Under the Stars: How America Fell in Love with Camping

by Dan White

An irreverent history of American camping

From the Sierras to the Adirondacks and the Everglades, Dan White travels the nation to experience firsthand—and sometimes face first—how the American wilderness transformed from the devil’s playground into a source of adventure, relaxation, and renewal.

Whether he’s camping nude in cougar country, being attacked by wildlife while “glamping,” or crashing a girls-only adventure for urban teens, Dan White seeks to animate the evolution of outdoor recreation. In the process, he demonstrates how the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Roosevelt, and Muir—along with visionaries such as Adirondack Murray, Horace Kephart, and Juliette Gordon Low—helped blaze a trail from Transcendentalism to Leave No Trace.

Wide-ranging in research, enthusiasm, and geography, Under the Stars reveals a vast population of nature seekers, a country still in love with its wild places.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Nature, Audiobook, Outdoors, American History

416 pages, Hardcover

Published June 14, 2016

About the author

Dan White is the author of The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail, a NCIBA bestseller and Los Angeles Times "Discovery" selection. and Under The Stars: How America Fell In Love With Camping, which Wild author Cheryl Strayed described as "the definitive book on camping in America." He has taught composition at Columbia University and San Jose State, and currently teaches a Zoom-based memoir and personal essay workshop and writing class. He is a former contributing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader and received his MFA from Columbia University. He lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife and daughter. Visit his website at danwhitebooks.com

Reviews

[Joy D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fun to read. It is a combination of memoir, travelogue, and history of camping. The author journeys to the Sierras, the Adirondacks, the Everglades, the desert Southwest, and many other places around the US, sometimes with his wife and daughter. The book covers both regular camping and extreme versions like nude camping and glamping. It also addresses issues related to conservation, accessibility, ecotourism, and preserving natural spaces.

Each chapter focuses on a different period or aspect of camping's development. There are also sections on backpacking and hiking. It is told by alternating White’s personal stories with his research about historical figures (such as Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Adirondack Murray, Horace Kephart, and Juliette Gordon Low.) He does not neglect the experiences of women and people of color.

The highlight of this book is the author’s storytelling. One of his primary points is that camping almost never goes as planned, and the book includes many of his mishaps, which are often hilarious (I laughed out loud many times). It is entertaining, informative, and relevant to current concerns over the preservation of wilderness areas. I am not a camper (though I did my share in my youth), which just goes to show that even non-campers can thoroughly enjoy it!

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

White, who also wrote The Cactus Eaters about his walk on the Pacific Crest Trail, seamlessly weaves stories of his own camping adventures with the evolution of camping including biographical information on people who influenced camping: Thoreau, Emerson, Muir, Roosevelt, and the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.

Adding the personal touch, White recounts tales of his camp outs and re-creates historical camping adventures. One of the more notable camping trips he re-creates was the totally naked, no equipment, 24-hour camp out where he replicates Joe Knowles’s 1913 two-month naked camp out. Although White did return to his clothing cache to retrieve his sneakers.

To make you hungry for camping, White adds the origins of camping foods such as the yummy treat - s’mores. This book is a light approach to camping in its many forms: backpacking, glamping, camping, and RVing.

An amusing, interesting, and delightful read!

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book through a Goodreads ARC giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

WOW. Dan White really knows how to write a memoir/travel fiction in a way that just grabs you from the first page.

I am an avid hiker/backpacker and I grew up in a very outdoorsy household, so after I finished this book, I passed it along to my parents to read. My dad finished it in a day.

In all, this is a very intelligent and humorous book that really shows the author's love for camping and the great outdoors. It will be enjoyed by outdoor enthusiasts and indoor-lovers alike.

[Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part history, part memoir, this an entertaining and well-written tour of the history of camping in America. This book really hit the spot for me, because I've been on kind of a kick of reading about hermits and people who drop out of society to go live in nature. I wondered about camping as a form of dropping out or getting away from it all, because the consumeristic aspect of it has always been interesting to me, the way one could easily spend thousands of dollars on gear and travel to live the way people were forced to live out of necessity for millenia, but maybe with some select modern comforts and bizarre high-tech substitutions for actual food. How did camping evolve? How did we pick and choose what we would give up to experience being closer to nature? How did being in nature via camping and backpacking become a supposedly fun thing for mainly white people, versus a terrifying thing for people barely eking out subsistence?

