Real shame about Stonethwaite, some great wild swimming spots nearby also 🙁
I tried a campsite for the first time recently.
It was a miserable experience.
The couple in the tent next to me were up at 6 clinking pans and TALKING! AT 6 A.M!!!!
Never again.
Wild camping every time from now on.
Get the Cool Camping book/website. NEVER go to any of the sites in it.
🙂
I found a site near us (Dales) at the back of a pub, with no shower, and the toilet literally inside a tiny shed.
Everywhere else is absolutely heaving, this, for some reason, was lovely and quiet.
So, this thing about empty campsites – in my (quite limited) experience – I’ve found it doesn’t really matter how few people there are in the campsite, wherever you erm camp, the next JOLLy, FRIENDLY, LOVELY CAMPER type family will drive up and park (I meam camp) right next to you
If it ever happened I’ve moved on! Unless they’re awesome people and we’re on the last night/somehow glad of the company.
I usually park the car and pitch tent in a way that might prevent/lessen a close-pitch form whomever. If solo camping then I find the Place Farthest From Amenities and am prepared to move/move-on. It’s rarely been a problem in nearly 40 yrs of camping holidays.
Call me grumpy but I tend not to publicise my favourite quiet sites on forums/social media for the same reason I don’t sit outside the tent blowing the car-horn.
Places with crap/no websites are usually a good shout
Sites that allow Duke of Ed but are far from any pubs are usually good. The kids are so knackered they're asleep by 9pm.
Loads of great advice here. Thanks everyone. Really appreciated.
@BlackFlag - which area are you going to?
Maybe we could recommend some sites via the message facility (to avoid publicity)?
ElShalimo - Thanks. Not sure yet as it more of a general question. Possibly down south / Cornwall or Devon.
I'm not sure south and quiet are going to work so well this year...
Now if you'd said Welsh borders, mid-Wales, Pennines, Eden Valley, Borders and Galloway, there might be a chance of some peace...
What’s the secret to finding quiet campsites?
In most places, turning up with loud kids and/ or walking around very ostentatiously naked normally does it. If it wasn't quiet before you arrived, it will be shortly afterwards
Shropshire's not a very popular county, have a look round there, Much Wenlock area. Loads of lovely countryside but bugger all stuff for tourists to do.
I'm watching this with interest!
Me and the other half have around half a dozen that we use. Some in the lakes are like Glastonbury - Pooley Bridge to be precise... There were adults doing coke in the loos last year! We foxtrot oscard the next day...
Anyway, I digress.... For a campsite, that has a no music policy, no noise after 11pm, no groups, showers and plenty of space with bushes for pitch dividers to help reduce any noise.... What would you be prepared to pay for a night? £30?? Serious question.
Also, no slamming of car doors... Who are these people that are in and out of their cars first thing in a morning? Just leave the door open!!
Also, no slamming of car doors… Who are these people that are in and out of their cars first thing in a morning?
They are very nearly the worst type of people. Nearly up there with the ones that arrive and pitch at 12-1am and leave the engine running with headlights on full beam talking the whole time in the language of fast, semi-hushed arseholery. I wish to burn their stupid tent* in front of their eyes before doing something creative to silence their car. Handbrake off -down slope - hello lake*
*disclaimer: this is merely hyperbole and fantasy. A scintillating, sociopathic fantasy novel in my head, full of thrilling action and dialogue. Put it this way - I understood Keith. I don’t like him at all, yet do wholly sympathise with all of his positions on ‘those people’ 🤣.
https://twitter.com/KeithPrat/status/1266801481178648576
Not sure yet as it more of a general question. Possibly down south / Cornwall or Devon.
I know of a quiet little camping spot in South Hams, Devon. It’s very informal, you turn up, pitch your tent, and stick a tenner in an honesty box for each night you stay. There’s a basic loo block, just two loos with hand basin just inside the entrance, and a short length of hedge dividing it in two. It’s basically the fenced off top of a field, with a view across Start Bay towards Dartmouth. I’d driven down intending to camp at a wild camping spot a friend knew about near East Prawle, but decided to drop into Beesands first for a pint and dinner in the pub, and I spotted the sign for the site just outside Beeson and had a look. I was there for nine days, had a fantastic time.
