A cotton canvas bell tent is great when the kids are small, easy to put up, comfortable to be. All my pals bought them too.
Now my bampots are older we’ve moved onto the biggest air beam one Kampa do. Dunno what it’s called but it’s getting on for 10 meters long (in my defence I’ve got loads of kids)
Only real downside is it’s packed size which is frankly massive but if your car can accommodate it, having a big tent with a porch for taking wet gear off, cooking and siting when it’s wet outside and then an additional inside area with a carpet that’s a shoes off area so it remains totally dry are well worth having
Agree on 2nd hand - I got ours on eBay from someone who’d bought it for a group of families trip but found it too big to lift on her own so sold it on - saved £1k on the retail price
saved £1k on the retail price
**** me! I thought my £550 Vango airbeam was a lot of cash for a tent
Even if you don’t have electric hook-up – book an electric hook-up pitch as you nearly always get more space!
I'm not a big camper, but in my experience this would often put you rammed in amoungst a bunch of caravans and other tents in a organised layout. Whereas without a hook up it's usually a case of dude pointing at a big field and saying "pick where you want".
My tip;
Buy tent pegs that can be hammered into rock-hard sun baked ground. Normal ones will just bend. You also want a hard faced mallet not a rubber job. If you find you are not needing these items then you are camping in under the wrong weather conditions.
+1 to inflatable tent. Makes it a one man job. Means one person can keep the kids occupied while the other pitches. The alternative is a massive family argument.
Lots of good advice here. The main things I would echo.
A good sized tent, e.g. a six person for two adults and two kids. Vango are good.
The tent should have room for food prep and eating in case of rain
Lots of card games, books etc
Two gas burners
A coolbox (and electric gubbins if you have a hookup, or plenty of ice packs)
Torches and night lights in case the little ones get scared of the dark. Lanterns for evening reading.
A folding solar panel will keep phones topped up.
Ear plugs and eye masks to sleep through the dawn chorus.
Bring easily accessible food to eat for when you're setting up the tent. If you can shove pizza in the kids' mouths it'll allow you to get on with the job. Beer also helps.
Pre-chill your drinks in the fridge before putting in the coolbox.
Self-inflating mats are approx. one million times better than air beds.
An aeropress is robust and makes nice coffee.
In terms of the packing, we can fit it all into a C-Max with the middle seat removed, if for a weekend. A roofbox as well if for longer.
Dunno what it’s called but it’s getting on for 10 meters long (in my defence I’ve got loads of kids)
(Camp site manager hat on)
Ever thought about keeping the bell tent for you and setting up a little ‘pup-tent village’ (and outdoor kitchen/dining with table and tarp) around it? Is usually so much more fun for the kids, especially if you camp with friends who have kids also. The pup tents give kids some useful (and perceived) autonomy/repsonsibilities whilst still being a whisper away should they need you. And it makes more of the space. Less grief to pitch. They get their own little dome tents to set up. Obv toddlers and younger kids sleep in the bell tent
With this setup it helps to look for more laid-back ‘pro-camping’ sites that charge per person/per age and will often have fire wood for sale/fire bowls to hire.
Never was a fan of those acres of nylon for a number of reasons. OTOH, bunting is debatable but LED rope lights in the outdoor dining area are always good.
This is terrible campsite behaviour, completely missing the point of a communal activity. I will resist the temptation to compare to Brexit…
I agree, but it's a thing I've observed on said mega-sites, clearly a convention at these places, which we've used because the missus isn't really an outdoorsy woman and a substantial toilet block and onsite Costa is her idea of a good site. If it was just me and the kids we'd pick something smaller and quieter...
We often look for the "Keith field" which you can spot by the older more used looking tents, often better equipped cooking setups, pitches making use of terrain/folliage rather than windbreaks, a lack of territorial markings, national trust stickers in the car windows, etc, etc... normally a nicer neighborhood IME.
Second the idea of trying a camping pod or bell tent first, loads of campsites have them now and it’s one less thing to take and set up.
Although that puts you in very expensive camping territory where you can often get a youth hostel family room with more comfort for the same or less money!
I’m not a big camper, but in my experience this would often put you rammed in amoungst a bunch of caravans and other tents in a organised layout. Whereas without a hook up it’s usually a case of dude pointing at a big field and saying “pick where you want”.
I'd agree, if you like p7eavens' version of camping - don't book a plot with electric - in fact don't book a site with electric.
I’d agree, if you like p7eavens’ version of camping – don’t book a plot with electric – in fact don’t book a site with electric.
It's just personal preference - for me I'd rather not come back from a nice day out to find someone's pitched their massive 10 man tent 2 ft from the front of my tent!
And there are loads of tent only sites that offer electric hook-up. And don't knock hook-up either! A nice chilled beer is nice in an evening. 🙂
where you can often get a youth hostel family room with more comfort for the same or less money!
Or buy a bloody bell tent and then sell it at a small loss next week if you didn’t enjoy it! Still cheaper than renting one.