The author explores all these questions and more, often hilariously, with many a journalistic foray into various forms of camping experiments and experiences, including glamping, driving a mansion RV on wheels and staying in Walmart parking lots, being attacked by wasps while camping out naked with no food, water, tent, or equipment, and tagging along with a group of inner city teen girls on a weekend campout. All in all a great read.

[Agnes Muscoreil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done Dan! I really enjoyed the whole book.

[Scottsdale Public Library]

Dan White looks at the transformation of the American wilderness, from an untamed land to a source of recreation and relaxation. He approaches his subject from various perspectives, starting with Emerson and Thoreau and transcendentalism/connecting with nature on a spiritual level. Delving into preservation of nature, White includes key players including Theodore Roosevelt who’s often considered the “conservationist president”. Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts, figures prominently as well. White writes not only of her mission to Leave No Trace, but her aim for the Girl Scouts as well; Low wanted young girls to grow up to be able to take care of themselves, and she wanted her Scouts to be inclusive to everyone regardless of race or background. This book is also full of interesting facts, ranging from the origin of S’mores (which in turn leads to the origin of Graham crackers- fascinating, by the way), to RV culture, to Victorian fashion and camping (the two didn’t exactly mesh). Included as well are White’s personal anecdotes with camping, such as his adventures in chaperoning a camp-out for a group of inner city kids. And yes, you will find discussions of proper waste disposal on hiking trails. A good read.- Sara Z.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting, though a little long winded at times. 3 stars

[Jean]

Camping and the history of it in America are the subject of this intelligent, sensitive, and funny book. The author addresses the history of the earliest writers and lovers of the great outdoors, such as Thoreau and Emerson. He explains their effect upon him when he graduated from high school. He takes us further into the past, as well. He discusses Muir, Emerson, and Roosevelt as well. America has had a romance with camping for years.
You really understand the wry humor and the memories you may recall of your own when you see a sketch of a giant black fly (full-life) from the Adirondacks. I related to that one! That sketch and many more, some which will touch you personally, are going to make you love this book as much as I did. Whether you have ever been to the Adirondacks or to Walden Pond, or have ever tried that girl scout delicacy, "the s'more", invented in 1927, according to the author, you will relate to something in Under the Stars, learn from it, and love it. Note: the actual inventor of the graham cracker appears in this book too, and when I read about him my jaw dropped.
Under the Stars by Dan White is a little bit of everything. It covers crackpot hikers such as Estwick Evans, The "Craziest Thru Hiker of the Early Nineteenth Century", who walked seven hundred forty four miles, from New Hampshire to the west, years before the book Walden was published, and a hundred and fifty years before the National Trails System Act of 1968.
He was quite similar to modern campers who like to get back to the bare bones of camping. According to Under the Stars, Evans explained, "I wished to acquire the simplicity, native feelings, and virtues of savage life...and to become a citizen of the world....How great are the advantages of solitude!"
This book is not just about extolling the greatness and beauty of nature, however. It can be sidesplittingly funny, such as when the author is bitten by a crane named "Korvu's brother" during an experience camping with a glamping group named Safari West.
It can also be moving, such as in the epilogue, subtitled "a dose of enchantment". The author recalls the silence which is not silence: the silence of nature, which you can hear when you don't talk. He writes, "I took in a combination of sights, smells, and sensations that whirled together until I couldn't separate them anymore. I call it camping synesthesia...when the senses get so jumbled up".
He received this love of camping from his father, and is presently passing it on to his daughter and to his readers as well.
When you understand what Dan White is referring to when he ends his book by talking about a sense of "complete erasure" such as what he experienced originally with his father, and what he has been trying to get back to ever since, I expect that you will love this book and all it contains as much as I did. It is beauty.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. My family have always been campers. My grandparents have always been campers. I look at family slide shows and pictures that show us fishing, boating and camping all over the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Canada. We have tents, we have campers, we have trailers. We have slept under stars and in the back of station wagons while bears ransacked the ice chest.

