My first experience with camping and instruments was the Philly Folk Festival, 1968 or so. I set up my tent in the field set aside for same, and spent the day -- the hot, hot summer day, with 80% humidity -- away from the tent. When I came back, about suppertime, I found my brand new banjo case open -- at the small end. The humid, hot tent interior had re-created the manufacturer's bending machine, and the wood plies of the case simply opened up again. It took some clamping and lots of mystic tape to get the end closed up again.

The banjo was fine, of course. I have taken good guitars to camps and cheapo-cheapo guitars, and everything in between, and I recommend choosing a cheap one you can actually play and more or less like, if you want to go that route. Don't get cheap for the sake of cheap -- might as well not have an instrument if you don't like it. But good instruments can "take it" if you're careful. Avoid hot cars (and steamy tents) and sudden freezes, and avoid campfires on cold nights, since the side towards the fire will be much warmer than the back-side away from the fire; the temperature contrast isn't good for wooden instruments.

Bob Clayton