Taking backpacking tent on plane & camping in Europe with kids

[poppyboo]

Anyone done this? Taken really lightweight tent and sleeping bags backpacking style and gone travelling? Would live to hear experiences about lightweight travel with children in tow!

i've done this on a coach without kids as a student. i also know people who've walked coastal paths with kids and tents on their backs. how old are the kids - are they small enough they don't need much, or big enough they can carry stuff? i'm now too old to sleep on lumpy, hard ground and i like clean clothes and cooked food. guess it depends how much you are prepared to ruff it.

have you done it before without kids as i imagine the experience is going to be pretty similar but with a bit more stuff?

If you go to Switzerland you can do something called "sleep on straw". They are farms who hire out spaces in hay lofts and barns. We did it and its lovely. You also get breakfast. Many have a kitchen. Might be worth considering. Transportation is very good in Switzerland and many farms will collect you from the nearest trainstation.

dreamingofsun they are 4 and 7 - I roughed around America twice two years running sleeping on grayhound busses and bus station floors, now I'm older and have to be safer b/c of the kids :D

heather1 sleep on straw sounds fab! Did you take sleeping bags and camping mats? How long ago did you do it?

H and I used to do this pre dd it was fabulous

Tell me caerlaverock!

Well we used to fly drive and take a wee tent and fly to lovely places and camp ... Um that's about it. I don't know if you would get away with taking so. Much crap nowadays

We flew to Malaga and had fantasia camping trip in Andalusia. Also flew to Toulouse and had amazing time in tarn and the pyrenees

Sorry fantastic not fantasia. That is just my iPad being a twat

Not quite travelling as in going from one place to another and so forth, but DS and I did fly to France last year and go camping in Ile de Re. I've never been that keen on the carrying big loads, so I go with a wheeled holdall. I am trying to work on lightening my camping kit so maybe going as far as carrying it. Really am thinking about toughening up a bit there but the memory that sticks in my mind of hiking when I was a teenager is of falling on my back, unable to get up with a pack that seemed to weigh more than me!

Cycle touring camping would be another great idea.