Camping shops. Decathalon, Go, Cotswolds, etc

[TiggyD]

Tried Decathlon. Bottom end of the market selling their own brands. Not going to bother again.

Go Outdoors. Odd title for a shop which wants you to come inside... Anyway, it's my main go-to shop for stuff. Go range, large, big names and cheaper brands.

CotswoldOutdoors. Not tried yet.

Army surplus. Going to pop into one this weekend as I'm after a tarp.

Where do you go? Which place is best?

It depends on what I'm after. I haven't been that impressed with the tent selection at Go Outdoors - last tents were found at the Taunton Leisure display and then the Camping Show at the NEC.

For accessories etc, I like Millets (particularly when they do the 20% offers), Mountain Warehouse (ditto) and BCH camping in Wiltshire. I'm a bargain hunter on a budget so tend to research prices on line and then go & see the stuff in the shops with a budget in mind. Sports Direcr have some great bargains from time to time but I really hate the shops!

Why didn't you like decathlon? I've been very impressed with them, still using 10+ year old equipment.

I think decathlon are good. Cant wait to try our new pop up tent.

I think mountain warehouse are a bit crappy

Mountain warehouse

Depends what I want.
Go Outdoors for stuff like walking socks that I get through a lot of and stuff for the DC. Walking shoes - get through a lot of them too. Because it's close. More specialist "performance" stuff if it's on offer.

I tend to go to an idependent outdoor shop (Outside, in Hathersage, Derbyshire) for most other stuff.

I love Decathlon - it's like Ikea for sports. They sell at all price points/levels of quality.

Go Outdoors is good for general stuff, though.

There's a Cotswolds and another (Blackwell?) near me but I don't rate them much. Too small to really stock much.

BCH in wiltshire is v good and has a website. I have to say I like to look i shops but more likely to buy online...

There's a good shop in Lyndhurst in the New Forest too.

There's a few things I want which only seem to be available online.

There's also exhibitions like www.campingcentreexhibitions.co.uk/#!about/cfvg. Lot of tents but the equipment side of things isn't so hot.

I love Decathlon. Their pop up tents are fab. Family ones especially, although sadly they seem to have dropped them in favour of inflatable ones. Our massive airbed gave up the ghost in France this week and a couple of Decathlon ones have given us the best nights' sleep we have had on an airbed ever I think. Stuff lasts ages from there too.

Quite like mountain warehouse for some things and millets too.

Aldi and lidl are good when they do their annual camping weeks. Bought some great chairs at Aldi the other week. Very comfortable, padded and with headrests.

Lots of our camping accessories are from Decathlon - it doesn't really matter to me if pots/pans etc are own brand or not, so long as they're good value. My festival tent's from there, and it's still going strong, and I like the look of their backpacking tent. The staff can be a bit hit or miss though, so not the place I'd go looking for advice.

Our main tent (Vango Tempest) was from Cotswolds, the staff were really helpful, we were able to put it up in the store to see how easy it was to put up, and the loyalty card meant we got a fair bit off.