Quarantine has brought a new found love for camping for me and my family. Through the years every summer we plan a holiday abroad and this year we have learned to appreciate what England has to offer and boy must I say "there is a lot of fun places to visit in the UK".
Our first camping trip of the year was slightly spontaneously planned. In all fairness we used to go camping when we had our first son but with the second we thought it would be harder and camping was never reintroduced until this summer.
How to choose a campsite.
When planning our trip I thought of what we wanted and the key thing was water. We usually have a beach holiday every year and we decided to recreate that here.
So the first choice for us was Southampton as we wanted to go somewhere without too many people as we still wanted to make sure we could enjoy the beach and social distance well.
We camped at Lepe Beach Campsite and it was amazing and great for families. On the other hand there was no electricity, but you can hire a battery pack for £5 per night.
You could also hire a fire pit to sit around and night and have some mashmallows.
What to bring:
Tent.
We had a few camping things laying around in our attic so we dug them up and looked at other things we needed and first we needed a new tent. We sold our trailer tent over a year ago and never replaced it with anything and we were so pleased to find good deals on tents out there.
When looking for a tent for your family you need to firstly think of how you use your house and what you think is important. For us, because we wanted to go to bed later than the kids we decided to go for a tent with multiple rooms, one for us, one for the boys and one for keeping our clothes and food. A 6 man tent (6.3) was the best options so off we went to look for deals the best one we could find was this from Decathlon.
Pros and Cons of this tent:
Pros:
We had a lot of room.
Easy to set up. ( Maybe this is because we pitched it in our garden first to see how it looked before we went on the trip)
Great ventilation. Does not steam during the night.
Very light to carry and lastly,
Easy to pack up
Cons:
Too bright at night. ( Took the kids a long time to fall asleep. On the first night they went to bed at 10:30 pm!! Usual bed time at home is 7pm)
The zips are easy for the kids to get out of. (They always escaped!)
The gaps in between the insert rooms allowed the kids to crawl out of the tent. This meant we slept in the middle/lounging area to catch them before they can crawl out.
We got it from Decathlon.
Heres a link to a 4 man blackout tent which I wish we got:
There are several hacks on how to make your tent blackout which we will do on our next camping trip.
These include:
1. Adding weed killer fabric to the lining of your tent.
2. Buying blackout fabric
Sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses.
In my opinion this is where you have to think of the space in your car. If you have a larger car you can buy cheaper sleeping bags and add blankets and if you have a smaller car you can buy thicker ones which tend to be more expensive.
For us we got these sleeping bags and they worked out well.
They are 8togs so it means that they are nice and warm even when the temperature drops at night you will be nice and warm. We also took extra blankets because we were not sure about the weather and we wanted to be more prepared.
We also got some inflatable mattresses. They worked out wonderfully and please make sure you buy a manual pump as well. I tend to not like mattresses with built in pumps as I think they take longer to inflate.
For the boys I got one of these and they shared on one of the nights and the other the youngest stayed in his travel cot.
For us we got some inflatable ones from Aldi and they worked wonderfully but I have inluded a link to amazon here for you to use.
Clothes.
Make sure that you plan an outfit for each day and even though you might be camping during summer make sure you take some trousers for thise chilly evenings. This is my comprehensive list of key items to bring:
Shorts
trousers/joggers.
Hoodie
Jacket ( It cold at night)
Tshirts
Underwear
Pyjamas
Swimwear (for a beach trip)
Shoes (flipflops and trainers/ hiking boots for hiking holidays)
Windbreakers (these are important if you are going camping and with british weather just be prepared)
Rain covers or emergency rain ponchos. Again, this is England . IT ALWAYS RAINS!
It was surprisingly cold at night so we all had to change into jeans and joggers in the evenings. Jackets were really helpful for staying outside and watching the sunset or waking up in the morning for the sunrise. Which by the way were beautiful.
Toiletries.
These are a must as you get very grubby when camping. When packing I like to imagine how I get ready in the morning and I know what to bring.
So step one shower. So I need
Showergel
Flunnel / Pouffe
Towel
Flipflops (For using in the public bathrooms. You need these)
Dettol liquid antiseptic/ Poundland also has a version of this named Antiseptic Liquid.
Vaseline/ Any Lotion of your choice.
Step two brush my teeth
Toothpaste
Toothbrush
Skip the mouthwash.
Step 3 Get dressed!
There are other logistical things you also have to consider. How to get all the things you need from your tent to the showers. I like using collapsible crate like this one here from amazon:
Food and Cutlery.
Make sure you take a cool box if you are staying for more than one night. Fill it up with ice packs or just buy ice from a store and add it in. The disadvantage of using ice cubes is that they melt and all the water will go in the cool box and this will spoil your food. Buy If all your food is sealed then that is an issue.
We bought a colapsible one because its easier to store when we are not camping.
We also got a collapsible washing bowl. You need this to take to the washing up area.
Here is a link to some on Amazon.
Metal plates, cups and cutlery was also very useful. I found the cutest camping mugs from Poundland.
How cute are these!!
With regards to food, just take what your family likes. Salad, fruit and veg are harder to keep fresh so make sure you take fruits like bananas, oranges and apples as these keep well for a few days and they do not need cooling.
DO NOT FORGET YOUR COFFEE OR TEA MAKING EQUIPMENT.
This is what we got and it worked out perfectly.
Entertainment and Activities.
This was very interesting this time around for us. We saw a lot of people with bikes and scooters for their kids and this made me wish we took one for our oldest but we do not have enough space in our car but if you do the kids love it.
For us we took a lot of board games, card games and garden games.
what we actually used was more of dice based games as card games were harder to chase down with the strong British winds always around!
Heres some links to board games I have in my collection I usually take camping. I am a snakes and ladders fan so that is my favourite game with kids. Its easy and theres a lot of luck involved so the kids have a chance to win.
When we planned our trip we knew that on one of the days we were going to do some fun things in the area. We decided to visit Exbury Gardens & Steam Railway and it was so much fun and the boys got on the steam train and they LOVED it.
I had so much fun that I am already planning my next camping trip.
Where would you suggest?