I have camped and backpacked at a number of places all over the world but nothing has been as fun to me, as the National Parks right here in the United States. Part of it comes through familial appreciation: my grandfather was one of the men who joined the Civilian Conservation Corps who went through the states building campgrounds and grooming natural areas to help promote the love of camping. I have a million camping stories and those who camp know what I mean. I have sat on a mountain overlooking a lake in the sun. I have hiked through canopies of rain forest on the Hoh River. My grandma and I experimented with boiling and eating an edible moss called “Old Man's Beard.” Suffice to say, it tasted like old man's beard. I believe I may have been tricked!

This book is marvelous. Not only does it delve into the history of camping, but throughout the book there are portraits of individuals who were great outdoorsman themselves; whose names are still evocative of nature in America – Ansel Adams, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt and Thoreau just to name a few.

Transposed between the histories are Dan White's camping experiences and experiments. Some of them are hilarious! Some of them are an attempt to recreate those romantic adventures of the past. Some of them are designed to introduce the wonderful world of camping to his daughter.

The places he focused on were somewhat limited. Don't look for a comprehensive travel guide here of all the places to camp. He also works from the mind set of a particular type of camper: he buys high end equipment and some of his adventures are what I would classify as yuppie and hipster camping. There is nothing wrong with that but for those who believe in “their” style of what camping is, do not despair. All of his high end equipment and training does not save him from those nuances and surprises that only nature can provide. Look no further than his trial experience with “all natural” camping!!

This is a great book for summer. Take it with you, pitch your tent, read by day and share the stories around the fire with a good old fashioned s'more by night.

[Les Gehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Under the Stars: How America Fell in Love with Camping by Dan White is an absolutely wonderful history of camping in the United States. Each chapter is concentrated upon a historical figure and the places they most are known for camping. White oftentimes then tries to re-create their experiences. My description sounds boring, but trust me, this book is anything but boring. White's writing is incredible. He makes you feel like you are there with him or the historical figure he is writing about. This is a wonderful book which I recommend to all American's (or other interested folk) that love the outdoors.
After reading about some of White's less than optimal camping trips, I vow to never go camping with him. However, I really, really hope that Meena has all of her wishes granted, and that she never quits loving nature and the wilderness. (You'll have to read the book to understand that last sentiment.)
I'm really not sure why the publisher sent me this book to review, as I did not request it on LibraryThing, but I am so happy they did. I will, of course, pass this along and talk it up to all of my outdoor-loving friends.

[Beth Withers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've camped off and on for years, and I never thought about the history of what I do until this book came along. I found White's book to be informative, very interesting, and often quite humorous. I even snickered out loud a few times. I appreciate that he went out to try what he wrote about, from luxury camping to solo camping in the nude. (I don't want to try that one!) I enjoyed reading about parts of the country I've not visited and knew little about, like the Adirondacks and parts of the West. I learned some things about Thoreau that, despite being an English major, I didn't know, plus interesting facts about the founders of both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, not to mention a president or two. It would seem that the history of camping in the US often reflects the history of the country itself. I definitely recommend this fun, eclectic, informative read.

[James Eli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, moving and hilarious journey through one of America's most perplexing pastimes. Dan White masterfully weaves together his own camping adventures with the lively stories and characters derived from archival research. It's difficult to write about landscapes and nature, but this author makes it look effortless. Whether he's writing about the terror of driving an RV through a rainstorm, facing off with a hungry marmot or camping naked in a California forest, it's so convincing and vivid that you're right there with him. I want to buy this book for everyone I know, right after I get back from tramping through the woods.

[Anne]

I love this author's writing style. His way of turning phrases was pure entertainment! The subject was a moderate interest to me as a Scout leader, and he tied in his personal experiences with history fluidly. I will be looking for more from Dan White. That you, Good Reads, for this wonderful book given to me.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! Well researched and presented in an entertaining manner. Mr. White makes a compelling argument of the value of enjoying the outdoors without picking sides in an often contentious struggle between camping purists, Walmart parking lot RV enthusiasts, and the Boy Scouts.

