She read about glamping in the new InStyle magazine and was told that it's the new island hopping. She could make friends with the Pinterest tents full of fairy lights and boho furnishings. But somehow camping, even with the glamour, is not for her. Despite the 1.80 metre wide double bed, she has trouble sleeping - after all, there could be an axe murderer at the door or a spider crawling under her blanket at any time. Next time she'd rather go on holiday on the Riviera with the girls - in a Pinterest villa.
His name is Max, Jonas or Julius and he heard about #vanlife at surf camp in Portugal. He then converted a van with his girlfriend Laura, Jule or Meike for far too much money and has been #ontheroad ever since. The two live as digital nomads or simply until the money from their furniture sold on eBay runs out. The vanlife hipster can be recognised by his manbun, Birkenstocks and patchwork tattoos. He always sets up camp, complete with hammock, where there are the best waves - or good instagrammable alpenglow.
But this is not what the anti-campers had in mind: Just mud, no shower and Birgit and Jochen standing right next door, peering over their Sudoku books to their side of the barrier. Although they bought the Base Camp tent from Decathlon (with excellent wind stability and eight ventilation options), he has had back pain since the first night and she is in a bad mood because there wasn't enough water to wash out her hair conditioner. When they return to Düsseldorf stung by mosquitoes, they give it a hefty one-star rating on Yelp.
There's no escaping the material fetishist. When he pulls up at the campsite in his 170,000 euro spaceship "Caravan Palazzo Perfomance S", everyone looks. Eight tonnes of cognac-coloured high-gloss steel on four wheels are worth it when the mob looks up at him from their Billo wagons. The material fetishist hardly ever leaves his domicile - unless Susanne wants to have an Aperol Spritz in the nearest bar or Ralf longs for a chat with the campsite owner about the latest dimmable solar lamps.
"Malle is only once a year" is a thing of the past - the camping proles swap Ballermann for the foothills of the Alps, but the principle remains the same: Lots of beer, sun and sausages from the charcoal grill. The Camping Prolls' caravan is still from the 70s - just like their hairstyle. With a mullet and white tennis socks, the Horst-Schlämmer crate with Costa Cordalis' "Anita" on the crackling radio likes to wake up the sleep-deprived campers. The good thing about the Camping Prolls: they like to share their liquid food with others and are always up to date with the latest football results.
The outdoor purists don't need much to live on. One half of their tent is stuffed with climbing equipment, the other with electrolyte drinks. They don't care much for camping frills: they have already spent a week sleeping under the open sky in Ecuador, they don't need toilet blocks and they think the wild camping regulations are rubbish anyway. Despite their obvious disdain for consumerism, they use extra-light, storm-proof geodesic dome tents and high-tech cooking utensils worth a small caravan and are not reliant on campsites. If you do meet them there, they are the most pleasant neighbours because you never see them during the day. They set off around five o'clock in the morning for the first sunrise tour and finally return around 6.00 pm, covered in mud from mountain biking or bouldering.
The equivalent of the village sheriff is the camping policeman. He is a permanent camper and, if he is completely honest, he is entitled to a yellow high-visibility waistcoat. After all, he waves all new arrivals in, helps newcomers to the campsite with the correct connection to the electricity box and helps the camping punk to separate his rubbish. He likes to measure the correct distances between pitches with a folding rule, and if you relieve yourself in the open air, listen to music after 10 pm or have an unannounced dog in tow, you can bet the camping policeman will tell the groundsman.
