Michael Portillo Quotes

Just about every weekend when I was growing up, we would throw rods and rifles and tents and shovels and pickaxes into the back of the truck and then head off to the side of a mountain or the bottom of a canyon. Hiking, fishing, hunting, rock-hounding: this is how my parents passed the time.

I was a Scout years ago, before the movement started, when my father took me fishing, camping and hunting. Then I was sorry that more girls could not have what I had. When I learned of the movement, I thought, here is what I always wanted other girls to have.

I had lots of fun; I was in the boy scouts, I went camping. I just used to mess around like a normal kid.

Camping is something I've done all my life.

A lot of parents pack up their troubles and send them off to summer camp.

I had one of the most outdoorsy childhoods you could imagine. I basically lived in the woods until I was 13. My dad and I built a huge treehouse in our backyard in Chesterfield, about 30 feet in the air. And we'd vacation on an island in Michigan, where I hunted a deer that we ate.

My earliest memory from childhood is of fishing with my father. And I remember vividly we were in a store, and we were buying a pup tent to go on our first camping trip.

My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors.

I've never stayed in a tent or a caravan in my life, and I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't see the point of going on holiday to enjoy less comfort than I have at home.

I'm really into rock climbing and hiking and stuff.

When I was 12, my mum put us in a summer camp meant for children from low-income families. It was in upstate New York where we had to live in tents, fetch water, cook our meals, and even dig our own toilet bowls.

I am not a person of nature. I love to think of myself as one, but I've never even gone camping.

I'm a huge camper, and love hiking and mountain biking.

I worry about kids today not having time to build a tree house or ride a bike or go fishing. I worry that life is getting faster and faster.

I'm a man's man. I go out climbing and live outdoors.

I don't think I'd ever really survive the outdoors.

I never camped as a kid, but I really got into camping and sleeping outdoors. I've also done some amazing river floats in New Mexico and Idaho. It's peaceful and awesome.

I was never a Boy Scout, but oh, I wanted to be one when I was a kid about ten or eleven years old. But there wasn't anyplace where I could ever join the Boy Scouts.

As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds.

My father being an outdoors person, he used to take us on quite a few adventures thorugh the wild areas down there, introducing us to alligators and rattlesnakes and all the trees and plants.

I'm a closet outdoorsy athletic enthusiast, and I would love to do a rafting and hiking trip someday and maybe sleep in a treehouse and bathe in a chilly winding river.

We used to play a lot outdoors, not in leagues, but just in our spare time.

I did a lot of hiking and I loved it.

I can be a woodsman if need be. I grew up very close to some forest, and I spent a lot of my formative years up and down trees, fooling around in the woods. I'm no stranger to that sort of landscape.

Leave part of the yard rough. Don't manicure everything. Small children in particular love to turn over rocks and find bugs, and give them some space to do that. Take your child fishing. Take your child on hikes.