I don't think it matters too much what your gear is as long as you can get out there. One of our most memorable trips was 6 weeks from Pelican in QLD to Capel WA in the first model Ford Festiva. We flew to Brisbane with a billy and pan, cutlery and a mug, a small backpack each (the kids used their school bags) and a sleeping bag. We picked up the Festiva that Mum had dropped there for us and shot straight into Kmart. We bought 3m of black garden plastic for a groundsheet, a little single burner stove and bottles, an air-mattress each, two $6 chairs, a couple 5L bottles of water and a small box of food with long-life milk. We used paper plates and disposed of them in the campfire.
We went from Brisbane to Pelican via the Bunya Mountains where Sandra and the boys spent half the night trying to catch fire-flies that they had never seen before. At Pelican they saw the big green frogs like they had never had the opportunity to see in Western Australia. Then experienced the awful sound of their last cries as they were swallowed by a carpet snake in the dead quiet of the night.
We travelled south and took the 4WD road over 16 river crossings in the Condamine Gorge before spending a very wet night at Glen Innes. The next day we went into the two buck shop and walked out with two $16 tents that we used for the rest of the trip if the weather turned against us. The under-seat cavity was already taken up with air mattresses and behind the seat was full up so the tents fitted between the kids on the back seat. We ran out of fuel approaching Broken Hill and it took all four of us to push it close enough to town to get phone reception to call the RAC using Mum's membership.
That was more than ten years ago and to this day we still talk of that great adventure in a tiny car with no air-con, just wind down windows.
However as you age a little comfort is appreciated. Now we travel in a self sufficient 4WD camper that needs no setting up and all we have to do is remember to take the kettle off the stove before it ends up down the stairwell where it landed the day before.
The most important thing is that your setup doesn't cost so much that you can't afford to go camping.