To feel like I'm being fleeced - glamping

[SaffronYellow]

£1,000 plus, to stay in a TENT for 1 week in Devon?
Some are £1,200 for 1 week.
Just seen one for £1,500 for 1 week.
This is to stay in a bell tent in a field.
To me, these are insane prices!!
AIBU to think over £1,000 to stay in a tent for a week is absurd?
I can't afford to stay in a holiday cottage.
Air BnB prices are out of my price range.
So I thought camping might be an affordable alternative.
I just want to go away for a week in this country in the school summer hols with my 2 DC, I want to give them a week away. Devon is my favourite place, used to go there as a child.
I'm not well enough to take my own tent and put it all up by myself, I've got ME and fibromyalgia and long Covid, so I really need a tent that's already erected and one that has a few more comforts to it than sleeping on an air mattress on the floor.
I thought a tent in a field would be a financially viable way to go away with my DC, who really deserve a week away, but the prices are eye watering and completely unaffordable.
I'm not asking to go abroad anywhere....just a week in my own country! But I'm priced out of this! I can't believe it, feel so sad for DC.😥

Yes but change the dates and to the whole of Devon and lots come up less than £1000 https://www.holidaycottages.co.uk/cottages?getSearch=true&From=12%2F08%2F2024&Duration=7&scRegion=Devon&PartySize=4&Adults=2&Children=2&daysf=7&year=2024&SortBy=PriceLowHigh&rpp=12&page=1&viewmap=false&period=10

£657 for a week in July Dartmouth Chalet 2 bedrooms
Here

Airbnb? Sometimes they have good offerings going.

Check out Coombe mill holiday farm. Lovely cottages with a farm tour every say for the kids. Near the beach in cornwall. https://www.coombemill.com/ We've been 7 times!

Agree with @theresapossuminthekitchen . I have a very small pop-up camper van (Mazda Bongo) with own portaloo. So, I spend £35-45 per night to stay in a campsite whose only facilities I actually use are electricity (works out at about £1 per night - as I found out on metered sites)and water. I don't even talk up as much space as a tent and a car! I don't feel safe wild camping on my own - and TBH don't really agree with it, having seen the Scottish Highlands littered with huge motorhomes and all the detritus they seem to leave behind. It's a bit of a rip-off.

I can't remember where I read this, but "glamping" is a portmanteau of "camping" "glad we kept the poors out" 😂

https://dipplefarm.co.uk/booking-prices/ Bell tent for £595 for 7 nights..

We camped at Dipple Farm and LOVED it! It is basic, isolated and remote but not more than an hour from many beautiful beaches.

(I have never managed to book a ferry cheaply.. not sure what I am doing wrong.. probably not booking a package). .

There you go OP, problem solved. Premier Inn means you'll get a good night's sleep because they guarantee it or your money back. Nice beaches in Torquay and Paignton area and the zoo. There is a model village at Babbicombe. There are buses from Torquay. If Premier Inn is only £655 for the first week of August you'd have money left for activities and food. I hope you get good weather.

My cousin has glamping bell tents in the Cotswolds advertised on his facebook from 50 pounds a night that fit six people- let me know if you want the website.

You can buy some baguettes, ham and cheese plus fruit and eat it on the beach. I have a holiday home in France but I often just call in to a shop in the way but a few baguettes, packet of ham and cheese pre cut slices, bananas and a packet of biscuits and off we go to the beach.

Oakhampton is not near a beach though. If OP has ME and fibromyalgia she may not be able to walk far and wants a beach for entertaining the kids.

Air beam tents are still heavy to lift, they still need pegging out and you need alot more than bunting and fairy lights!
OP Devon is expensive for any sort of camping in general, we paid £40 a night a good few years ago with all our own gear

You might find that glamping costs a little less in other parts of the country.

Have a look at YHA. They have lots of different accommodation options: private rooms, glamping etc. some are a bit run down and shabby but they're always clean.

I've paid £700 for 7 nights in a 3 bed cottage this summer (Yorkshire Dales). I always secure something in the previous September never had to pay until May. Last year paid £650 for something that was seriously undersold in terms of location - it was a bit plain and could have done with modernising but we were only there to eat of an evening and sleep.

Yup we went lots with ours when they were little but stayed in rentals in Torrevieja near where friends parents lived. The kids remember with great fondness Terra Mitica I think it was called.

but even without the days out, a week in a cheap apartment on the Costa Brava with a pool and cheese sandwiches and cold hot dogs can be a thing of many happy memories without the extra day trips.

I'm not getting the sailing to France is so cheap. I just did a search for Plymouth to Roscoff is August for a family of 4 in a car and it cost £670, which is almost the same as the search I did for Premier Inn in Goodrington (Torbay). Then you have camping cost. How is that so much cheaper?

I always booked breakfast, kids eat free. A Premier Inn breakfast can mean you don't need much for lunch as it is help yourself to cereal/fruit/pastries/fry up and at around £10 it is a bargain for one adult with 2 kids. They also do a meal deal where you get breakfast and an evening meal at a reduced cost bit I think there is a charge for children. You are right though, picnic on the beach some days or even a takeaway in the room.

That's a very expensive crossing

You can do Dover to Calais for £170 return - for a family of 4 plus car.

Then you have Normandy just a few hours away

I was thinking of the poster who said she was in Devon and it would be cheaper to get the ferry to France and eurocamp rather than drive 20 miles up the road and camp. If she's in Devon it is a fair driver to Dover, then the drive to Normandy and do it all again in reverse. I think the petrol cost would be high.

I suppose it depends when you are travelling, Is the £170 high season.

Woodford bridge country club in Devon is nice and not usually too pricey (holiday apartments with a restaurant and pool on site)

Yes - August.

Dover to Calais isn't too bad a crossing.

Plymouth is expensive

They’re incredibly heavy as the air channels are reinforced and you can’t separate it into two (poles and tent) to lift it around.

Yes, you are being fleeced.
"Glamping".
🙄

But if you live in Devon, as that poster said she did, you also have to factor in the travel cost and time.

The thing that surprised me, given the cost, was that some sailings are already fully booked for the first week in August. Some people must be happy to pay, or did they get it cheaper booking months ago?

But the OP doesn't live in Devon - and is going to Devon.

Which is why some people have mentioned going to France.