Camping Holidays

Actiongirl_2

We take a cool box, and most of the places we stay have freezers where you can freeze up your ice blocks to keep the box cool. Remember to take double amount of blocks. One lot will be in the freezer whilst your using the other lot.

We discovered the joy of pre-frozen ice when camping last year. We went Aug Bank hols, and filled a hard cool box with ice from tesco (£1 i think) and kept the meat and milk in it. Even when the ice was melting 2 days later, the water was still keeping the food and milk cold enough. It worked ten times better than cool blocks and we are doing the same next year.

In terms of equipment, we waited to see how much we liked it before investing in a good tent etc. The first couple of years we just used cheap and cheerful stuff from decathlon. Now we have a wizzy tent, great accessories and sadly all the matching picnic sets etc! But it is fun no matter what you have and how much you can afford. There is NOTHING better than sitting outside your tent, looking at mountains or trees, cooking sausages, still wearing your pjs and drinking tea with bits of grass in it!!! :rotfl:

Hope this helps.

littlechezza

Thanks for all the information, I've had a look at the websites suggested and they are very helpful, I don't suppose anybody can recommend the best tent for 2 adults and 2 children and my husband would prefer it to have some windows

saxy1

We have a Gelert lokon vario 5 which has two bedrooms and good headhight, you dont have to get dressed on your hands and knees! it is a tunnel tent, which is quite easy to erect after first attempt.

We tried ours in garden first, got ours from a company called 'singers' they have a websight - https://www.singersoutdoors.co.uk.
We are now a three tent family, one for every occasion!!

bestyman

The choice of tent depends on how much effort you are prepared to put in erecting it versus the amount of room you would like. There is no such thing as an quick to put up big tent , so you have to decide which factor is important to you .
I would reccomend a small ( 6ft high , 7ft wide, 12ft long) tunnel tent that has only 4 equal poles, and so is easy to put up. It has a bedroom at each end that willl take a double airbed ( this is important for ...erm...privacy!) and a living area in the middle that 4 people can just about squeeze into if it rains. A tent like this could cost around approx £70 . A good all rounder.
In my opinion any make will do , at first you will probably only go in fair weather so no need to pay more than you have to .

Of course you could buy 2 self erecting pop up tents , the kids may prefer this, that take a few seconds to put up , or a big 6 birth monster that will take a couple of hours. ( I have one of these too, selling on ebay come spring as was way too much effort to put it up )

Personally I mainly use a very strange tent , its an airzone self inflating air tent which IMO is the best tent I have ever had, no tent poles for me! You might be struggling to find one of these.

Another consideration is that if you go away busy summer weekends many sites will squeeze you in with a little tent but turn you away with a larger tent.

Then of course you could buy a trailer tent or have you ever considered a caravan...Only joking. Just sell the car and buy a campervan. ;o)

Bestyman

merlinormartin

Slightly "off topic" but for those who like camping iv found a fantastic camp site its called zeepark ( https://www.zeepark.be ) its in de panne (https://www.depanne.be/tourism.aspx )... Norfolk ferries do extreamly cheap fares from Dover, the campsite is about a 30min drive from the port. (https://www.norfolkline-ferries.co.uk/en/dd-passenger) ... we paid .. £35 return for the car and 4 passengers. The camp site itself works out about £2 per night .. and its actually based on the beach front! .. theres .. crazy golf .. theme park .. amazing white beaches .. lovely people.

sal

Loo rolls in carrier bags, one for the girls and one for the boys, you can never rely on a campsite to have enough loo rolls.

Wellies, even when the sun is shining, there is often a heavy dew so early morning loo runs can leave very wet trainers - that's if you have enough time to put them on!

Torches.

Playing cards.

Hot water bottles, depending on when you are going, early and late season trips can be chilly, don't be put off, it's lovely and snug in a tent with a hottie bottie.

Buckets, big ones, strangely they come in really useful for all sorts of purposes - leave it to your imagination.

A cheap BBQ from wilkinsons or somewhere like that, one that costs less than a tenner, you can use it daily and bin it at the end of the holiday, we find it easier and cheaper in the long run than little disposable ones, especially when cooking for a family and fun too, when the meat etc has been cooked the kids get on with their serious cooking - toast! Oh, and BBQ lighter fluid, you can get the charcoal when you get there if the car is getting overloaded.

Five litre bottles of water from the supermarket, a couple of those are great for refilling at the tap, lighter so best to send the kids with.

A washing line and a few pegs to string up somewhere to dry swimming cossies and towels.

A windbreak is really useful around the front of the tent to mark your territory and give you some protection from wind and prying eyes. You can uproot it to take to the beach. It's snug to sit inside the windbreak in the evening with the barbie and a bottle. Again, remember the mallet.

Blag bags or squashy bags for your clothes, suitcases are just not suitable for camping. Don't try to dress up, campsites are made for snuggly comfortable clothes - well the ones we go to are, you may prefer a site with a club so dressing up may well be called for.

I agree with a previous poster about paper plates and dishes, they're great, otherwise plastic stuff and a washing up bowl to cart them up to the dishwashing room, don't knock it, they're very sociable places where you find all the low down on all the best places to go.

Don't leave full bags of rubbish outside the tent at night to take to the bin next morning, you can bet the seagulls will find them and spread all your junk all around the site! Yuk.

If I think of any more I'll post later.

We adore camping. We have many different holidays but always get some camping in. Our kids are now teenagers and older but still love to come along.

Favourite sites - Aberafan in Wales and Valley in Polzeath. Both on the seafront and very laid back. Bliss. Booked in already for this year.

Sal

karren

hi we bought the lokon vario 4 in a sale christmas time and cant wait to use it, after reading this im eager to get going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
does anyone else have this tent, is it any good?

d97axa

I would also have a look at https://www.caravansitefinder.co.uk although it is not as established as ukcampsite, it does have a camping tips section. Quite refreshingly it also seems to let users post constructive negative reviews as well as positive. I am not sure that ukcampsites does that.