Is this just the way it is? Camping 2024

[Aliceberrypie]

Always camped with my kids as a family. We loved the space , simplicity and affordability.

mine are grown up now but DH and Dog and I like camping still .

This weekend - we tried a new site / had 5star reviews - we just got back and really didn’t enjoy it.

Marked pitches allocated to you with a clearly mowed in boundary line to delineate your pitch. All good .

we set up and the whole weekend we had kids running over our pitch - literally through our chairs and tables and the parents did nothing,

I thought on marked pitches the unspoken rule was that you stayed off a pitch that wasn’t yours. I always walk around the edge of pitches and trained my kids to do the same. Wouldn’t dream of invading someone else’s space.

… but running all over the site acting feral / chucking balls that regularly hit tents / vans etc just seemed ‘normal’. As was letting dogs off lead (site rules clear that dogs must be on leads but they were roaming all over the place )

was genuinely perplexed as it was going on all around me - never had this before and have stayed on a lot of sites and camped for over 40 years - it made me feelI have become a grumpy old women - I don’t mind kids playing and I love dogs - but I do think there needs to be a bit of consideration for others and that everyone needs to be respectful of others on a campsite.

I admit we did walk through someone's pitch last year... they unwittingly pitched across the path to the paddlecraft launching point. Luckily they hadn't fully unpacked so it was easy for them to move a few metres (we also let them know that that area had flooded a couple of days before). They thought it looked nice overlooking the lake.

Now that’s my kind of site! What a view.

I really was shocked by the weekend as usually we never have any problems.

I hate feeling old and grumpy but it was just a bit much!

Will stick to our tried and tested sites and definitely will give adult only sites a go instead!

@Iheartmysmart thank you so much! Just my cup of tea. I don't mind children as I can usually zone out of that. It's adults playing music that gets me. I realise I sound like a right misery guts.

A loo and drinking water is all I need.

I love Cotswold camping at holycombe. Over 12s only and it used to be very strict on noise and no groups due to their planning permission. A beautiful site.

That site looks nice as well @stilldumdedumming There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of peace and quiet. That’s what camping is all about. Access to the site is interesting as are some of the Devon roads!

It's not just campsites, it's everywhere. People don't parent their kids anymore. We went to a lovely (and expensive) cabin site in March and I lost my rag with the screaming kids next door - luckily reception were able to move us, but what sort of idiots let kids run around on a deck at 6am when people are on holiday .....

It’s lovely. I agree about the bubbles and I know they can damage some tents. They just can’t damage ours because of the pvc fabric it is made of.

I hear you.

Just before the schools broke up I had a weekend at one of my favourite sites - I usually only go off season and away from weekends. Large pitches clearly separated, huge amounts of room to play. Kids thundered through the pitch chasing each other, jumping the guy ropes, two foot away from a kettle boiling on the stove. Absolutely oblivious to any danger or boundaries. I was scared stiff to cook or make a cup of tea the rest of the time I was there.

Adult only sites at high season.

Oh my goodness seeing children and their parents being so utterly disrespectful in a cemetery would crush me. I have always taught our DC to walk around the edges of graves. 😢

We have just spent the week away camping as a family of 4 (2 DD’s 13 and 5) on a popular camp site. We normally prefer much quieter almost ‘wild camping’ like sites as I like my privacy and the quiet. And we encountered the same thing. Our pitch neighbour took over half our pitch so we had to park elsewhere (I am very no confrontational). Our DD’s have been taught to be quiet and respectful especially seeing as tents have no sound proofing. So will play board games or go play on the designated park. But some of the kids on the site were just feral. Noise until 2am some night with kids still screaming and the parents weren’t much better. Lesson learned I will be sticking to quieter ‘wild camping’ type site from now on.

The last time we went camping, we took a toilet in a toilet tent. It was alongside our tent and unmistakably private.

Went out for the day and came back to unflushed poo in the toilet and on the seat. They'd used all of the toilet roll and pinched the hand sanitiser too!

Really annoyed me, as I had to clean up a stranger's mess. We weren't very far from the perfectly clean toilet block either.

Yes, new campers on my favourite site on Dartmoor have a habit of setting up their stockade in a picturesque corner of the field by the river, then getting huffy when a constant stream of people bearing water containers and towels starts walking through their pitch. I guess it's unfortunate that the only path to the toilet block is right in that corner and not signposted....🤷‍♀️

Normally we’ve been lucky with sites that are quiet but we once stayed at a larger site in North Wales that was utter chaos. Parties until the early hours of the morning and the highlight of the week was the chap in the tent next to us getting arrested! Haven’t stayed on a large site since.

