(MCT)–Twice a year, Kathleen Case and her husband, Skip, ditch Ellicott City, Md., and their fast-paced corporate lives. They pack up the car and head to Western Maryland for a chance to be one with nature — enjoying fresh air, wildlife sightings and high-thread-count sheets.
“It’s kind of pretend roughing it in the woods,” the change management consultant says of long weekends at Frostburg’s Savage River Lodge with Skip, an industrial real estate consultant. The comfy cabin experience “has all of the sensual aspects of being in nature and in the woods, but at the same time, it is something that you can step right into. We’re used to our luxuries.”
For those who want the outdoors experience without sacrificing the comforts of high-end living, there is glamorous camping, or “glamping.”
The term, which first showed up in the U.S. around 2007, has gone mainstream. There are luxury cabins, like the ones found at Savage River. Glamping books. Airstream trailers that have been rehabbed into plush mobile pads equipped with customized fixtures and expensive decor. Even retailers such as Anthropologie have been pushing new lines of stylized merchandise that include colorful cabanas and country-inspired flatware.
