New to camping with Children

sooty&sweep

Hi

Have a look at ukcampsite.co.uk

It's an online forum for campers.

Cheers

Jen

Kitten_Pie

photome wrote: »

Mmm a photo booth, surely not a full size 1.5 metre photo booth ?

It comes in 11 boxes/packages which I build like a jigsaw which I take with me in the boot of my car yes. So a lovely big boot. I fit more in my boot than my friend who has a small van.

I went to Go Outdoors and bought a small £20 festival tent which fits 4 (2 comfortably) and me and my 5 person family packed the car and went away for the night. After realising I should really have booked a campsite first and planned more than I did which was not at all we turned back and camped in the garden.

It was a hit so I have purchased the one I have been looking at at Go Outdoors (but second hand from ebay)

The reviews on ukcampsite.co.uk seem really good so going to collect it next weekend and camping on the way back (bought it from a seller a few hours away so will take our new festival tent as well for backup)

Really excited to get started and the children are really enthusiatic too wanting to sleep in the tent every night; alas work tomorrow so have had to put my foot down and sleep in a bed. :rotfl:

photome

which tent have you bought

RedFraggle

We have a trailer tent and love it. You can get a decent but old trailer tent or folding camper for the same price as a tent. Look at sunncamp, trigano, Pennine and Conway. Ours is a camplet which is expensive.

Bobby_Wader

Definitely get as big a tent as you can afford. You will appreciate the space when it rains!



Camping is great, kids don't need much as everything you need is outside, so as long as you have plenty of warm/waterproof clothes, you only need a tent, bedding and a BBQ/small stove. Remember the simpler you keep things the better the experience.

Savvy_Sue

Kitten_Pie wrote: »

Really excited to get started and the children are really enthusiatic too wanting to sleep in the tent every night; alas work tomorrow so have had to put my foot down and sleep in a bed. :rotfl:

:rotfl: We used to enjoy sleeping in the garden as children. When we moved, I was about 9, we were doing it a lot - it was summer and the weather was nice. Apparently one neighbour said to another neighbour "I don't know how many children they've got, but some of them have to sleep in the garden!":rotfl:

Bear in mind that when the weather's wet, you want to avoid getting wet stuff too far inside the tent.

Kitten_Pie

We got the Kalahari 8 tent with the porch etc so should definitely be big enough. Also got the Freedom trail Toco 4 tent which is the one we have used.

Would love a trailer tent but think that is something to consider at a later date if this goes well.

Have a couple of torches and looking at a stove at the moment but don't need it for this weekends trip.

CapricornLass

Part of the secret of camping is to make it as luxurious as you can within as small a space as you can. So, if you really do take to this....



Invest in nesting light-wieght stainless steel saucepans with a shared handle and where the lid becomes the frying pan all held together with a strap, a collapsable bucket and a washing up bowl you can fold up, a very small dishrack ( the water drained off and saved the tea-towel getting quite so wet). Or a water carrier that's flexible enough to roll up when not being used. Or multi-purpose things, like a torch that turns into a lantern, and of course the good old Swiss Army knive with with a screw-driver and scissors as well as a blade.



Things which fold up to take a smaller footprint - tables where the legs collapse. and clip into place underneath, folding chairs and stools. Look out for things like very small bottles of washing up liquid (or find a small plastic bottle that you can fill up from home). Keep an eye out for things which can be repurposed to make your life easier - we carried a box with lots of comparments which was meant for picnic meals, but which meant we could store the small delicate essentials such as little packets of salt and pepper, stock cubes, matches, pegs nylon cord (for the guy ropes) , and spare gas mantles ( for our lantern)



With regards to stoves, we invested in a Coleman's stove which had two burners and which could run on petrol as well the special bottles of fuel. It was the size of a suitcase, but did making cooking much much easier. Believe it or not, I made three course dinners on that stove! It also had the power to heat up a full kettle of water quickly too. Think carefully about meals too. They need to be quick e.g. risotto, or stir-fries. Think about clothes too - light weight,, again roll up/fold down into as small a space as you can. Travel towels can be a good investment too as they fold up really small. although personally I don't think they are as good at drying you as a proper towel. However, they take up a tenth of the space.


Most of this did seem to fit into the boot (although it was very full), but as the boys got bigger, we used to hire a top box to accommodate everything.


Most of this came from camping shops and it was built up over many years - Cotswold Camping and Millets,and Go in the last year, but sometime the local stores by the campsites had reasonably priced camping equipment. Ships chandlers can also be a good source of equipment. Its a matter of keeping your eyes peeled, and being prepared to think outside the box a bit. If pennies permit, its definitely worth waiting for the sales, too.


HTH. Have fun!