Shropshire’s not a very popular county
Two of the sample pictures I posted are in Shropshire 🙂
The problem with noisy kids for me is that you can often have the worst of both worlds. The adults are making noise late at night, and then the kids are the tag-team who are up and running around noisily from 6am the next morning.
Sites that allow Duke of Ed but are far from any pubs are usually good. The kids are so knackered they’re asleep by 9pm.
We stopped at a site in Shropshire that had a load of D of E kids turn up.
Heard them complaining to one of the adults with them the next morning that the sheep were to noisy and had kept them awake.
Saw them go into their tents at 7.30 and not come out again at until the morning.😂
@molgrips picture number 3, handy for the bridges?
I hear that's closed down now so no point in anyone going there...
@molgrips picture number 3, handy for the bridges?
Brow Farm campsite near Little Stretton - and yes, that pub is called the Bridges but I'd forgotten that.
Take your bike.
I hear that’s closed down now so no point in anyone going there…
Agreed, Shropshire too. Terrible place the further West you go. Nice around Market Drayton and Adderley etc.
#quietsecretplaces
Get the Cool Camping book/website. NEVER go to any of the sites in it.
I found the site I'm staying at right now a couple years ago on Cool Camping. All I can hear is the river and a bird singing.
Anyway, I digress…. For a campsite, that has a no music policy, no noise after 11pm, no groups, showers and plenty of space with bushes for pitch dividers to help reduce any noise…. What would you be prepared to pay for a night? £30?? Serious question.
Other than the pitch dividers I have that where I am now. It is £8 / night. Who pays £30 / night to go camping? That's insane.
At one campsite where a group of adults in the pitch opposite were still braying loudly at 2am, I found that shouting “F-ing shut up!!!!” worked instantaneously 😆
We had a lovely camp near Monmouth last week, we were booked into Hylands campsite near Trellech, teeny site with only seven pitches but our tents were a bit big for the spot they'd set aside for us in their orchard, so Rob the owner popped us in their overflow field which is owned by a friend of theirs four minutes driva away (I timed it sadly). We had about half a dozen acres with beautiful views from a nice flat pitch at the top of the field and a huge sycamore tree with a rope swing underneath all to ourselves for five days, lovely, good job too as with six kids between us they made quite a bit of noise but there was no one within five hundred yards of us so it was perfect. There was just a portaloo and a tap but we could pop to the main site for showers etc whenever we fancied.
There were also lots of local footpaths for gorgeous walks through beautiful woodlands and a nice pub at the bottom of the hill next to the river Wye if you fancied a paddle.
Camping isn't something to do if you want a quiet night IMO.
If you find an empty site with no other humans around, you can bet there'll be an owl sat in a tree 20ft from your tent all night, or a Fox barking, and the sheep which start Baa'ing to each other at 5am, every. single. day.
Camping & quietness? No chance!!
Adopt the Boris Johnson approach.
Hire a remote cottage somewhere in Scotland where there is no mobile network coverage and loads of midges.
Jump over the fence next to the cottage and erect a tent in an enclosed field without permission. Claim you thought the field was part of the cottage if challenged.
Sit in the tent in your midge net.
Sleep in the cottage overnight.
Go home the next day after the annoyed farmer whose field you used has alerted the media.
Distracting the media by getting your partner to distribute photos of your baby is optional.
'tis a shame the farmer didn't shoot the trespasser!!
Camping & quietness? No chance!!
That’s what earplugs are for! That campsite in the photos above, as can be seen, has a hedge behind my tent, with another along the edge of the field with trees in it. While I was there, the wind was easterly, which meant it was blowing from the far side of the bay, which is unusual, plus it was blowing at about Force 6-7, and I could hear the sea against the beach, as well as the trees and hedge, for all bar one day! My earplugs really came into their own, even more than being at a festival.
Campsite still quiet and the mountains were almost empty today. Saw 6 people in 8 hours 🙂
