I feel like I’m a bit of a camping expert now, I have been camping for the last two summers after all so I thought I’d share a bit of my camping wisdom today and tell you all my top tips when it comes to deciding on the best spot to pitch your tent!
We usually go to the same campsite which is Park Foot Campsite which is right next to Pooley Bridge near to Penrith. We were planning on going back again this year but we struggled a little bit with holidays and being able to get time off together when the kids are off school so we’ve ended up booking somewhere a little bit different this year.
We still could have gone to parkfoot but we only have three days and trust me if you could see what our camping set up looks like then you would understand why we don’t want to go and set it all up for three nights and then have to take it all down again.
We literally have a giant tent with a porch and a gazebo and we generally take our two kayaks as well so although we’re nowhere near a seasoned it camping as some of the professionals on site are, I do like to think that we know a thing or two about how to choose the right place to pitch our our tent.
The first thing we consider when we arrive at the camping field it’s choosing an area that is relatively close to the toilet block. I mean I don’t want to be right next door to it but I do want to be close enough that any night time toilet trips don’t take too long. I need to pop to the toilet at least once a night and then there’s the inevitable trips with the kids so location and proximity to the toilet is key to a happy camping trip for us.
Next thing to think about would be how flat your little area of the field is as you absolutely don’t want to pitch your tent on a slope or to find it’s quite rocky where you’re about to set up as that’s not going to make a comfortable camping trip. We always chose a flat area and then walk around it picking up any rocks, stones and twigs off the floor.
Consider the area around you, there are high traffic areas in a campsite and personally I prefer not to be too close to them for privacy ( well as much privacy as you get in the middle of a field). Similarly to not wanting to be too close to the toilet where I would hear people coming and going through the night, I also don’t want to be too close to the gate that people come in and out of, or to the Tap where people go to wash the pots and fill our water bottles up. Additionally, if you’re a tourist camping in the UK, having the best eSIM for UK can be incredibly useful for staying connected, checking maps, or finding nearby attractions without having to rely on potentially spotty campsite Wi-Fi.
And finally, we have two kayaks which aren’t exactly small, and in the morning when the weather is nice, we’ll walk down to the lake with the kayaks and spend a couple of hours playing in the lake. We walk to the lake from our tent with the kayaks and a couple of chairs so I want to make sure that it’s the easiest walk possible so I make sure that we’re positioned in a good space for that walk.
I would have also said to try not to pitch your tent too close to anyone else’s but my experience over the last couple of years is that people come and people go and not everyone is as fussy as me with tent location. We’ve often woke up on a morning to find a tent close to ours that wasn’t there the night before so realistically whilst you can absolutely choose not to pitch your tent a reasonable distance from anyone else’s when you first get there, you don’t own the field and anyone can just rock up and pitch their tent anywhere in most cases.
We do leave our table and chairs outside overnight (unless it’s raining) and we position the car in such a way outside of the tent that means no one can pitch too close to our entrance but that’s about as much as we can do.
Honestly I don’t think camping is for people that value their privacy too much though.
If you haven’t been camping before, I genuinely recommend it as a great family holiday.
Just pick your campsite wisely and then be clever about where you pitch your tent and as long as you get some sunshine* then you’ll have a blast.
*We’ve actually had more rain than sunshine ourselves over the last couple of years but we’ve still had a great time as we plan plenty to do in case of rain. Maybe that’s a whole other post waiting to happen!
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