Roughing It

The gap between America’s rich and, well, basically everybody else, continues to grow. So the timing seems right for some “let them eat cake” features, a challenge that the Los Angeles Times rises to with a feature on “glamping.”

Glamping is a portmanteau of glamour and camping. What does it entail?

[Odious rich people the] Bondicks, who live in a sprawling home on the edge of a state park outside Boston and hire a personal chef at home, shelled out $595 a night—plus an additional $110 per person per day for food.

It’s a hefty price to sleep in a tent, but the perks include a camp butler to build their fire, a maid to crank up the heated down comforter at nightfall and a cook to whip up bison rib-eye for dinner and French toast topped with huckleberries for breakfast.

The Times wants you to resent the Bondicks, and, well, mission accomplished. But a more thoughtful reader might also resent the Times for devoting gallons of ink to a “trend” that really boils down to this: Rich people spend a lot of money on their own personal comfort, no matter where they are. This has been true since Sumerian potentates took relaxing summer trips down the Tigris.

Hoping to clear your palate after the Times story? CHOW went camping, too. And there wasn’t no damn camp butler.