By: Charlotte Dong

My friends and I went glamping from Friday through Tuesday (4 nights) the week before last week. It took 3 hours to arrive at the cabin we were staying on a mountain in Brevard, NC. This was my first time glamping/camping; even though I initially felt timid about glamping, it was an all-right experience.

Glamping is fancier than camping. Unlike camping, we stayed at a cabin with a restroom, shower, and water supply nearby. We had to walk or drive to the bathroom and showers if we wanted to use them, which was a hassle.

When we arrived at the cabin, I was ready to leave as soon as I came. The cabin looked scary, kind of “unclean,” and many bugs flew around. My mom said that if we wanted to leave early, we could leave on Monday in time to go to our swim team banquet. But we stayed for the duration of the trip because it turned out to not be as bad as I thought it would be.

There was a river nearby where we could swim. The water was freezing, but that didn’t stop us from going in for a nice swim. When we went to Myrtle Beach in January, the river was as cold as the ocean water.

In the cabin, we watched “The Amazing World of Gumball” and all the “To All the Boys” movies on Netflix (downloaded). We ate lots of Hot Cheetos and Cheez-Itz and made s’mores on a campfire. My friend’s dad also made some chicken soup which tasted amazing.

On Monday, we went on a very relaxing tubing trip. Me and one of my friends were “partners” (our tubes were connected for safety reasons), and we kept lagging because we kept getting tangled up in trees and tree branches. But eventually, we caught up with our other friends. We were all laughing about random things, taking pictures, and singing “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift, “Prom Dress” by Mxmtoons, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. My friend fell off her tube, which was hilarious; it was also caught on camera, so we can always look back on it.

After tubing, we went to Asheville to walk around and eat lunch. We ate lunch at a dim sum restaurant called Red Ginger. The inside of the restaurant looked fancy and next to it was an art museum, so we went there after eating. Around the museum are various pieces of artwork made by different artists; next to them are business cards from the artists. It became our mission to collect the business cards because there were paintings on the back of each card.

We also shopped at Urban Outfitters and bought face masks. My friend and I were trying on some clothes for fun, and we purchased the same khaki shorts. The shorts were baggy, making me look like a dad, so I bought them. When we returned to the cabin, we put on our facemasks and watched “To All the Boys: P.S I Still Love You.”

Overall, my glamping experience was not what I expected it to be! It was fun because I was surrounded by people I enjoyed being around. But even so, I rather live in the comfort of my own home where I have my own bed, access to Wi-Fi, and a bathroom and shower connected to the house. I would love to go glamping again, but not any time soon.

“The highlight of the trip”: When my friends went to the community center for Wi-Fi, I asked them to help me download new Amazing World of Gumball episodes and To All the Boys: P.S I Still Love You because I haven’t finished eating dinner. When they returned, I decided to change my password on my device because I didn’t trust them with free access to my phone and iPad. I wanted to be quirky and make an alphabetical password when creating a new password. Unfortunately, I forgot my password within minutes after creating it. I figured I probably made a typo somewhere, but I had no idea where, so when I came back home, I had to restore my iPhone using iTunes; sadly, I haven’t backed up my iPhone since May, so I had to restore some of the apps myself. The good thing about restoring my phone is that it helped me clear out much storage: It went from 63.8 GB used (out of 64) to 45.5 GB used. Maybe I should restore my phone more often!