Bee Travel
This summer, skip the hotel
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
Iwas looking into the myriad kinds of camping one can do. There's tenting, RV'ing, KOA Kozy Kabins, and hiking shelters. I have booked enough stays at the national parks to know their hotel rates can be financially challenging, though the paucity of rooms rendered by the factor of pristineness rather defines this limited market. The El Tovar in the Grand Canyon offers rooms starting at about $150 per night in the summer. For such luxury that's not so bad, though availability is always an issue. Checking availability this summer, I found the occasional night open, but much of the summer season (weekends in particular) is already well sold out.

That's not camping, though. I began to search for something closer - much closer - to nature, under "campgrounds and cabins."

Now, depending on how far into the wilderness you are willing to travel, the popularity of the park and the amenities you require or can dispense with, your per night vacation stay can drop to a mere $20 a night. If the park is more familiar - Yosemite, for example - rates hike to $100 and up. This compares units that sleep at least four, and provide bed, a roof over your head and all the scenery you can savor.

Campgrounds in July in California and Arizona (not Grand Canyon National Park, incidentally) run about $100 in the peak season, which is Memorial Day to as late as mid-October. As lodging goes, even that price tag might be considered reasonable. For example, one unit I turned up houses (a minimum of) eight people for that $100 (The Spring Valley Cabin Bunkhouse in Prescott National Park) and for $50 more, will take up to 14 people, throwing in a bunkhouse. That's a family reunion rate of about $7 per person per night. Amenities provided here (that are generally missing from their $20 counterparts) are hot showers, flush toilets, drinking water, pressurized water, a stove and dishes.

(See www. recreation.gov for this and others, to compare.)

While I appreciate having to pay for these unnatural and luxurious amenities in the middle of nowhere, the lure of the $20 bargain remained. I headed north, to that gem of a park that sits astride the Montana/Canada border: Glacier National Park. Oh, stop shivering! Warm up to some jaw-dropping mountain scenery and a $20-per-night roof over your head. The cabins here are remote, and what they lack in facilities, they pay back in serenity and scenery. I rather like the idea of having to organize the packing in and packing out of everything I'll need and having grizzlies for neighbors. And here's where that call of nature is, well, precisely that.

My big bear of a husband hasn't yet been apprised of my backwoods notions - so if you see him, don't mention anything just yet. While he is a hunter and harbors a notion of someday building and living in a cabin, we haven't exactly negotiated yet what might be inside. We'll start with the $20 version, and take it from there.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry in various capacities. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)