Camping. Give me the lowdown please

[NKF]

What items must I have? And how much should I expect to pay for a campsite?

Any ideas?

What have you got already?

tent, sleeping bags, something to sleep on
something to cook on, and with
torches/lanterns
water container
table and chairs makes it abit comfier - could just use picnic rug

kitchen equipment, no need to rebuy, just use what you have

plastic plates etc useful

bin bags

dustpan and brush - so you can sweep muck out of tent/mud off the underneath when you pack up

pitch price really varies, could be £10 a night, more for a big tent, and for more people, and more again for elec hookup. Depends how many facilities there are on the site too.

What to sleep on. We have a very old gas thingy that someone gave us. Perhaps I should practice making a meal on it in the back garden.

Sorry. That meant to cook on. We have blow up beds that we use for sleepovers.

we have a double ring and grill which runs on Gas - cooker itself £39 for Go Outdoors, gas extra, £17 I think for bottle refill, but you have to buy the bottle also the first time, unless you already have one, or manage to pick one up free at a dumpit site like Wolfgirl did the other day.

Trying out your old cooker in the garden sounds a good idea to me!

quick! local Aldi selling tents, folding chairs and even two ring & grill gas cooker v cheap (cooker 30 quid a snip)

we're weekend campers so not as experienced (or as hardy!) as some of the others. Would strongly recommend taking pillows if you have room and hot water bottles. Also washing up bowl/box for dirty dishes.
But perhaps we do "camping for wimps"!

We have a tent. Again someone gave it to us but I think it's probably a bit pre-war compared with the sort you can get now. But could be serviceable. I'm tempted to see if our hand me down stuff would be good enough, blunder through, not go too far and run for home if it gets too tough. I don't feel confident to make purchases that might be wrong.

Absolutely NKF!

Take a few pans / cutlery /washing up bowl etc from home, take your duvet if it'll fit in the car.

In fact think of what you would use on a normal day and then try to see what you can use from home.

The when you know that you like it (notice I said when ) then you can keep a look out at Aldi / Lidl / Netto / Asda etc for bargains that you think might come in useful.

Is it regarded as completely useless to take picnic food and a disposable barbecue?

most campsites we've been to won't allow disposable BBQs unless you have a stand for it as they burn the grass. What you take food-wise will depend on how long you are going for cos you need to keep it cool. As said, we only ever go for weekends. I take tins/quick cook pasta for the Sunday, freeze bacon/ham so it defrosts and helps keep the cool box cool. One campsite we go to will re-freeze coolers for you, but not sure if that's common or not.

No...it's regarded as good thinking
Where are you going NKF

Early July but only if the weather is good. Haven't even got onto looking at sites. Just contemplating our kit and wondering if it's serviceable. I think (really wimpy here) we might just start with one night. Day on the beach, camp for the night, day on the beach and then home. That could work?

Picninc food, absolutely!

we always eake a picninc for the first night, cold chicken that sort of thing - and Scotch pancakes for the first breakfast as all you need is some butter.

Netto have a cheapo barbecue stand here that you can use - or buy a single gas burner stove for £8ish from tesco.

Scotch pancakes a brilliant idea. I am going to do it. Now onto sites.

ok so NW hijack - lilo - where do you camp close to home?

We're constantly on the look out for decent sites near to us.

And we could eat fish and chips for one meal. I've decided not to buy a thing. I'm going to borrow and make do and see how we go.

If you decided that you needed to have some way of heating stuff up then something like this little stove is ideal

For that early morning cuppa!

and oh yes to the fish and chips - it's an essential meal of our camping holiday- start collecting little sachets of salt, vinegar, ketchup etc

hi lucycat. Nowhere very close to home. Lake Bala in Wales (c. 2hours away) or the lakes (Coniston or Ullswater). Edale is supposed to be nice and much closer but haven't been ourselves yet. My brother's going there in the summer - they live in Norfolk, so not close to them, but close enough for us to visit for the day so will let you know if you remind me.

we are either Anglesey or Lleyn campers closeish to home - we've not managed to find a nice site in Edale yet as that would be close for us too - there are a couple of noce ones in Buxton, but it's more like a day out for us......

yeah, same here. The site we go to in Bala is lovely (IMO!)and some of the people we go with have boats so I guess that adds to the appeal.

Lucycat - which ones are nice in Buxton. We're going to book our first camping trip for August. But we want to be fairly close to home so am looking at a couple in Buxton and a couple in Hope. Can you give us a any clues as to which ones are good for first time campers with 2 dd aged 5 and 20months
sorry if this is a bit of hijacking

debbiewebweb - I didn't know you were local too?!

Clover Fields is meant to be lovely.

Lime Tree Park is also near Buxton - but I think it gets really busy at weekends.