This weekend I did a dry run with my wife for a camping holiday we have planned in 6 weeks. All went fine apart from her waking up at 4 / 5 o’clock with the birds both mornings and a disturbed sleep due to worry about spiders, centipedes and earwigs. The iPhone battery going flat also didn’t help matters…

I suspect that she was cold but are there any other useful bits of advice for taking city-girls camping? I suspect that over a longer trip away she’ll get tired so that after a couple of nights she’ll be back to sleeping all the way through again.

Our 2 and 4 year kids that were with us loved every minute 😉

ear plugs, plus perhaps one of those blindfold things to avoid waking up really early. I always find it’s the light streaming into the tent that wakes me up.

One of those portable battery chargers to keep the phone topped up, if it really must be.
Like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/10000mAh-Portable-Dual-Port-Thunderbolt-Incredible-Black/dp/B0063AAIRG

Regarding the cold – what did she wear? Nothing like a pair of thermal leggings and long sleeved top to sleep-in.

I also wake up at dawns crack when camping. I look at the positives, get up, make a brew and watch the sunrise/wildlife.

Book city-girl in to health spar close to campsite?? 😉

Sorry, this is a tongue in cheek thread after reading the thread about camping with toddlers 😀

My summer family camping plans have already been crushed and we are renting a cottage in Wales instead as a compromise. I will however be taking the kids camping sans wife at some point.

I will however be taking the kids camping sans wife at some point.

^this +1. its not worth the whinging if you force them to go camping when they clearly dont enjoy it. Some great dad/kid bonding happened when we did this.

edit: in order to get the ‘citygirl’ to even try camping we had to:

1. buy a mahoosive tent – (sleeps 17!!) for the family of 4, one big enough to stand up in. A tent big enough to be seen from space.
2. take a double inflatable bed, along with her duvet and pillows
3. ensure electrical hookup available for the electric blanket
4. buy enough camping kit to supply a small everest base camp with hot cooked food, cold refrigerated drinks, comfy chairs etc.
5. promise to pack up if it rained two days in a row.

still, she DID try it. once. sigh.

I also wake up at dawns crack when camping. I look at the positives, get up, make a brew and watch the sunrise/wildlife.

I know thread has gone in a different direction, but this is camping to me. Sitting in your chair with the kettle on for the first coffee of the day, watching the sun gradually climbing over the tops of the trees and being just a little bit too cold for comfort. But knowing that soon those rays will be warming your old bones up beautifully.

My eldest gets it and will happily sit and wait, enjoying the peace with only a solitary dutchman on his way for a sh*t and to get his baguette to say hello to. My wife and youngest are the opposite and will stay huddled away until the tent gets too hot to stay in any longer!!

NB: only valid for camping abroad. Does not correlate well to UK, where the best time to leave the tent is when it stops chucking it down and instead becomes a fine drizzle.

Smudger666

edit: in order to get the ‘citygirl’ to even try camping we had to:

1. buy a mahoosive tent – (sleeps 17!!) for the family of 4, one big enough to stand up in. A tent big enough to be seen from space.
2. take a double inflatable bed, along with her duvet and pillows
3. ensure electrical hookup available for the electric blanket
4. buy enough camping kit to supply a small everest base camp with hot cooked food, cold refrigerated drinks, comfy chairs etc.
5. promise to pack up if it rained two days in a row.

I’m pretty sure that^^^ isn’t ‘camping’ tbh!

Can this be a confessional as well?

I’ve never really properly enjoyed a camping trip. Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of camping but the execution has always always had an element of mleh. Even on the remotest of hillsides with the sun setting and rising as if with the accompanying sound of one of Aaron Copeland’s finest overtures, or a bag so toasty one is just so, or ground like the finest of feather beds, there’s always something. Midges, rain, something…

Perhaps the key to camping is that element of hardship, that little bit that grates. But I would have liked just once to have been, I dunno…content?

I remember Dawn, she had beautiful auburn hair.

ear plugs

Yes, these stop Earwigs bedding down in your ear for the night… maybe 2 more are required for nostrils

Like a dwarf, I’m always happy to get up at the crack of Dawn

This parallels my experience.

Mrs ADH requires the following to even consider a camping trip:
1) Tent size of elephant, also weight of elephant
2) Car to transport tent size of elephant to location
3) 5 course cordon bleu meal
4) Proper campsite with 5* shower/toilet facilities
5) Carrying between shower and tent
6) Rapid hermetic sealing into enough down sleeping bags to fill 9/10th of tent size of elephant
7) 24/7 armed guard by SAS
8 ) All camping plans are null and void should a single drop of rain fall from the sky at any point 3 weeks prior to said trip

Compared to stopping somewhere pretty, jumping into a bivi bag and getting started on the super noodles, its just far too much effort for me.

Had a great camping trip with my then girlfriend pitched the tent high on a hill between Killin and Glen Lyon weather was beautiful but we spent almost the entire weekend in the tent, the most contented camping trip ever 8) now 20 years ago bloody hell 😛

How come all you rugged outdoorsy people have ended up with city girls?

How come all you rugged outdoorsy people have ended up with city girls?

I blame Bear Grylls etc for making outdoorsy types fashionable. My missus still seems under the impression that the random sunburn, stubble, and scabs/scars are just some sort of “look”.

How come all you rugged outdoorsy people have ended up with city girls?

