It appears from recent statistics that this past summer produced the busiest camping season as travelers chose outdoor recreation close to home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Town of Fallsburg Town Parks Manager Arnold Seletsky noted, “We definitely had a lot more campers this summer, during the pandemic.”

Seletsky pointed out the large number of seasonal campers at Morningside Park “that keep their campers here on site all year around and return in the spring.”

We visited the state campground at Little Pond several times this past summer and the 67 tent and trailer sites appeared to be busy at this quiet picturesque campground located in the Catskill Forest Preserve.

Crystal Mapledorm, a regular camper who spends most of the summer at Little Pond noted in a recent fall visit that, “this has been one of the busiest camping seasons we have had in many years and the unusual source for the flurry of camping I think stems from COVID and folks have just been anxious to get out and camping served their purpose.”

It appears when talking to campers, we have several in our family, that outdoor recreation, camping, hiking, boating, fishing, wildlife watching and more provided social distancing before it had a name.

When stopping to talk with park employees, they preferred to talk with us as long as we didn’t use their name or take their picture. They pointed out that they, “first noticed the increase in park visitation in early May and what the outdoor crowd has done is apparently kept their traveling limited to state and local parks near their home.”