Originally Posted by
mdilthey
Next time you're out biking, find a place with no trees (that's a challenge by itself, depending on location). Then, see how many miles you have to go to find just two. If you have to go more than 3, you can safely say your area is not hammock friendly. I probably just described about 1% of the United States.
Hammocks are useless in most of the USA, due to no trees.
Your 1% guess is way off, because actually more than half of the "lower 48" area is essentially treeless:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76697&src=iotdrss
As of 1997, 33% of USA land area was forest land - you need a bivy, tarp or tent in the other 67% of the country (and mosquito netting everywhere):
http://fia.fs.fed.us/library/briefin...actsMetric.pdf