Camping in the rain

[Foodsafe]

It’s shit isn’t it?

everything is wet. The sound of the rain on the tent is too loud to sleep.

I vowed never to go camping again after a particularly wet Bank Holiday weekend in the Lake District a few years ago.
Camping can be wonderful if the weather is good, but I've had one too many trips ruined by rain and mud with no way to get properly clean and dry that I just won't do it anymore.

But by the time you’ve bought all that, packed it, set it all up, pack it away, store it in your house…..why not just stay in a B&B?

We’re also supposed to be camping this weekend. Seasoned campers. Cancelled it. 11 degrees and raining is just not fun!

Awful! I love camping but this sounds like hell. A 3 person tent is only a three person tent if you are all lying like sardines. Also no toilets??

My requirements are: clean toilets and showers, a tent I can stand in with a separate living area so that we have somewhere to sit in bad weather and so my bedding doesn’t get soaked/muddy/grassy.

Me and OH were talking about it last night funnily enough, as we'd been planning on going this weekend but cancelled yesterday. She hates it. I quite enjoy it. We are very different campers though and me and my friend go camping all year round, in the snow, in the rain, whatever. We love it.

If you were expecting a summer holiday though you have my sympathy

I love camping but this would be a no from me unless you’re guaranteed no rain. Get or borrow a much larger tent, I personally like to be within walking distance of a pub that does food so if it’s rainy you have options. Bring a few games or a deck of cards.

Unless you are wild camping and hiking I think you need at a minimum a tent that accommodates at least one extra person than is going to be in it. We have a five man tent for 3 of us. And it’s got a massive porch that we can stand in and set up a table in.

We camp 5 miles from home so we can go home and get dry...

I just don't understand why people go camping.

It makes such a difference to my poor old back to have a tent/gazebo that I can stand up in.
I have been on two camps so far this year and my current combination is using the van as my bedroom, so I am up off the floor on a fold up chair bed, with plenty of dry bedding; and having a three sided gazebo (with a window) over the van, with all the home comforts of chairs, rugs, kitchen stuff, books, dogs, etc.
It got pretty hairy in the wind but I travel with about 132 bungies, and stopped it sailing away over the hedge. It made what rain we did have more bearable, as I could make tea and sit with a book. I also had a few visitors!
Doing it again at the end of July… 🤞

Campers must be incredibly strong willed to convince themselves this is an enjoyable activity 😆 I can't bring myself to type holiday.

My parents took us everywhere in a tin pot 2 berth caravan, we slept on blow up beds in the awning rain, sleet or shine so it's not difficult to trace my hatred to the source..

I don't use a tent when I camp. Despite loving camping I really don't like tents. I've got 2 tarps and a ground sheet. If it's unlikely to rain then I put the small one up, if it's likely to rain a bit I put the larger one up, if it's bucketing then I put both up. Have slept out in terrible weather and stayed dry

Requires at least one tree though

This was last week, but it only started raining when we were packing up

Sorry - very much a non-camper here - but this looks miserable. What about the bugs??? Nope.

Of course it’s not a wind up. What would that achieve?

His morning has dawned brightly and we are off, wish me luck.

Yes we are hiking and camping, no it’s not a punishment.

Sometimes there will be a pub but not one guaranteed to let teens in.

It sounds awful, but you don't have to put up with it. You are allowed to pack up and go home early. And to never go camping again.

Me neither - I honestly don't get it 😂

It won’t be 😖

It's the UK we don't really have any .

I've slept out with places that do have more bugs and used a mosquito net in addition.

Waking up in the fresh air is bliss

That sounds much more like a punishment than a treat.

I went camping last weekend. Do hotels cost £20 per night?

It was a nice woodland site. There were squirrels, birds, and bunnies all around me. It was lovely to see the baby bunnies stretching out and falling asleep 5 metres away from me. Then some squirrels got into my tent porch and ate my Eccles cakes and knocked porridge oats everywhere. From then on I had birds nipping inside to eat. I was more or less in touching distance.

A gazillion years ago as a newbie camper I camped at Loch Ness in summer. Thought it would be a romantic (totally idiotic) idea to look out onto the Loch from inside the tent, with it opened to the elements. Hahahahaha. The midges thought all their dreams had come true. I was so bitten I looked like a medieval image of a leper the next day. It was freezing cold in the night too and we couldn’t get the fuckers out of the tent.

The next day we booked into a caravan and that was the last time I went camping. Or visited Scotland in midge season.

How my childhood memories of tent holidays in Devon are so idyllic I have no idea. My parents must have been saints (or hammered on Blue Nun).

@EyeOop have your teenagers really been so awful?
That sounds like a cruel and unusual punishment.

@EyeOop book a hotel

I refuse to camp in a small tent now. Had a 3 bed tent when me and ex went to Leeds Festival 20 years ago. It was just used for sleeping and getting changed. As we pitched up in a semi circle with ex’s mates (5 tents in all) and sat, drank and ate in the middle. Good job it was dry.

Need my comfort now. Bed not on the ground, toilet nearby - not halfway down a field and a shower. Didn’t shower once in the four days as massive queues and no where good enough to dry yourself

Perfect.

@OneTC that looks so very cosy and comfortable. What else do you do for a good time? 😵‍💫