Makes we want to head to the backyard, pitch a tent, and watch the stars.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a slow beginning, I loved this book. A wonderful history of camping mixed in with the author's own adventures in the woods made for a fun, balanced read that made me want to plan my next camping trip immediately.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is good in a lot of different ways and great in a few. He does what he sets out to do and treats every aspect of camping with equal love, humor and respect. From the early days of "woodcraft", when the sign of a true adventurer was how deeply he might leave his mark on the wilderness, to the modern days of "leave no trace" even when it means hauling poop bags down Mount Shasta, he studies it all. And whenever possible, experiences it first hand.

It's hard to even hint at the adventures told in the fourteen chapters of this book. Let's just mention that he spends a night emulating John Knowles, who went out into the woods naked and weaponless and vowed to return well fed and wearing a bear skin. He may have been a charlatan, but his adventure inspired Mr. White to do the same--if only for a single night.

He writes much about John Muir, of course, and Teddy Roosevelt. He finds stories of the intrepid women of camping, including Victorian ladies who hitched up their ankle-length skirts and climbed mountains with east. He writes of Edward Abbey and mentions Colin Fletcher and his "feel how" books of instruction.

And to my surprise, he rents a Class-C motorhome and takes his wife and daughter out on the roads--which was scary--and then to a campground where he plans to speak to everyone there, just to find out what kind of folk do such an unnatural thing as to haul the trappings of civilization along behind them in their quest to get away from it all. He is pleasantly surprised at what he finds--

And no more telling. Read the book--it's great. It seemed really long at times, but it still ended too soon.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book.

White sure knows how to write a camping book! I'm jealous of all the adventures he got to experience. It was such an informative book - filled with stories from not only White, but also from many historical figures who also enjoyed the great outdoors. I was excited to have won a copy of this book and finished reading it before my husband and I are about to go on our own camping adventure to watch the eclipse.

[Emily Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well researched book on camping in America. I love the memoir in this book. Dan White adds his experiences and mishaps to this informational/historical book on camping. If you love to be under the stars, this is a must read. I suggest reading it in a tent.

[Marla Craft · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of camping I adored this book! Many laugh out loud moments and the quirky history telling was delightful. Dan White captures the joys and pitfalls of outdoor vacations.

[Nadiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really charming book about the origins of American's obsession with camping, something I feel acutely while living in the PNW. The twists and turns of the past have a number of rags-to-riches-to-ruin paths, as one expects from history, and the author's anecdotes of their research for this book brings in a funny, if sometimes a bit silly, contrast between present and past camping experiences. A great airplane/vacation book.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know that I am reading to brave the great outdoors, but I enjoyed reading about it, inside!

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the blend of history, nature writing, and personal narrative in this book. It keep the whole thing light and easy to read. It made me really want to go camping. Some of it was laugh out loud quirky. The sketch drawings were weird.

[Rosey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dan White is a very thoughtful and well researched guy…. unfortunately his last name is a little too accurate. He comes across as a very colorblind, white, middle aged guy. By focusing on the Victorian age era of camping it seems he misses the entire point, that “camping” is an appropriation activity from indigenous people.

He seems fully aware of this and even mentions it several times in the book, from Seton’s “Woodcraft Indians” to references of different trail guides that learned survival skills from native folks.

White seems shocked when hanging out with young women of color being introduced to camping in the Everglades, that anyone would have reason to attribute the outdoors with cultural suffering. From enslaved ancestors fleeing their captors, to migrant workers being working in the fields because of educational and lingual barriers.

And yet even after these experiences, and specifically mentioning that indigenous people cannot even legally live in the national parks they once inhabited, he does not question the humanistic ethics of himself camping.

White follows “leave no trace” policies, and decides not to strip tree bark to make a spear for a literal stuffed squirrel while he (willingly?) attempts to spends a day naked in the forest. And although he is environmentally ethical, he doesn’t seem to understand why he only sees white peoples on trails.

He fundamentally does not recognize why support of indigenous communities in reclaiming their land is needed, because he thinks of camping as being “American,” as in coming into existence after white colonialists settled, and yet also a “primal activity.”

