Camping Advice Needed Please!!!

[serenity]

We've decided that this year we're going to go posh, and get an electric pitch. The thing is we've never done it before, I don't think they even existed when I used to go with my parents.

What do we actually need in order to use the electric hookup? I assume we need a 'special' lead, because it's outdoors but we're very skint (hence the camping) and I don't really want to fork out on £100 leads (which seems to be what Argos has) if it's unnecessary.

Help me, oh experienced MNers.

Ta.

what you need is en-suite facilities and a tv and a big double bed .. what's that called again .. oh yes a hotel

Strangely enough that's what my sister said I'd have to provide if she was going to come camping with us, big wuss that she is.

if you know what its called from the argos catalogue - have you tried ebay

ebay but there must be more

there is i just can't spell

You can often buy good camping kit at carboots as lots of people buy all the kit and only go once. Agree posh is a heater running all night although not very environmentally freindly.

we got ours off e bay for about £60. Wouldn't be without it. I run my kettle for my morning tea and my fridge and lights!

"fridge and lights" for goodness sake what is camping coming to these days .

I love my tent!! (and my fridge and lights)

Thanks I hadn't got round to checking on ebay yet. The pictures on there are a lot clearer than the Argos ones so I can actually see what they are!

We thought we were being 'bad' last year, taking a portable DVD player and a battery pack. Then I walked past a few open tents and saw stereo systems, TV's with freeview boxes, XBoxes - one tent had a ruddy microwave! I now refuse to guilty about moving into the electric era, and might even get on of those newfangled electric cool boxes.

When we were camping last year, and wanted to hook up, we borrowed a lead and plug from the campsite office. They said not to bother buying our own, unless we were going to be very keen campers, as most campsite would supply them free or for a nominal charge. This was in France though.

What is hugely usefull is an ordinary extension cable thingy (no idea what the proper name is) that ends in a block of several sockets inside the tent.

You have to be really careful when buying an ehu, a lot of campsites won't let you use the ones you can get on eBay with the blue leads and they do have to properly earthed - a fire in your tent is the last thing you need!

We got ours from here as it seemed to be the best price and it's great. Do take aa electric kettle, it's a right pia boiling a pan of water for your morning cuppa!!

Electrickery? That's not camping!

When I was a girl guide we used to sleep on the floor, tie sticks together and put a washing up bowl in it and dig a hole in the ground to empty our camping loos into.

Lucycat, which one? The £65 jobbie or the £14 one? Can I get a single socket one and then use an ordinary extension lead (one of the 1m 4 gang ones) inside the tent? I'm still a bit confused as to what is the absolute minimum needed...

We bought the 3 gang one as we weren't sure how safe it would be to have trailing plugs in a potentially damp tent.

We have a kettle, light, fan heater and a plug in fridge jobby so we wanted the flexibility to use more than one appliance as well!

Best investment we made, I can even recharge the mobile phone!