Well I kept looking under hedges, but couldn’t find anything worth bothering with 😉

1. buy a mahoosive tent – (sleeps 17!!) for the family of 4, one big enough to stand up in. A tent big enough to be seen from space.
2. take a double inflatable bed, along with her duvet and pillows
3. ensure electrical hookup available for the electric blanket
4. buy enough camping kit to supply a small everest base camp with hot cooked food, cold refrigerated drinks, comfy chairs etc.
5. promise to pack up if it rained two days in a row.

This is sounding unnervingly familiar.

Personally, I’m wondering if it’s actually worth bothering with a tent when you get to this point. Might as well just book a hotel.

1. buy a mahoosive tent – (sleeps 17!!) for the family of 4, one big enough to stand up in. A tent big enough to be seen from space.
2. take a double inflatable bed, along with her duvet and pillows

This is where you’re going wrong.

A big tent is harder to keep warm; if you’re going to use a big tent then you need a small sleeping area to retain heat.

An inflatable bed is crap for outdoor camping. It will be like sleeping on an ice block by 4am. A double bed is worse, every time you move you’ll disturb your partner, and if there’s a reasonable size difference between the two then it’ll be like a blob jump.

Duvets similarly sound like a good idea, but they don’t retain heat nearly as well as a sleeping bag in that sort of environment.

On a recent camping trip my wife complained about ‘the hill’ back from the toilets. It was a steep incline agreed but traversing it to our tent took all of 5 maybe 6 minutes tops. Also she thought I was ‘laughing’ at her as I sat in my comfy chair supping a beer watching her negioate ‘the hill.’ She was right, I was.

Camping with a family has changed us now. In days gone by we used to get the tent up, blow up the bed and have ourselves some first day of holiday afternoon delight.

My tip would be to buy her the most expensive lightweight kit on the market, but make sure it fits you. If a girl doesn’t like camping you can try all you like but at the end of the day you’ll be there on your own.

Personally, I’m wondering if it’s actually worth bothering with a tent when you get to this point. Might as well just book a hotel.

+1

I think on a per night basis our camping has given the Savoy a run for it’s money for being the UK’s most expensive Hotel.

This does include the missus declaring that various ‘things’ were outdoors stuff and therefore had to live outside in the shed. Where they propmptly rotted.

This does include the missus declaring that various ‘things’ were outdoors stuff and therefore had to live outside in the shed. Where they propmptly rotted.

expensive tent, sleeping bags, that kind of stuff?

Cougar – member

logic this, logic that, logic the other

all good points, but it won’t help anything

expensive tent, sleeping bags, that kind of stuff?

Yup, she eventualy got the message that it wasn’t ‘shed stuff’ whilst lying on the cold hard ground due to the airbed having rotted.

and if there’s a reasonable size difference between the two then it’ll be like a blob jump.

We have one made by Coleman (which wasn’t especially expensive) that blows up two sides separately which while all one bed, aren’t affected by the weight of each partner.

I’m not bigging up air-mattresses by any stretch, but they’re not all one big massive blob-jump type thing.

Ah: pic…

Air beds are normally really cold as the air inside adopts ground temperature. Either make sure you have a proper insulation layer under it or on top.

C

For me, camping became a very poor “second” after my best mate got one of these:

It’s got power, central heating, a fridge, bar and shower, oh, and a widescreen telly!

A few years back we did a 24hr mtb event, and it was a life saver to have in the pits 😉

Never mind all that tent mullarky, this is my kind of roughing it…

Booking.com…

Only go to a three star hotel when all the four stars are full, of course! The one above is four star and very nice indeed – been a bit too long since we were there (New Year, as I recall): need to go back ASAP.

My last travelodge room was nicer than that ghastly looking thing. 😛

thankfully my city girl likes a bit of adventure, but warm and dry is the most important thing to keep her happy
now we take the kids too, they love it
rough ride last year

chairs for everyone, decent stove,- cups of tea on demand, comfy sleepng mat, warm sleeping bag,

I’d recognise an Aptamil container anywhere. 🙂

An inflatable bed is crap for outdoor camping. It will be like sleeping on an ice block by 4am.

Yup.

Air beds are normally really cold as the air inside adopts ground temperature. Either make sure you have a proper insulation layer under it or on top.

That’s the bit I got wrong.
However, it was my first camping out in years, the first time it was a really hot weekend, and this particular weekend started warm and sunny.
Then turned wet and bloody cold!
In June, two years ago.
I’ll know better next time.

CBiL – I need me a bit of that, where is it?

We’ve used an inflatable mattress for years (when car camping). We just put a blanket over it and then sleep in decent bags on it. If there was any cold to be felt, even if it was a drop of a degree twenty miles away, mrs deadly would feel it 🙄 and there’s never been a problem.

I have just about given up on the camping routine.
Over the years we have had a pickup w/slide in camper, tent-trailer, various tents, hard-sided trailer and no matter the accommodations, Mrs. Busydog would be awake half of the night, alarming at every sound that she was sure was an onslaught of zombies riding mountain lions and god help us if there was a thunderstorm.

Edit Granted we usually camped in very remote mountain areas with the closest person probably at least 5 miles away, but to me that is what it is all about.

deadlydarcy – Member
My last travelodge room was nicer than that ghastly looking thing.

Well, we like to have a suite rather than the cheaper rooms… 😀

What is recommended instead of an air bed*?

EDIT: *For two people

no matter the accommodations, Mrs. Busydog would be awake half of the night, alarming at every sound

(NOTE: if it’s not clear from the picture, they go in your ears)