I was really hoping to learn some Native American history from this book. To focus on how amazing survival practices were stolen and appropriated by colonialists, and what we can do to support the original campers. I was solely disappointed by Mr. White.

[The Book Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mother took me camping for the first time when I was little. She got me interested in all things nature. We would visit various campgrounds all over where we lived. My mother and I would camp in tents. When I went camping with my grandparents when went the fancy way with an RV.

Have you ever been camping? Anyone who has knows that every trip tells its own story. Boy, does Dan White have some stories to tell. This book shows camping in all of its different situations. From how camping originated, to modern camping, RV camping or better know as glamping. I really didn't know that much about camping and now I really am glad I picked this book up.

My favorite part of this book was the beginning. Where White shares how he fell in love with camping. He talked about the great Walden by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. I also loved when he was telling the story about hiking and being lost in the woods in the backwoods of Kentucky.

I am from Kentucky so that made me smile a bit. It is very confusing at points and I understand where he was coming from. He talks about camping through out the ages. There is the topics of the Boy scouts, Roosevelt, Muir, and the National Park System.

I really did enjoy this book more than I thought I would. I can't say camping has been a topic I have really wanted to read about. I come away from this book with a real love for the history of camping. I also want to say thank you again to I would also like to thank Henry Holt for sending me this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

[Tammy T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much. It was really a departure from my usual choices and I'm glad I picked it up on a whim. The author is so engaging as he writes about the history, love and the future of camping, it made me want to go as soon as possible. There is so much more to this pastime than I would have ever thought. Just the idea of camping as a plausible pastime! I really loved this one and would suggest it to anyone who loves camping, is on the fence about it, or really hates it and maybe needs to change their mind!

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combination social history and memoir, Professor Dan White explores the history of camping in America while indulging in the practice in a variety of ways. Noting that American camping has been a largely white activity, he accompanies a group of Hispanic and African American teens on their first trip. A strange time was had by all. He rents an RV and takes his family on a trip, which nearly results in disaster as he's never driven an RV and there are no requirements or lessons, other than a short instructional video. He wants to try naked camping, but this turns out to more difficult than you might think. He discusses Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and a host of others. Quite entertaining and he even drew some sketches to illustrate the book. A lot of fun and you'll probably learn a few things as well. Oh, and there's a fine bibliography for further reading.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Under the Stars is written by Dan White. Eric Michael Summerer narrates Under the Stars impeccably and conveys the author’s enthusiasm, humor and point of view. The author brings the reader through the forests as though we are carrying that pack right beside him. Highly informative and great fun. There are times you will laugh, and times you will cringe right alongside Dan. This brought back so many memories of camping trips I have taken through the years. Plan to explore all forms of camping in this read/listen - from primitive to glamping and RV's. I recommend this as listening in your camper as you go this summer. Enjoy!

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Under the Stars is written by Dan White. Eric Michael Summerer narrates Under the Stars impeccably and conveys the author’s enthusiasm, humor and point of view. The author brings the reader through the forests as though we are carrying that pack right beside him. Highly informative and great fun. There are times you will laugh, and times you will cringe right alongside Dan. This brought back so many memories of camping trips I have taken through the years. Plan to explore all forms of camping in this read/listen - from primitive to glamping and RV's. I recommend this as listening in your camper as you go this summer. Enjoy!

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read White's CACTUS EATERS a number of years ago and enjoyed the writing and his experiences so was looking forward to reading his history of camping and turned out I found much of the history to be rather tedious, but that's because I just wasn't that interested. What I liked were his personal adventures with different types of camping (backpacking, "glamping," nude camping (where he was stung by wasps--yee-ouch!!), going on a Mt Whitney poop patrol, RVing, to name a few, and I laughed out loud a few times.

[Pam]

White is a bit of a hapless camper, but his passion shines through. Kudos to his wife for going along on camp outs even though she must know something is bound to go awry. Then again, maybe she is an ace fire builder, and White just didn't mention that because it's not important to this narrative. Loved the way White and his daughter make the rounds and talk to fellow campers--that was always my favorite part of camping as a child.