How is this free? 🚫💵

This summer, I took some of my college friends out camping. I remember the joy of setting up tents, convivial conversations around the campfire, and scavenging for fire wood in the dark. We revitalized the kid in us when we had the most fun tossing the remaining bag of stale marshmallows into the campfire and watching the corn syrup ignite and balloon into a fiery sticky concoction. 

Today, we decided to go to an amusement park as it was a place we have not visited for many years. When we totaled up the bill for the day, I remember my friend complaining to me about the admission fee and the inflated prices we paid for food and souvenirs. He said “we could have bought 20 bags of marshmallows!”, indicating we could have had as much, if not more fun around the campfire than what the $80 admission fee provided. 

Every time I’m out dispersed camping on public land and find myself a spot with a scenic view, it still astounds me how I did not pay a dollar to enter. There was no reservation or entrance fee. I look out my window and the pristine lake with a mountainous backdrop is in front of me. I sleep under a sky full of stars. I wake up to alpenglow illuminating the highest peaks.

Sometimes I wonder why the experiences that bring us the most joy are free. How did I not pay a penny to experience this? I would have to pay a premium for a hotel room with a ‘scenic view’. Spin in the other way around, even if you had a million dollars, you can’t pay money to nature to give you an epic sunset that particular evening.

So why do we the spend majority of our lives pursuing money and accumulating wealth when the things that bring us the most joy, costs little to nothing to experience? 

Perhaps it’s a philosophy we should apply more of in our lives, by learning how to live a a little below our means, by learning how to deal with the elements, bugs, and give up comfort, by learning to detach from our plethora of material goods and amenities, by being kids again and experiencing the great outdoors and learning how to appreciate the planet that sustains us. 

Whenever I go camping and make the largest campfire I can, and wake up to that grand landscape view and take in all of nature’s glory, I remind myself over and over again of the proverb: 

The best things in life are free.

September 23, 2018 | Travel Stories