Originally Posted by
stevage
I've camped a few times on gravel roads. Once it was the only remaining spot at a very busy campsite. Once I was too exhausted to look for anywhere better - it was there, it was flat, and there wasn't going to be any traffic. And once was actually on a rail trail, under a bridge - better than camping on wet grass.
I think that one factor is exactly how the tent is used. I have camped on all kinds of surfaces and not found my tent floor to be damaged much if at all. I suspect one reason for this is that when I get into the tent I almost always to crawl right on to the sleeping pad. I never have shoes on in the tent and the tent floor seldom sees me putting weight directly on it. In the rare cases where I actually put weight directly on the floor it is my hands and knees.
I am not especially careful, but I use a one man tent that the sleeping pad pretty much covers the floor of. Also time in the tent is almost entirely laying on the sleeping pad. Even when three of us used a 4 man tent the tent floor saw very little traffic other than folks crawling directly on to or off of their sleeping pads.