Camping on the Isle of Wight - please help a novice

[LadyMelsie]

((Whispers)) I have £1 camping sun tokens in my hot sweaty palms

and am thinking of shaking off the old - used only once - tent and taking DS fossil hunting on the shores of the Isle of Wight.

Do any of you lovely MNers have some advice for me - what are the pitfalls of camp sites, what are the best bits, the best places to pitch, recommendations for the IOW.

Pretty please ⛺

Bumpity bump bump 😀

Well, we have stayed on the IoW a few times but only camped once and that was at a site called Orchard somerthing I think and was a long time ago.

You will find you will have limited choice of sites with the Sun offer and I think they will generally be the bigger holiday parks with facilities and entertainment. So your DS may love them. Before you choose which to go for I would read the reviews on www.ukcampsite.co.uk to get an idea of which one appeals.

With pitching, if you get a choice of places, aim for one which is flat and not at the bottom of a slope (in case of rain). Try to be reasonably close to the loos but not so close you are constantly disturbed and try to be quite far from any bar for obvious reasons.

The IoW is lovely but a bit like going back to the 1950s in some ways. Don't make our mistake and try to get dinner anywhere after about 8pm. It is not easy.

Hope you have a great time.

If you stay at Adgestone I suggest checking if there's still a cockeral next door and asking to go as far away as possible from it. we were exhausted the whole holiday as we got woken pre dawn each day. why stick a family next to a cockeral when most of the site was empty?

i've been to the iow three times, twice camping and to be honest i prefer the mainland. the crossing is expensive and as mummy points out a bit like being back in the 50's but not in a good way....eg restaurants we went to hadn't cought up with improvements in food/service that resorts on the mainland had.