Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Great stuff. We're planning a couple of camping trips this summer. Have previously done festivals, but relied heavily on the food stalls and didn't spend an awful lot of time at the tent. Any other must have suggestions for a not-so-keen camper to make life easier? Won't be at a festival this time. Need to look into cool boxes, cooking equipment, etc.

Hm my top tip for a first trip would probably be to go with another family who know what they're doing and have all the stuff! Or if not, just plan really easy food that you know your kids like and don't be too ambitious about barbecues for dinner as it always takes longer than you think it will and little kids could well be starving and ratty long before anything is ready to eat.


A cool box, a one ring gas stove and some comfy fireside chairs are fairly important. We have got away with not buying a table snd "dining" style chairs so far, often sites have picnic tables you can use. And we have a couple of those big square "really useful" plastic boxes that I pack all the kitchen stuff in and use as a surface to put the burner on. It's not very slick but much cheaper than a big camping kitchen unit thing. My best camping purchase though is a giant fleece blanket from Amazon to wrap around the air beds and keep them together in the night. And a cheap giant picnic blanket to put under them to insulate you from the ground and make the bedroom bit feel cosy. I love camping, even though it's basically a massive faff. Have fun! xx

Taking a couple of meals prepared before you go (bolognese/ pasta sauce/ curry/ soup type stuff)can help. One meat based for the first day then maybe veggie). Frozen really solid they serve as an extra ice pack whilst they're defrosting. Then you can bung in a pan, cook some rice and pasta and have stress free edible food not prepared on a wobbly table in a field without the washing up!! Then if you end up with chips on the beach/ disposable bbq by the end of the week at least everyone's had some nutrients at some point...!


Also although not very environmental, heavy duty paper or plastic plates/ bowls/ cups are GREAT for times you just can't face the trip to the washing up area!

lovely blog scareyt. Agree with everything above. Decathlon is great for camping stuff, we just got a self inflating cool box from there, not tried it out yet but handy that it folds flat for storage.


I've written a couple of posts for Festivalkidz.com about camping kit and taking kids to festivals, I know you're not doing a festival this year but it might be relevant. http://www.festivalkidz.com/ - look at the recent posts section there are a few there that might help.

Loving the camping inspiration. Any tips on what sleeping bags to get? I'm a cold person and my children are of the hot type. We're going at the end of May and I'm pondering a 4-season bag plus a quilt for all of us because I'm a wuss.


I sold all my camping gear before they were born thinking I'd never be mad enough to take them...

I feel for you with the cold! I have a 4 season bag from decathlon and it's great. The kids just have generic kids bags but they don't feel the cold. We always put a picnic blanket under the air bed and a fleece blanket on top of it, plus extra blankets for on top of the bags but really I didn't need that with the 4 season bag.


You are not alone in this one, I think one of the other festival Kidz people is putting together a post on keeping warm!


K

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • I've used just about all the locally available supermarkets for deliveries over the years, and I now  use Waitrose for deliveries, for various reasons. They have a good range of the things I eat, their food is good quality and their "essentials" range is generally good value (except the tissues, which suddenly became so thin as to disintegrate immediately. I was mainly buying them for the nice plain boxes, so now I just put other tissues into the old Waitrose boxes 🤣) It is very rare for something I've ordered to not be available on the day. Their delivery drivers  are genuinely friendly and helpful. Their customer service is very good. On the rare occasions I've had issues, they have refunded me without quibbling. They often have special deals on some of the things I buy often, so I stock up when they are cheaper. I do occasionally compare prices with other supermarkets, and overall I really don't think Waitrose is more expensive, but obviously they might be for things I don't personally buy. I absolutely hate Sainsbury's, would use Lidl for some things but they don't deliver, Iceland has a very small range of things I eat, and I can't remember why I don't use Tesco or Asda any more. I recently checked out Ocado because there was some offer which seemed good value, but they just didn't have enough things I wanted to buy to make it worth using the offer. M&S don't deliver ( to the best of my knowledge) but in any case they seem to be still badly suffering from the recent hack into their system. Apologies, I have just remembered this thread is about shopping at actual physical stores, but probably many of the issues are the same.
    • Since I am of a certain vintage now, not sure if what I am going to suggest is even still around but here goes… use to be able to buy “dummy/mock papers on line and also had mini synopsis of Shakespeare plays specifically covering students wanting to gain a better understanding of play before taking mocks/ exams. Only know this as many many moons ago, struggled with English Literature and Language and this was the avenue-my parents went down. Also was at this point in my life, educated abroad as part of my fathers job.  
    • Love your comment about “shoehorned” - put a smile on my face..! As for comment about “Little Waitrose” ummmm - never really thought about it. Personally, could not care less. But guess Sainsbury Local and Tesco Express are to you more acceptable.. Ultimately, when I think about it, I actually don’t care what they call themselves - been lured by partially branding and partially convenience and what they offer in groceries.
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...