Happy Camping (Camping)

Member Name: MaryanneH

Product:	Camping
Date:	30/08/05 (2455 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap holidays, back to nature

Disadvantages: unpredictable weather and insects.

People’s opinions on camping fall into two very distinct categories – those who love it and those who can’t think of anything worse than sleeping outdoors, having to walk through a field to go to the loo and as for showering, well! I am afraid, in my insanity I fall very firmly into the first category.

There are also two very distinct forms of camping – rough camping and camping for softies. I prefer the latter but have indulged in both so I will start this review with ….

ROUGH CAMPING

What is it?

Rough camping is basically backpacking, you very carefully pack a large backpack with every thing that you will need, this includes the absolute basics only – tent (small and light) sleeping back (very compact) emergency rations (seem to recall this always included a mars bar!) basic small, light (barely sufficient for a cup of tea) cooking equipment, food and clean knickers. I seem to remember for our Duke of Edinburgh camp we had to take a trowel to bury our ‘waste’ as well. (this is why I no longer rough camp)

The advantages of this basic living though are simply that you can camp far from the Madding crowd, waking up to the fresh smell of early morning (or last nights unburied waste) and be completely at one with nature.

You must always get the landowners permission before you camp – you can not just pitch up in any old field, and I must admit the thought of waking up high in the hills of the lake district is very appealing but these days (as I get more unfit and have small children to consider) camping for softies is more the answer – not least as nowadays it is considerably safer.

CAMPING FOR SOFTIES

This is me – I love soft camping, you pack up the car with endless supply of kit, hubby looks at the pile in the middle of the living room and swears a bit muttering under his breath ‘how on earth am I supposed to get all this in the car’ to which I politely point out that the pile doesn’t include the tent or the pile of food in the kitchen! And guess what – more muttering.

So for soft camping, what equipment will you need

Tent – fairly obvious, I can recommend the Khyam ridgi-dome (see review) as it is very quick and easy to put up so we are arrival at site to beer out in 16 minutes, and of course the size is up to you but if you drive to site and unpack at site you don’t have to worry about carrying it up hill and down dale, so go for big and comfortable.

Sleeping bags, we have 3 season bags which are suppose to be adequate for spring summer and autumn. I honestly wouldn’t want to use them on their own in early spring or late autumn, maybe I’m just a wimp.

Air beds, or camping beds – you can get some that pack down really small these days which are great, and of course with the most important item of all:

Electric hook up – you can have the air beds up in no time, you can also use electric kettles, steamers and charge your mobile phone, and of course in spring and autumn a nice camping heater keeps the chill off. This is the one item I would not be without.

Everything else you add to this list is luxury helping to make your experience more enjoyable, but things like camping chairs and table, and of course a cool box with a bottle of wine in it, and naturally clothes toiletries and earl grey tea bags.

So how to chose a site!

The thing with softy camping is there are many sites to chose from I use the Alan Rogers camping guide, he also does books covering France and another for Europe (cos apparently France isn’t in Europe!) but I have never yet been disappointed with the description of a site from here. You need to know what you want from a site, are you looking for evening entertainment, plenty to do for the kids (my idea of hell) this is always mentioned in the particulars. Personally I tend to avoid sites like this as the bars tend to be tacky and not my sort of thing, I prefer a country quiet site with a good pub near by.

I also tend to avoid sites where you have to buy tokens or pay for the showers as you can guarantee the thing will run out just as you have your hair all lathered up.

All sites these days have shower and toilet blocks with washing up facilities some have laundries, most have childrens play area, although again I tend to avoid the ones that have amusement arcades.

Things to avoid

You don’t want to camp anywhere that is too exposed, last year we camped on the banks of Loch Leven and got very little sleep as any wind was really bad, also being so close to water, and in Scotland meant we couldn’t relax outside because of the horrendous midge problem. So look for descriptions of a ‘sheltered site’ and whilst camping next to water can be idyllic I tend to avoid it now as it can be exposed and attract more insects.

Don’t pitch your tent under a tree (you’ll be toast if it’s hit in a storm) or facing up a hill (we did this in Italy and one big rainstorm made for one very wet tent)

The joy of camping.

So why go to all this trouble, why not book into a hotel and be waited on – simple, you get back to nature and its cheap – this years holiday was a week camping in the lake district and cost us £100, incidently if you are travelling to that area I can recommend the brotherswater site, next to the brotherswater inn (which does a fantasic lamb shank) So sitting outside, the kids can run around to their hearts desire and you can see them, and they feel free. You sit down enjoying a nice bottle or two, relaxing, and it is your space.

Naturally in England the weather is not always friendly but, you can have a cheap weekend away and lessen the odds against this.

Then of course there is the back to nature idea, last year we had a badger in our tent - arrrrggghh, frightened it off easily enough though and to be fair you don't tend to get too many wild animals roming around the sites but if you're sensible about disposing of food and things you'll be fine.

Camping Abroad

This is one of those things that you may be nervous about to start with, but we have never had any problems – Eurocamp, do an independent service so they will book your ferry and your pitch which is great value we did 2 weeks in Italy for less than £500 (excluding petrol) using a company like this means you can use their pre-erected tents for overnight stops en route, to save you unpacking the car.

Of course the biggest advantage of camping abroad is you have a higher probability of good weather.

I’m off to plan next years now, abroad I think, I need some sun so if you decide to take up camping, hope you have fun.

Thank you for reading.

Summary: Great way to spend time with the family.