Am I mental?

[squigglywig]

Hi,

I am a single mum to a 2yr old. Generally quite an amenable 2 yr old. But 2 nonetheless.

I have no car and cannot hire one.

Would I be totally nuts to consider camping?

I did a lot of it as a kid-teenager-student and loved it. And I think dd would love it too. But I'm just slightly worried I've gone a bit round the twist.

Any and all advice welcome.

The single mum to two year old part - no problem. I go camping with my 2.5yr old and 6-month old, and it's fine, even quite fun sometimes!

The no car part would be more of a problem for me as I take a car full; pushchair, tent, sleeping bags for three, food, meths stove and meths, inflatable mattress and pump, clothes for three, etc, etc.

But I reckon you could condense it quite easily and choose your campsite carefully, so one with a village shop/cafe/pub nearby so you didn't need the food and cooking stuff, carrimats rather than inflatable mattress, etc. Take the buggy whether your child uses one or not, useful for putting stuff in to save on the carrying.

That's what I was thinking. Dump the heavy stuff in the pram and coax dd into walking.

Are there campsites with pre-pitched tents? Maybe then I could save on weight a bit?

I do really want to do it, and think DD would love it. Just need to get my act together!

Thanks for the encouragement!

There are pre-pitched tents, and tipi/yurt places too, but you pay a lot more for the privelege! Hope you make it, and enjoy it - good luck!

if you are thinking of buying a tent, have a look at the pop-up kind. They are much lighter and easier to put up and take down, so eg if it is raining when you arrive you just shake out the tent and can stow DD plus bags in it straight away.

like this for example, and Millets etc do other brands

Ooooh. I had never seen those before. Thanks! They look fab.

Can you drive? Could you borrow a car (it's not too expensive to be insured for a day or two) or perhaps even hire one for a weekend? Or would somebody give you a lift? Not saying you have to go in a car, but just thinking of alternatives, as we always seem to take so much stuff!

You could also have a dry-run in the garden to see what you really need.

If you weren't going too far you could even take a taxi - depends where you live though. Where we are you could get to a nice campsite for a tenner in a taxi, but we are pretty rural already.

Anyway, however you get there, I think it sounds like a great idea. Good luck!

Just read my post back and it doesn't read quite how I meant it; by the dry run I meant that maybe you don't need as much stuff as we seem to take, and therefore you might find that you can fit everything into a few rucksacks, and hence not need a car.

Just popped back to say, I picked up a friend's copy of Cool Camping today, and there were about 20 UK campsites listed in a section called 'car-free camping' which might be worth looking at when choosing where to go.

Hi Pirateparty - no I can't drive sadly so that's not an option. But the dry run sounds like a good idea. We don't have a garden but have land nearby for Wildcamping. Sure DD would think it's fun in itself.

Chequeredflag - thanks! I'll have a look at that. It sounds like just what we need!

Another alternative would be to put your Dd in a back pack [if she's not too heavy] and use a large wheelie holdall for your kit. If you did that a pop up tent might not be the best choice though because they fold into a disc shape and would not fit in to a bag, a 2 or 3 man ordinary tent probably would though. If you had a double sleeping bag you would keep each other warm. Good luck I hope you manage it.