Look At This Even If You Don't Camp! (Cool Camping England - Jonathan Knight)

Member Name: flutel

Product:	Cool Camping England - Jonathan Knight
Date:	29/05/09 (235 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tells you about amazing camping experiences

Disadvantages: Makes everyone else want the amazing camping experiences too

I love, love, love camping (see my camping review) and this book was given to me as a prizzie about a year ago. It is a second edition of the book - which means it has been updated and improved. It is just one title in a series of 'Cool Camping' books - including 'Cool Camping : kids'.


I spent quite a bit of time poring over it and selecting destinations in England to visit- and visit I did.


The book contains a staggering seventy campsites - so even if you visited around five a year it would still take you quite a while to visit them all.



The book costs £14.99 and can be bought from bookshops like Waterstones. It looks like you can get it much cheaper on Amazon though!


The Authors
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Johnathon Knight, Paul Marsden and Andy Stothert.

'Cool Camping' was written by the people who really did go and research the campsites (some people have rotton jobs). The blurb quotes:

'Original author and a team of travel writers have visited over 500 campsites, covered thousands of miles and lost at least half a dozen tent pegs in the search for England's coolest sites. New entries include a quirky sea-view site at Lizard Point, a retro kitch caravan park in Yorkshire and a Dorset farm with castle views.'


The authors do not judge sites on the numbers of showers or electricity hook-ups. They are more interested in 'the location, the view, the ambience, the surrounding area, even the philosophy and attitude of the owners'. In short, they have looked for and found sites that are not merely places to be but will give you a very special experience when you camp.


Criteria
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They decide a place constitutes a special campsite with the following criteria:

Cracking views

Woodland sites

Remore countryside locations

Quiet peaceful hideaway

'Unusual' camping experiences



The book contains sites that:
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Nestle on the very edge of the sea

Have vintage airstream trailers to rent

Allow you to have campfires in your own firepit

Rent out super-luxury tents with furnitire and wood-burning stoves in

Are high in the hills away from civilisation

Rent out personalised, themed trailers and gypsy caravans

Offer Yurt camping

Are tiny and well organised

Offer camping with horses around your tents (I'm off to this one in July!)

Etc, etc, etc.



'Cool Camping' not only reviews and recommends campsites but it also gives top tips on camping and gives festival details and festival info. It also, from the whole of the sites gives you their 'Cool Camping Top 5' -which they say is 'The Oscars of the camping world'.


Cool Camping Sites I have Visited
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At Easter, I visited Turner Hall Farm in the Lake District. The book reported it as ' A Glorious wilderness amongst rocky crags and famous fells' and said that when the gate to the farm was closed after you, civilisation was left behind. That was exactly the experience that I had; there were only a couple of other campers during the four nights spent there and my tent was pitched in a place where I had my own mini mountain and my own stream running past. It was right next to fells and I did a lot of amazing rambling in an unspoilt location; lots of free fun and no using of the car. The facilities were good and the farmer's wife visited us every morning to collect the cash and have a quick chat. The whole thing was delightful.



My second expedition was not so good because it was a spontaneous one and the camsite in the Peak District ('a lovely woodland setting alive with the sounds of the forest') was full. How gutted was I? I looked around the place it was a dinky site with low-key laid back campers. To stay there would have been a dream. However, the nearest site (not a 'Cool Camping' site) that I ended up on turned out to be a site frequented by bikers, quad bikers and Duke of Edinburgh kids. LOTS of noise (all night with the DoE kids) and petrol fumes. Lovely.



The site booked (yes book if you can, it saves heartache and enables you to sleep) for July is in the New Forest where ponies and donkeys roam free. The book warns that the donkeys are adept at unzipping tents to look for snacks and that rumour has it that they may even be able to open ring-pulls on cans.



Photographs
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These really make the book. The photos are fantastic and give you usually at least a couple of views for each site which show some of the features/charms mentioned and also campers enjoying the said charms. The photos do fill the whole of some pages; the print quality is excellent.


To look at the photos makes you desire to up and go, to be in the beautiful settings, to be one with the planet...ok - that may be a bit much - but the book has given me a real itch to go/travel/camp perhaps even more than I normally have.



To Conclude
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'Cool Camping' is written in a chatty often humourous way but it spells out the charms and the disadvantages of each site with photos that illustrate the comments and give you a real idea of what you will get. The disadvantages listed may include 'quite a trip to the water tap' and are very helpful to those who plan to the nth degree - (I'll fill up my water bottle at home then).


The downside of this book is that many of these sites have become popular with the readers of the very popular book 'Cool Camping' (hence my Peak District one being fully booked) so the experience that is described may just have one or two campers more than you expect there.


It is however, a great reference book - the New Forest campsite had more interesting information than the actual campsite website. I use it all the time.

Summary: A must have book for the summer!