They are a breeze to put up. Just a pain to dry at home if departure day is wet. Had a 5m one and it went mouldy and died because I was lax. To be fair I did live in it for ages (about a year) and didn’t rotate. Have friends with canvas tents and they (and their tents) are still fine after years of annual hols.
The sound of rain on canvas is a joy though. As is canvas being warmer at night and cooler/shaded in the day, rather than the wrong way around as per nylon caverns. I especially like the traditional bell tents (without a zipped in groundsheet) so you can roll up sides if it’s baking.
Also look at decent used French and Dutch tents such as Cabanon or De Waard. I bought a used (1980s) 4 berth Cabanon villa thing for about £200 and it was like new.
A nice chilled beer is nice in an evening
If no hook up then 30 mins in the communal freezer in the barn. Or an hour in the stream 😉
About a year ago the wife said to me - "You know what, I hate camping" and it was such a relief not to have to do again.
Thoughts;
1. Unless your kids are very small, get them separate smaller tents - this way there is less waking up of them by you and vice versa. Its a fun independent thing for them too.
2. Go with other people - family, some good mates - its massively adds to the vibe, you get an extra few pairs of eyes.
3. Get a pop-up gazebo tent to give you some decent shade if sunny, a dry outside place where you can stand if wet - great for cooking under [be sensible].
4. If going in a group, one couple does dinner each night, make it themed.
I bloody hated camping anyway - it was a means to an end for cheap family holidays during some lean years. Nice hotels and holidays cottages from now on! 🙂
The only time the camping kit comes out now is for festivals.
I actually like camping. Sure, it's a lot of work, but the great advantage of a campsite is that the kids will make friends and play for hours. Meanwhile, I get to read a book and drink a beer.
In a holiday cottage, you're stuck with entertaining them the whole bloody time.
We still like to go camping, usually just the 2 of us. What we insist on is the ability to get up off our side of the self-inflating mat (without crawling over the other) and stand up. So we have a 5 man Outwell as our idea of a 2-man tent. With a socking great event shelter at the front which just happens to make a great rainproof seal with the tent.
Ours has a big front door and a small side door. I nearly always position the side door just a few feet from a hedge so I can get up and piss in the middle of the night in private.
The only times I don't is if it's going to be windy. (The weather)
Always take the quilt and pillows from home. Get the best cool box you can and a small Weber portable BBQ.
Every year I'm disappointed that it hasn't rotted away, because then I could justify getting an airbeam one.
Has anyone discovered footwear that is practical as crocs for quick sorties without the embarassment of having to actually wear a pair?
Slides are the only back up option for quick exits, but they're also not great in wet grass
How old are the children? If it's at all viable, I'd go with two tents rather than one big one.
(Smaller tents are more versatile, easier to put up, more stable in wind, easier to dry out, easier to site - and it's more of an "adventure" for children)
Has anyone discovered footwear that is practical as crocs for quick sorties without the embarassment of having to actually wear a pair?
It's for a quick dash to the bogs, not a night out in town. Just wear crocs!
It’s for a quick dash to the bogs, not a night out in town. Just wear crocs!
But not in the rain. In the rain go barefoot.
One rainy night I had to go shufflerun down a short, wet grassy slope to the bog/shower block at 3am as I had stomach bug from hell. Could barely hold it so the fastshuffle was necessary.
At the slope to the bogs there was unseen mud underfoot. My Crocs without warning became the swiftest of skis. I was down and winded lying on back in an instant, in some shock as my head bounced. Worse than that it’s now not just ‘mud’ that I was lying in.
And the showers were solar and the hot tank had emptied, so a 3am freezing cold shower for what seemed like forever trying to be quiet not wake others camping nearby, yet also and wash my clothes and myself by the light of a head-torch. The most muffled of (many) shrieks
🌌😩⛺️💦🙃💩💩💩🚿😱💩💩💩💩🚿🚿💩💩💩🚿🚿🚿🚿💩🚿💩🚿🚿🥶🥶🚿🚿🚿💩🚿🚿🥶🚿🚿🥶🚿🚿⛺️🌅😴
Crocs are perfect for campsites, otherwise. A cautionary tale.
My Decathlon tent is fine for car camping. I bought it less than £100.
I am going to speak out against air tents on two counts....
1) if you get a leak in one of the air tubes you are pretty much stuffed. Two of us on our campsite in week 1 of our main 2020 holiday had leaky poles, ours was first trip away and under warranty but had been test pitched. Twice daily pumping up was not a good start.
2) good grief they are bulky and an arse to fold compared to a pole tent and because you cannot split the packing poles/cloth the only way to lift it is all in one. Dry ours weighs about 50kg.
We do have an 8 berth monster but we've gone from estate, to mpv to mpv+trailer. That's partly for convenience of packing/unpacking and partly taking too much gear / home comforts depending on which of us you talk to (I'm the one who would still spend a fortnight in a tent I can't stand up in and cook in the porch laying on my belly on my bed). We also always planned to take bikes AND kayaks for some trips so extra space for towing and living/drying was a key thing for us.
