Camping

Funnily enough have dragged our tent out,but after checking prices of campsites have packed it up and put away again.....this time of year ...too expensive...could have BB or moRe comfort for the prices.

Oh littlenellie I got quite excited when I saw someone had posted a response. Is it really expensive? I thought cheap holiday with family, couple of glasses of wine around the campfire (ie gas cooker), snuggle up with dogs at night and bacon butties in the morning.

Hi, nanadog. Have you tried the webiste of the Camping and Caravanning Club? They give a good list of camp-sites. Might be a useful start.

The Forestry Commission certainly used to have camping sites too.

Have been checking on the ones with facilities for bored children,ie swimming they want price per person,per dog,per tent/ awning/ car / hook up/ camp fire/ extra visitors...with us added up to nearly £40 per night...still a chunk out of our budget... We put the tent up ..had a BBQ, hot chocolate and marshmallows a sing song all in the back garden... Ging gang gooley gooley wotcha,

Nanadogsbody Oh I would love to go camping again..I keep toying with the idea of it..but we sold all our equipment,, but there use to be a good site..it ws I think! " ukcampsites" you can register, its a great site gives you reviews etc we used to use it when we had caravan. you go for it, lol lets knwo of your "adventures"

Nanadogsbody I went camping just over a week ago with my DD and family. We had a brilliant time. I love camping and have been going for years. Some camp sites can be expensive...we tend to go for the ones with fewer facilities as they are generally cheaper. I don't mind roughing it for a week. Take plenty of wet wipes, always useful. Hope you get on OK with a mummy sleeping bag, I prefer the old type rectangular bag as it is a bit more roomy. Is your sleeping bag a summer weight or winter? If it is a summer weight I suggest you also take an old blanket or thinnish duvet...it can get very cold at night. Also useful for wrapping around you when sitting out in the evenings. Also try the Cool Camping website ....coolcamping.co.uk/

Must admit am feeling nostalgic and wish we could ...just not the right time....bacon buggies in the morning mmmmm

Caravanning with the family is my limit nowadays. There are some lovely sites for tents and caravans of all shapes and sizes with great facilities for children - we rarely saw the GC on our recent holiday (Suffolk) unless they were hungry. Nice for adults too, of course, but not being plagued by bored kids is more than half the battle. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know much about costs as I am never allowed to ask.

And that should read buttties....

Oh, I thought you'd invented a new dish - bacon buggies!

Or bugglies the name we give to long legged beasties and all thing wiggly and Slimey..oh yuk

Wow! All sorts of good ideas here. Don't like the sound of bacon buggies though sorry. My sleeping bag is 3 seasons, whatever that means. I went on the Which? site and it was one of the best buys, but it is quite narrow in places. Will take a duvet as well just in case.

However just found out the trial camp arranged for the weekend has been cancelled due to weather forecast. Ah well.....ging gang watsits to you too litnell.

Annobel I always take my own tent and when I'm 'in' to the children I peg a tea towel to one of the guy ropes.....it's not long before I hear 'Gran's up' being hollered across the camp site!

After a 30 year break we've just bought another caravan. But you can't really call it camping. Or even glamping. It's got proper hot and cold water, a proper fridge, a Stoves cooker and oven, a micrwave(!), warm air ducted heating, built in radio and cd player and a tv aerial for when (if) we gat a tv. Best of all is the shower room at the back with a proper loo. It's just like playing in a Wendy house. I love it!

What I was really going to say is that the Camping and Caravan club has small 'certified' sites which are more basic, quieter and very reasonably priced.

I don't think I'd be able to get up off a blow up mattress!

30 years ago when the boys were young teens, we went to five-van sites certified by the Caravan Club, very basic but we took our own toilet tent as the caravan was not huge. They were in some very beautiful places. Favourite was in Suffolk on a farm with a moat where DS was allowed to fish - not successfully - and easily accessible from King's Lynn where we lived. I don't think modern children would be as easily satisfied as ours were then.

Lucid, in our case it's the children who sleep in their own pup tents and, mercifully tend to sleep quite late. I have my own 'bedroom' at one end of the caravan.

Went camping last weekend in the wilds of Sussex. It was DD1´s birthday present to DD2 and they begged me to go along to keep the peace!Iwas won over by the fact it was glamping but when we got there it was eco-camping i.e no gas or electricity, no hot showers!Have to say, we had a great time, especially after a bottle of fizz. The highlight was the fact that I lit the best fire in the woodland camp and put the yummy mummies and daddies to shame (didn,t realise that people actually call their kids names like Cassius and Milo- no offence meant and sorry about being judgmental if they were your grandkids!!!!!)

Two of our children take the grandchildren camping. When we had far too many young children to afford 'proper' holidays we used to use Canvas Holidays where the tent was up, ready and waiting when we got there. They would also book hotels along the way and we had some fabulous holidays. We had one memorable one where, despite booking a room with enough beds for all of us PLUS a cot, we arrived to discover the hotel didn't possess said cot and our middle daughter (aged 2 at the time)spent the night in the bath with every pillow and blanket we could lay our hands on. Happy days!

Now, we either stay in our 'log cabin' or hotels - I've done my share of roughing it!

We had some wonderful camping holidays when the children were small but I haven't done it for many years. We used to take the gerbils as well and one year they had babies while we were away - a great attraction for all the children on the campsite. Another year we came back to the tent to find one of the gerbils had lost half its tail - we guessed it had been visited by an over-enthusiastic child while we were out. We had to go on a mercy mission to find an emergency vet who could do surgery. The whole campsite was agog for updates on the progress of the gerbil who I am glad to say, pulled through!

Sorry I went a bit off track there....

Thanks Grannylin.

I would add that it was a very small campsite that we went to every year, and we would see the same families. All the children knew one another. I wonder whether campsites like that still exist?

This thread has made me want to go camping again

You really should-that´s just how it made me feel, the smell of pine, woodsmoke, bacon sizzling, owls hooting, sunrise, church clocks striking midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am......!!

The rain, the wind, breaking guy ropes, collapsing tents, children wetting their sleeping bags....!!