These Camping Fails Will Make You LOL (and Maybe Think Twice About Roughing It)

Prepare to travel a laughing-filled trip across the wild world of camping gone bad! Our selection of camping tragedies will cause you to question how anyone ever makes it through a night in the wild outdoors. These tales are as incredible as they are funny, from the party that unintentionally camps on a golf course fairway to the city slicker who tried to charge his phone using a potato (yes, really). You will meet the family whose "bear-proof" food cache became an all-you-can-eat buffet for a cunning raccoon family and the camper who confused a skunk for a beautiful black and white kitten. That is only the start though! Imagine waking up to discover, following a night of intense rain, your tent floating in a freshly formed lake. Alternatively the misadventure of the camper who mistakenly identified poison ivy for toilet paper—a mistake they would not soon forget! Then there was the bunch who believed they could outsmart mosquitoes with garlic necklaces, only to find they smelled like an Italian restaurant while still under attack. Reminding us that Mother Nature always has the last laugh, these stories of woe act as both amusement and a warning.

1. Photograph 11

Nearly done it. Viewers on the brink of their seats will find this seductive picture to perfectly depict a moment of almost success. The picture most certainly shows a subject, maybe an animal, an athlete, or perhaps an inanimate object caught in the last seconds of an effort at something difficult. It might be a toy car teetering on the brink of a successful loop-the-loop, a squirrel reaching to reach a bird feeder, or the fingertips of a rock climber barely shy of the summit. This picture's attractiveness rests in its capacity to arouse suspense and expectation. The stress, the pressure, the hope of triumph, and the near certainty of failure are practically tangible. It's a graphic depiction of the venerable adage, "So close, yet so far." This picture not only makes us laugh but also speaks to our human experience of striving and occasionally failing right short of our expectations. It reminds us that even in almost-misses, there is a narrative worth sharing and that the path and the effort are frequently just as vital as the result.