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Camping in the Ozark region offers a huge number of options. But more than that, camping offers an experience that has been enjoyed by generations of Ozark visitors. A very special thing indeed.
"Quail In Flight" original artwork, Deana (Heston) Davis. January, 1988.
CAMPFIRES

Campfires are for cooking food, lighting the night, telling ghost stories, sharing memories, or just watching the hypnotic flames dance and flicker.

Food cooked over a campfire just tastes better.

Whether it's a shore lunch on some Canadian lake, grilled venison at deer camp or just hot dogs and s'mores.

We turn out backsides to the warmth of its flames but still shiver as someone tells the story of the headless camper.

Campfires stir memories of other times and other places.

Of loved ones and old friends who are no longer here.

Of the big one that got away or missing the buck of a lifetime.

Campfires can be anywhere in your backyard, on the banks of a river or lake, or on top of a mountain.

It really doesn't matter because they're all magical.

There are no TV's around campfires. Only friends and fellowship, food and fun, quiet and solitude.

—LARRY WHITELEY IS HOST OF THE AWARD-WINNING OUTDOOR WORLD RADIO
In 1919, the Ozark Playground Association, which claimed to be the first regional travel-and-recreation booster group in the United States, was also the first to develop a slogan to market the Upper White River Valley: "The Land of a Million Smiles" adorned picture postcards and appeared on brochures distributed by the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the 1920s.


— page 135, Rossiter, Phyllis, A Living History of the Ozarks, Pelican Publishing Company Inc., 1992, 2001, 2006.