MANCHESTER, TENN. — The Bonnarro Music and Arts Festival is often billed as a music and camping festival.

Walking through the various campsites here is a study in how to camp. In the guest camping area, you find huge houses-on-wheels, otherwise known as RVs, next to campers making do with bamboo poles and tarpaulins.

The folks over in the $400 VIP camping area also have tents and RVS, but they have lunch and dinner buffets and air-conditioned bathrooms.

Next to our site is a tent-within-a-tent setup. They’ve put their dome tent inside one of those shade and bug-netting deals you see in the Sunday circulars all the time.

Up the way a bit is a similar, tent-in-tent deal but the bigger tent is a 25-foot tall teepee deal. Next to them is a SUV with the tent attached to the back. They run the car AC during the day to keep cool. An aluminum hose redirects the exhaust away from the sleeping area.

Across from them is a combo RV and multi-tent sight. In addition to the shade canopies, they’ve got dome tents connected by crawl-ways and an outdoor kitchen/seating area with giant inflatable chairs shaped like hands. A big generator run their party lights at night, the air-conditioner and — no kidding — a full-sized inflatable jumper.

One of the residents was frying up bacon on an electric griddle this morning and they had a shrimp boil last night.

Around the corner is a similar setup with several tents connecting to form full-sized rooms with couches, chairs and coffee tables.

For most, the back of the car or truck serves as kitchen, closet, refrigerator and cupboard.

Things are a little different in the general camping area. If you’ve seen television footage of those tent cities that are created after natural disasters, you get the idea. For some, a campsite is a towel thrown on the ground next to a vehicle. A cooler serves as storage, fridge and chair.

Wherever you are and whatever your setup, the key is keeping cool.

It’s not much, but it’s home.