Camping - a term that has many meanings. To some, that means driving the RV to a park, hooking up to the electrical outlet and turning on the TV. To others, camping is about roughing it. packing the minimum of gear into a backpack, hiking for miles and sleeping under the stars.

I like it somewhere in between those extremes. I'm fine with what I call 'car camping.' That is, pack as much stuff as the car can hold, drive to a pretty campground, pitch a tent, and cook on an open fire.

Slapping bugs, stiff bones from sleeping on bumpy ground, misty breath in the early morning air - all part of the adventure, but there the car is, handy for a quick retreat if the weather is too rotten or the neighbors are really too loud. And it's about those neighbors that I yearn sometimes for more of a get-away.

People camp for a variety of reasons, but surely one of the main ones is to commune with nature. That's not always the easiest feeling to get in a campground with a couple hundred other families. You're up close and personal with more strangers than you ever would be back at home. That's the nature of campgrounds, but there are some ways to increase your chances of solitude.

First, if you do want to stay in actual campgrounds and to have your car handy, your best bet is to stay in the more primitive grounds. The ones with no electricity and with outhouses instead of bath-houses are usually less populated for obvious reasons. They also generally don't take reservations, so it's part of the adventure to show up and see how it goes.

Now, if you're ok with camping outside designated grounds, most National Forests allow this in the U.S. Then you can still car-camp, but really have your own space. Use forest service maps, and locating the good spot becomes part of the adventure.

Once you've found a good spot, you can return again and again, so it's worth investing the time to find the place. Just leave the site like it was when you found it. Pack out your garbage, don't have fires if they're prohibited, and so on. In addition to being the right thing to do, leaving the place unmarked by your passage means that other people might not notice it, and it'll be there for you next time.

My favorite way to get to remote places is to canoe camp. I can still have plenty of stuff with me, and it's a lot less work than backpacking. You can canoe camp a couple of ways, depending on the water conditions.

Sometimes, you can simply paddle across a lake to the shore opposite the area's designated campground.

Another way is to shuttle for a river run, which requires at least one companion. Park one car at the pull-out. Drive the other car, loaded with gear and the canoe to the put-in. Run the river and camp along the way. To have this method work and be safely accomplished clearly requires some planning, good maps, and probably a bit of pre-event scouting. Again, part of the adventure.

You know, once you identify a place to have these kinds of camping trips, where part of the trip is to scout and try out the various possibilities, campgrounds never have quite the same cachet. You've carved out your own little niche (figuratively speaking, of course), and if you take good care in how you use it, the spot will remain your own private camping ground.