Lighting at campground

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I very much enjoy lighting during the evening.  Love to walk and check out everyone's camp.  Overnight, doesn't bother me at all, I have darkening shades with Velcro that I put over a few windows, and draw a curtain, it's like a blackout in the morning.  It's quiet, if you feel the need, and it's just rope lighting, go for it.  Better than folks talking loud and laughing loud late around a fire, or worse, a yappy dog in the morning.  :mad:
 
Some people put colored rope lights underneath their rigs to deter pack rats, but unless you are in an area where pack rats are a problem, I would personally prefer that you turn them off at a reasonable time, especially if you are in a rural area without campground lighting and city lights. 

Many of us do like dark areas where we can see stars when we are in areas far from town and lights do prevent that. 

The one thing that is really irritating are the extremely bright lights that are sometimes on the sides of 5th wheels and bigger motorhomes.  I think these are intended to help you hook up in the dark, not light up the entire neighborhood.  Same reason I do not use my outside sound system to blast my music onto your site all day or put my dog out early in the morning to bark.  Or build my cooking fire right underneath your windows so the smoke blows in.

And flood lights and a generator to run them, as was once set up by tenters in a campground I stayed at, are completely unnecessary!!

Thank you for asking.
 
I think turning them off by "quiet time" is considerate.  Earlier if there is a specific phenomenon people are looking for that night.  Overnight would risk annoying most people,I think.
 
I would never leave them on if we were in a close quarters campground where my neighbor is ten feet away from me.  But in a nice sized campsite I do occasionally.  Also, as far as wasting electricity for the campground, we do not run our air conditioner during the day so I think my rope lights cost way less to operate than air.  I appreciate all your comments and now I know the lights are a bother for some.  Thank you!  Love this group.
 
Probably the only way I would leave outside lighting on all night is if I had dimmer capabilities on whatever light I was going to leave on.....making it more like a "night light" rather than at full brilliance! 
 
Years ago, I took the 110 Volt outside receptacle and split it in 2. One side was hot all the time and the other side was for a set of string lights I made from flower pots from Walmart. On that side, I also installed a rheostat and at night I would turn them down a little. Worked good and never had any complaints
 
Peggyy said:
When we go out at night, I like to come back and have a little light around so I can get to my door without tripping on something.  I dont see very well in the dark.  But I will not leave them on again overnight unless we are far away from neighbors.  Thanks for your honest comments!

Our MH had a fairly weak and ineffective porch light.  I replaced the bulb with an LED and now there is plenty of light to come home to.
 
We had someone parked next to us last night with their trailer lights flashing, the old trick where you put a flasher into the trailer plug to flash the tail lights and running lights.

After watching that for a while, I was headed over to have a chat when the flashing stopped. Turns out another neighbor beat me to it!
 
I host at Forest Service campgrounds that typically have little electricity, so they're very dark at night. 
I have a couple of strings of Harbor Freight solar powered LEDs that I lay out on the ground, outlining the approach to my RV as well as a string of solar powered LED dragonfly lights that hang inside the awning.
The 3 strings together provide just about enough light to keep a person from tripping over their feet at night, but nowhere near enough light to bother anyone.  Even the star gazers that have their telescopes set up in the campground don't complain.

I've got the RGB flashing party LED's under the awning also, but I turn those off when we go to bed(or sometimes turn down the brightness and switch them to a non-flashing red/orange).
 
If I want lots of lights and noise, I stay at home.  When I'm camping, I like the peace and quite of a dark night.  A distant campfire provide enough light and usually are doused at a reasonable hour. 
 
I don?t think anyone complains about lighting when there is someone outside using it. The thing that I don?t understand is leaving it on all night. Yes, there is the exception for pack rat deterrent in the desert, but otherwise I just don?t get it. Why leave lights on if you aren?t using them?
 
I too have some LED path lights. as the other poster said. Not llikely to annoy.

Got up this Am and across the road (on the other side of a sheet of Refelect-X so it did not bother me) were two campers so tight that ..> Well almost the awning of one was almost touching the next.

Said awning had some very bright awning lights strung and operating.. I kind of feel sorry for the other RV. 

I turn my lights off or use LED's that "Expire" long about midnight .
 
garyb1st said:
If I want lots of lights and noise, I stay at home.  When I'm camping, I like the peace and quite of a dark night.  A distant campfire provide enough light and usually are doused at a reasonable hour.

Not everyone that camps has the same expectations of peace and quiet of a dark night......that is YOUR expectations, not necessarily everyone else's idea of camping.  I agree that quiet time, whatever time that is in any given campground should be respected, but the bottom line is that unless they are violating that part of the campground rules, they are within their rights to leave lights on all night long if they choose to.  Does it serve any useful purpose?  Who knows!  Is it what they should or shouldn't do.....again, who knows.  Personally, the lights on thing can be dealt with pretty easily by having shades that block the light from coming into your camper, noise is something altogether different and should be dealt with by campground management.  I've yet to see a campground that requires that your outside lights be turned off at a certain time.....there may be some, but I've not seen any.
 
xrated said:
Not everyone that camps has the same expectations of peace and quiet of a dark night......that is YOUR expectations, not necessarily everyone else's idea of camping.

Don't think I said it was.  If I don't like a place or the neighbors, I leave.  It's what I like about RVing. 
 
Peggyy said:
We have rope lights that we like to put around our awning,  I like to leave them on all night.  Was just wondering if this was an annoying thing to other campers.  I would hate to think my lights were keeping anyone awake at night so thought I would ask you knowledgeable folks.
Peggyy
I can promise you that you will not annoy anybody when you turn them OFF.
 
We have our patio light on a timer, on at 6:30, off at 9:00.
 
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