The Best and Worst from your 2012 trips.

[SeaShellsOnTheSeaShore]

Best-ds (2) absolutely loving camping we also loved Roundhill in the new forest.

Worse- the novelty of short tempered aggressive new forest ponies is seriously wearing off. They are little shits (I prefer the donkeys!)

just weeped a little bit at the 'my daddy' story too - sooo sweet Caveman!

Snort at us you lot

All of the below.

This year was our first ever try at camping. Went in that boiling hot Easter and was hooked!

Went to the launch of glam camping company, fell in love with a bell tent, bought one. Have been away quite a few times since, to bigger sites and also twice to a site with a loo in a shed and nothing else around for miles....bliss!

Highs were camp bestival, and a lovely quiet overnighter in Tenby...

Lows were packing away after one nighter...we took much stuff!

Hoping next year to venture to a few more festivals, and to use our camping trips as a base for exploring nearby areas.

Best buy was our 5m bell tent with zig. I bloody love it!!!
No worse buys yet...

Have yet to discover gin in a tin, but it's on the list of essentials for next year now!!

What a great introduction to camping, chimchar! I haven't had the courage to camp at a festival yet - the ideal of all that mud - perhaps something for next year.

Aww, and Cavey, how lovely is that?!

Best: waking up to sun shining through the mist rising off Trawfynneth (sp?) Lake in North Wales.

Worst: the 24 hours of stair rod rain the next day. Even that wasn't too bad with the heater on in the tent, the wonderful drying room at the site, some local beer and a good book.

Best buy - Jetboil

Worst buy - Solar fairy lights that are cr@p

Which jet boil have you got?

I bought the new Jetboil flash, fantastic for quickly boiling two cups of water in a minute and a bit, also bought the hanging bracket and the pan, the kit with the pan is in effect the same base as in the jetflash, so just swap them when required. Note that the 100g canisters of gas are expensive at about £3.99 each, so I bought some much bigger ones (better value for money) to use when space is not at a premium. A camping shop called trespass are doing packs of 4 100g for something like a fiver, but they always sell out quickly.

Shop around, I bought mine in Snow & Rock, they price matched a website that was about £15 cheaper, so worth looking around!

Thanks, I hadn't heard of them before :)

Thank you for tip about gin-in-a-tin!

Best: we went to Hurley Riverside - not very spectacular site but has a nature trail at the bottom of the field. Kids disappeared in it for hours. And no one fell in the ditch. And there were red kites. So pretty. And rabbits. And the sun shone for 3 days.

Worst: temporary amnesia. I'm sure I'll remember some.

Going to Tenby for a week in August and it rained every day.

The electrics blew in the van so had no working sink, no internal lights and couldn't charge my mobile or dd's dsi or my ipad up. Also had no working Tom Tom to get back home.

DD broke her finger at the sttart of the week so we couldn't do a lot of things we'd planned to and the weather ruled out most other things.

Oh Viva that's so sad. Next time inbox me and I will come and sweep you up for a cup of tea. Although will you ever come back this way after that experience?

Well we are thinking of going back next year, just hoping for better weather.

Best- getting a new tent so that DH no longer has to sleep in the porch

worst- umm... not much really. Maybe not taking a bucket to Uffington, so we couldn't have a campfire, only a tiny bit disappointing as we were all asleep before dark anyway

Being that this was our first summer camping as a family, and we managed a grand total of 5 nights away, over two separate occasions ... I'm not drawing from a large sample here!

Worst: getting to our festival, having been stuck in appalling bank holiday traffic, to find absolutely no pitches left. This was not a Glasto-type festival and we'd been told that pitches were abundant and everything would be fine. Eventually a nice person moved their car and repitched their smaller tent .

Best: getting a bell tent for my birthday, pitching it in the garden and enjoying a fab garden room for a week or so!

best: bargain Cabanon off ebay for French summer holidays (adieu Eurocamp, bonjour much cheaper camping holidays in our own tent from now on); new swimming complex at Le Dauphin in Argeles; Base Seconds 4.2 pop up for when it's not worth the bother of putting a frame tent up; watching the condensation evaporate off the Quechua in 27 degree heat at Forgewood in October; Nandos piri piri chicken cooked in the Cobb

worst: gelert plastic cutlery set - absolute rubbish. I'm going to get a cheap metal set from Ikea instead; our very old lilo/blow up bed which must be replaced before next summer

Best - discovering the joy of 2 Dozer's on top of a double SIM - a comfortable and warm nights sleep at last! And my lovely De Waards which I sadly didnt sleep in, but they were much appreciated by glampy guests

Worst - discovering that we had no idea as to the functioning of smoke flaps on a tipi / frontier stove combination and DP having to make a rescue visit to prevent us being smoked out all night......

Nettle tea, tell me more about the smoking problem. I'm just about to get a frontier stove and a bell tent......what do I need to know?

Worst, pitching next to the loos and having the doors slam all night, had to move the tent the next morning.

Have only bought one bit of kit this year - brand new bear lake 6 (in september, in the sale). Fab tent, but think we will need a new car or trailer to get it places.

Best, kids being that bit older and generally being much less work this year (now 4 and 6), so holidays were all together more relaxing. Had fab long weekend with friends in July.

best: taking ONLY the dutch oven to cook with when we went to Suffolk. It was great and we did every meal with it. We also made bread on a stick, cooked over the open fire and filled with jam... one of the nicest things i've ever eaten.

how much the boys love camping. was so great to see ds1 and ds2 having the freedom to run around campsites.

Worst: trying to pitch our tent at 8pm in the dark in Lyme Regis the weekend before last! lol
not having a decent light for evenings... must look for light reviews on here!

oh and just for you seashells my best bit of 2012 will be my ghillie kettle which i WILL have for next year

There is no intrinsic problem with frontier stove and bell tent, as you will have a flue for the chimney to go out. My problem was that we were in a traditional 18ft Indian tipi, and the wind wkept changing direction, so the somke either didnt draw out of the hole at the top, or because we didnt know how to use the smoke flaps correctly, and the ropes had slipped, the wind ended up blowing all the smoke into the tipi.
Next year we will use the tipi as a lovely chill out area, but keep the bell tent or de waard for sleeping in.....

OOhh ghilli kettles are great!!

Thanks nettletea. I've also just ordered a ghillie kettle for dh for Christmas!