Map of Toledo Ohio

Wilderness Cam ping and Wilderness Areas

The word wilderness also has different meanings. By the strictest definition, there’s very little real wilderness left in the United States. Over the years most areas have been logged, and/or have been heavily affected by human impact. Large and remote wilderness areas are scarce in most parts of the country.

Some people use the word wilderness, however, to describe any relatively unspoiled area, one which isn’t designed and manicured (as is a typical urban or suburban park), with a minimum of man-made improvements. A reasonably wild area of a few thousand acres or more will still offer an experience of being immersed in nature, and certainly is large enough to get lost in.

While some outdoorspeople refer to any camping in a natural area away from roads and facilities as wilderness camping, others prefer to call most such undesignated camping primitive camping, and reserve the term wilderness camping for trips to the vast, remote wilderness areas of the sort one finds in our larger National Parks, and particularly in Alaska.