Flying over the Bitterroot Mountains between Montana and Idaho.
Photographer: Stephanie Noritz for Bloomberg Businessweek
Airplane Camping: How This Thrilling Outdoor Travel Adventure Works
Enterprising campers are turning to recreational pilots to take them even farther off the grid. Introducing aero camping, outdoor travel’s final frontier.
“That’s a lot of scud,” Robert Miller said warily, looking at the dark and raggedy low-hanging clouds that obscured the granite peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains. Outside, the drumroll of rain intensified. As he peered through the cockpit window, it was becoming trickier by the second to spot a safe flight path from Montana to Idaho. Pilots hate scud.
Yet again, Mother Nature was challenging my attempt at an adventure few take on but many could: aero camping. In the early cabin-fever days of the pandemic, a former colleague posted about how she flew herself across America in a small aircraft to places you can’t normally reach by car—the kind of spots that enable you to take a deep breath and bask in the feeling of being truly away.