Camping - how to do it better next year (DIBNY)

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Before we even set off this year, DH and I were discussing how we could do it better next year, and it occurs to me that this is one of the great (and many) pleasures of camping.

So what will you do better? What’s your DIBNY?

Our first thought was that we would get a load of boxes that exactly fit the boot of the car and pack into those. And bring a bottle opener.

But there's a wind weather warning for Saturday! Help!?

Guy ropes, double pegs. Find out which direction the wind is coming from and pitch in the lee of a hedge. Failing that, use your car as a windbreak.

Thanks were going to pitch Friday night so will see if we can find out wind direction for Saturday and park the car accordingly 🙈.

Eye blinds/ masks - game changer for not being woken at dawn and even got toddler DS to have an afternoon nap wearing his.

Of course it’s a gimmick - it’s a surfy thing.

I remember reading something about vermin climbing all over bottles and risk of lime disease when drinking out of bottles so I always wipe round the top once I’ve opened them anyway. So it doesn’t bother me 😂

seconding plastic set of drawers for kitchen stuff. Ours is a 4 drawer set and splits into 2 x2 for car and storage in shed. So much easier than fishing through a box!

Are you able to link to this if possible please?

I wish the "Just fly to Spain and get a villa lol" crew would think sometimes. If we didn't camp, most years we wouldn't have a holiday (Although we did go Interrailing this spring, which has wiped out the holiday budget for the rest of the year!). As it is, we can have a 3 week multi location holiday in France, including a day trip to Paris, for less than what most people are paying for their week in Spain.

Given that the DC both have their own little tents now, and I sleep in our small van, our Great Green (canvas Cabanon) Shed is semi retired. I'm contemplating getting some kind of awning for the van to use as a kitchen area.

Also, we have never had a proper folding table, and I think that would really add to our comfort and convenience. Perhaps a low one, as we don't have camping chairs- we just sit on the ground. (Re camping chairs- I always used to wonder why fellow campers were so bundled up in dressing gowns and dry robes of an evening. I recently went on a camping/walking trip with a bunch of friends and sat in their camping chairs around the fire, and the penny dropped. Camping chairs are way colder, what with all that wind blowing under your arse! 😆)

Someone upthread asked about a decent set of camping shelves. Ours is from Lidl, and was only 30 odd quid (then), and it's great. I think they still sell them every spring.

@crackofdoom We always used to sit on the ground when hot weather camping - we used to fly there so could only take what we could carry in baggage, so camping chairs were impossible. It was fine in my you get days but now I do appreciate a comfy chair 😂

Folding table - we have a cheap adjustable height one and it's been very useful, but I'm wondering if we could get the kind of kitchen drawer system mentioned upthread that converts into 2x2 drawers/boxes, maybe we could just use that as a table surface instead?

Incidentally we stayed recently at a back to basics site that had a wooden picnic table under a rigid tarp shelter for each pitch, and that felt like sheer luxury, even given the compost loos!!

A table at each pitch is such a fine idea. Tempted to start a fantasy campsite thread now 😆

Honestly it was a game-changer! Especially given it was under shelter (although we were lucky with the weather).

OK FINE I'll start a little dream campsite list...😄:

• picnic table under shelter at each pitch
• honesty cupboard (eggs, teabags, toothpaste etc)
• honesty library cupboard 😍
• good number of hooks in shower block

That's basically all I ask! Although I wasn't complaining the time we stayed somewhere with a little pop-up bar and an artisan pizza van of a weekend either...or the place where the owner blew up an inflatable cinema screen for us and let my kids choose whatever film they fancied...

My fantasy would be...

• set decent sized pitches with space in between

• decent lake access

• showers with somewhere to put your stuff

• total ban on amplified music

I've just started a fantasy campsite thread!

Oh, I know what else I've been meaning to get- a new set of decent, heavy duty tent pegs and a new mallet. After the rock hard ground in a couple of French campsites in the drought last year, I don't think we have a single unbent peg!

We carry a variety of tent pegs. We use plastic mostly, but have metal pins and screw in ones for rock hard ground. We also have some of those spiral dog anchors for storms. They look like big cork screws.

Actually, the talk of pegs and mallets reminds me that another Scout leader walked off with my mallet at the end of cub camp by mistake and I didn't worry because it would come on our other camp 6 weeks later...but that camp didn't happen. I need to call up to him and get it back before I go with DSis in 10 days...

Years of camping for over a month each year - over 40.
Discovered this week - this hack.

This is great, but do you not take a screwtop insulated/travel mug?! My prized camping possession is a Contigo leakproof thermal mug so that my tea stays hot (if a shower suddenly comes free etc) and also doesn't spill when my kids knock it over 25 times...I can't recommend it highly enough! It also fits in the cup holder in my camping chair 👍

Camping for the first time in a few weeks. Taking lots of notes...

I finally got fed up after years of using lightweight camping cooking pans and worn out kitchen castoffs so this year I bought a set of proper stainless steel saucepans from Dunelm. Used them for the first time last week. They are lovely. 😃

We have 3 X 35 litre really useful boxes they work for everything and as they are clear you can see what's fallen to the bottom. One for cooking stuff, one for other equipment and one for non chilled food. They work for stools, footrest, table, work surface, animal proof and can even be left outside in the rain.
here

I don't, because this camping is a specific kind, in a community, and mugs of tea are provided. However, I confess that a friend has a 1 cup insulated cafetière with a very wide base, un-tippable-over, that I lust after!

I took a clothes rail to a festival and it was a game changer. Hung one of those canvas storage hangers from it for bits and pieces, also a light and some of our nicer clothes on hangers. Even a folding full length mirror. Only took a minute to put together.

A folding full length mirror @Fingersmith ! You sound like Mary Poppins. Do you have a photograph of this set up, please? It sounds inspired.

Also, did you wheel the clothes rail through the festival or assemble it at the pitch?

This is elite level!!

The Decathlon beds have been a game changer, we actually sleep now!

www.decathlon.co.uk/p/inflatable-camping-bed-base-camp-bed-air-70-cm-1-person/_/R-p-309887