the book so it is as if a person in the right seat is reading it to the person who is driving. Compare the directions and maps in this book with anything else out there and this alone can make it your book of choice.

One note is that in every case, the prices listed for each camp were provided to us for the 2010 season. Over the course of seasons and years, prices go up. Count on it. If price is a bottom-line concern, call the contact number listed before planning your visit.

Another reason we wrote this book is because many of the most beautiful places on earth are in Oregon. When my family and friends heard I was writing this book, some were outraged. They figured all of their favorite spots would be revealed to all. But after reviewing the manuscript, they’ve decided we’re all right, after all. That is because they have discovered, as we have, that Oregon is filled with beautiful, little-used campgrounds that are perfect jump-off points for adventures — and they represent hundreds of outstanding destinations, in addition to their sprinkling of favorites.

Some of the highlights of this book include:
• 700 campgrounds, featuring national forests, local, county, state and national parks, and privately-owned and operated parks.
• 15,000 updates and upgrades from anything previously published.
• 45 extremely detailed maps.
• Directions that are the easiest-to-use (and fact-checked) of any outdoor book in the state.
• Detailed and fact-checked information about each camp’s setting, facilities, fees, reservation policies and nearby recreation.
• Helpful and anecdotal information about how to put the fun into every trip, including tips on catching fish, dealing with bears, and finding the best camp tents, bags, food, water purifiers and more.
• Icons that quickly identify activities at each camp.
• Every telephone number in the book has been phoned and reviewed.

We get tons of e-mails and read each one carefully. These have often been of benefit. In the process, we have incorporated dozen of suggestions from readers to make this the book they want it to be. Your comments are always welcome and appreciated.

As you might figure, this is not a hobby for us, as it is for some part-time writers who publish books. This our full-time job. Because we spend 200 days a year in the field, traveling an average of 40,000 miles per year, we understand how seriously people take their fun, what they need to know to make their trip work, as well as their underlying fears that you might get stuck for the night without a spot.

My advice is to never go anywhere without this book sitting on your front seat!

-Tom Stienstra