Oooh, @missshilling where are you ? That site looks great. I love ‘pitch where you like’ sites. I promise not to turn up with my speakers, projector, generator etc.

I once stayed on a site in Kent where families arrived in huge pick up trucks with full sized trampolines to set up outside their tents.

Go to campsites not favoured by the middle class.

We've had the same problem this Summer OP - we usually do a few long weekends between Easter and the end of October in the UK and a longer break in France in the Summer hols. This year in a moment of madness and money-saving fever we booked 10 nights in the UK on a fancier site than we'd usually pick in this country (although noticeably less nice and more expensive than the French sites, excluding the extra travel costs). I have never felt the need to bring windbreaks before, but will never not bring them again! Kids running through our pitch, but also adults walking between our awning and car, having a really good nose as they pass... Just what you want as you're all sat down eating! Add on top screaming DCs and adults screeching and cackling long into the small hours. The icing was our neighbours, who managed to reverse into our joint water & electric hook up within 5 mins of arriving, rendering it unsafe and partly unusable for nearly 24 hours, allowed their teen DCs to have a fully fledged water fight on and around our pitch, parked their van within our (clearly marked) pitch, then whacked the radio on at full blast and had the cheek to moan we had made them feel unwelcome because we had politely requested they turn it down (we hadn't even asked it was fully switched off, only reduced to a more manageable level!). Thankfully, they were only staying a couple of nights, but they left so much waste on their pitch that their parting gift was an army of scavenging seagulls.
Another family opposite had the bubbles out too, but thankfully the fabric of our trailer tent/awning isn't affected by it (plus the wind was blowing them the other way), so I left that battle to others!

Next year we plan to return to France!

Oh yes I hear you we’ve stopped camping because of all these issues. It really got worse after covid when more people started camping for a cheaper holiday but zero respect for those around them. When headphones small and large are so cheap why oh why do folk have large speakers out! I actually braved a 2n away in small tent with my DD alone and chose our site because it had large A frame boards at the enterance saying no amplified music “quiet site”. Yet the one over the road plus the direction of the wind meant we were treated to loud dance music one night. Sadly spoilt a nice stay and the campervan that decide to park so so close to us grrrrr. I still love camping but not in England.

Quick update. I had a quick night away last weekend at Cotswold camping at Holycombe. The view from my tent in the morning. Pitch where you like in mown plots around the stone circle andy when more pitches nearer the toilets/ sink etc in the orchard.

So quiet and I saw shooting stars thanks to so little light pollution! Bliss.

No under 12s and no dogs though. Oh and a church bell that rings quarter hours through the night.

It's about an hour from my house hence I can pop there for one night .

Oh and you can just use the fire pits that are around and buy logs there fiver a bag.

www.cotswoldscamping.com

I’ve been there, it was lovely

I think it’s important to leave reviews on Google, Pitchup or wherever, if you’ve experienced a noisy site. Seems to be the thing that galvanises some action from owners.

Camping a couple of weeks ago, woken up at 0630 by a dog in our tent trying to get into our sleeping pod. Owners had simply opened the door of their tent and sent him out for his morning business alone and unsupervised. Chased him out of our tent, watched him poo in the middle of the field and then heard "Fido come back now" emanating from a tent. So not impressed - dogs off leads and cocking their legs on other people's tents, chairs etc has really put me off camping.

I go to dog free campsites. Not prepared to risk a dog cocking its leg up on my expensive canvas tent!

We were lucky this year and managed to get a normally busy site when it was really quiet! Even when England got to wherever they got to in the big football comp (was it the World Cup or Euros?) the bar was shut down and empty at the end of the game.
When I first went to this site in 2015 I had borrowed a caravan and carefully pitched it really close to the edge of the pitch which was also a grass covered wall. There was less than a couple of feet but it didn't stop adults and children walking along there - wasn't even a shortcut to anywhere! - and some banged their heads on the open caravan windows. I was totally gobsmacked as I'd never encountered this before in 30+ years of camping.

Aw op what a pain. I really don’t know what’s going on with this new generation of parents, were they never taught by their own parents about basic manners and etiquette, or were they taught that they were untouchable and that their rights trumped everyone else's?

I tend to avoid camping/caravanning in August or go adult only.