Which fellow campers make your heart sink?

[Tabarnak]

You’ve worked out the perfect spot, set up, and are just settling down with a cold drink when THAT fellow camper comes and sets up next you.

Which fellow campers make your heart sink?

(in the spirit of today’s threads about other people being anti social or just not what you want on beaches , in restaurants etc etc)
(on the whole I find camping folk lovely)

Me: An enthusiastic parent producing a bubble machine / bubble wands / vats of bubble detergent that will burst all over my canvas tent wrecking the whatchamacallit properties of the cotton canvas and destroy the waterproofing.

People with aggressive or barky dogs. Last three trips we've been on we've been next to dogs that barked at everything and one growled, jumped and snarled at us constantly. I was terrified it would break free from the lead (owner kept it tied to a tree most of the time).

On this weekend’s list - people who complain that their dog isn’t used to being on a lead (campsite rule is dogs must be on leads), and lets it off “just for a little run because she’s got so much energy”, and then does that soppy “oh don’t worry she won’t hurt” when the excitable dog starts running after children. Also anyone playing music - I like camping for the nature, if I wanted to listen to music I would have booked a festival!
oh and there was one kid who played a bit with mine but wouldn’t leave him alone, kept following my DS back to our pitch and asking to come in our van, asking what food we had etc. clearly neglected by his grownups. But he annoyed me and DS!

Loud people

This encompasses quite a lot, but generally just shut the fk up and you’ll be reet as far as I’m concerned.

Am booked into an incredibly busy campsite in the New Forest Tuesday so will keep you updated…

I usually book very small and basic adult only sites and have been pretty lucky so far with the other campers. But a couple of weeks ago I had a few days off work and thought I’d go somewhere local for a change of scenery.

It was lovely and quiet when I arrived so I pitched up and walked into the village for a pint. Got back to find a group of 14 teenagers and one supervising adult pitched opposite. The kids then spend the next few hours kicking footballs around, screaming profanities at each other, starting a fire and generally causing chaos whilst the grown up looked on.

The site owner gave them a bollocking and they were quiet for a while but it all started up again once it got dark. Ended up with the police arriving at about 11.30pm to get them to shut up.

It wasn’t the most relaxing of breaks.

As a lifelong camper, the only thing that bothers me is loud music.

Motor home people who park either side of my small tent.

You go from being a small set up in the middle of a field to being in a canyon of white plastic.

They fill rest of their pitch with outdoor rugs, immense padded recliner chairs, UPVC cocktail trolleys and wine glass holders. The perimeter of their pitch will be visible from space given the 40 lanterns marking their territory.

Mr Motorhome NEVER sits down. He will spend all weekend trundling various pieces of water carrying equipment back and forth. He doesn't own a shirt and has grey hair around his nipples. Mrs Motorhome, who wears her 'motor home slippers' to the bathroom will ask if she can put up her camp washing line on your pitch as 'you only have a little tent in all that space'. They both have £1000 electric bikes that never leave their pitch.

Their telly will be on full volume all weekend, the pumps for their various appliances will bellow and wheeze 24/7. They will make friends with the people in the motor home the other side of your tent and drink cocktails and talk about motorhomes until 3am.

Three families friends/relatives who had nine children between them complete with bikes, scooters, footballs and goal nets and many other toys who never left the site and whose toys and outdoor activities spread closer and closer. The same holiday the campers next door attached bells to their tent door, they had two children aged approx 2 and 4 years old. The youngest was called (nicknamed) Booboo and cried constantly on and off all day from 5am. Parents response was "don't cry Booboo, it's ok Booboo". We left a couple of days early and have camped on adult only sites since. We have no issue with children having done our bit for the world population and having grandchildren, but that holiday put us off non adult sites forever.

Anybody with kids 😂

People who burn joss sticks, I’m in the countryside, I want to breathe fresh air not revolting hippie scents.

Music and barking/ badly trained dogs.

I’m camping with my dog at the moment - well, we’re in myself converted van, but I doubt anyone else even knows he’s here - he knows he’s not allowed to gob off and he’s too tired anyway, because he’s a lazy git and we’ve walked miles!

Can I add the families who treat the communal shower block as their private en-suite?

Have a shower, brush your teeth etc. and then get out. Don’t put all your clothing in a shower cubicle to save it and then go back to the tent because you’ve forgotten something. If you have three under-5s with you they don’t all need their own shower (while everyone else is waiting in a queue) with you running between the three reminding Jemima to wash her knees and Bob to use the shampoo. And if you have to shave your bits in the shower please at least rinse the dark curlies away.

I will never go camping again for similar reasons. Young couple with 2 small kids an empty campsite. They setup right next to us. They’d never camped before. Lots of sex early in the night right next to my head with small kids asking why they were fighting. Then lots of noise right until sun up. I eventually screamed ‘shut up’ very loudly and all noise stopped. Then sun came up and it was too warm to sleep. I never camped again.

And who would have thought we all love camping 🤣

I do love it, and have learned to book wild style sites that have no EHU, and do not allow dogs, music, single sex groups, DoE, generators. And now I can avoid bank holidays snd school holiday weekends it is generally bliss! Calm quiet outdoor time.

Just keep your damn bubbles off my tent!

Currently we are on a site where I met a lady making bubbles yesterday and we are burning a jos stick as we are parked so close to the amenities that the stench is overwhelming…my choice is sweating to death or smelling sewage all night 😂

This thread is just reminding me why I hate camping 😂

This is my kind of rage bait!

My red rag is when people don't supervise their children in toilets and facilities. Sure, your DC can go to the loo independently. But can they be trusted not to wee on the seat, or remember to flush, or not drop a loo roll down the pan or flood the sink? Will they leave the facilities as clean as they found them? This is amplified x10 at festivals. You kind of need to go in to check after them. I checked the loo after my DC until they were 10 😂!

Also, people who play music through speakers. I don't mind people making music, but recorded music, however quietly, and weirdly, even music I like, feels disrespectful for some reason. I can't quite articulate why I make the distinction between the two, but it's real. Last year I camped next to a couple of families whose DC stayed up around their fire way later than anyone else on site, singing Scouts-type songs quite loudly accompanied by a guitar. I didn't mind one bit. Their dad put on a kind of cool 80s mix tape compilation (my era!) as he cooked breakfast the next morning -I was so annoyed. What's the point, especially when you're camping? I often camp on sites with no electric hook-up precisely to get away from electronics, but people still rock up with solar batteries and panels to power the things I'm trying to escape.

I don't usually mind DoE, they're normally too tired to be obnoxious, but I did have the following exchange with a DoE participant last year.

I'm cleaning my teeth at the (only) sink and this kid is going "Excuse me...excuse me..."

I finally rinse and spit and enquire why his parents never taught him not to ask questions of people cleaning their teeth, and what does he want?

Him: "Is that toilet occupied?" Me: "Yes, but there's another one down there." Him: "But that one's all yucky" ....

Bear in mind that I go camping to get away from being mum 😆

The family with loud running screeching children, who also don't seem to be able to tell the children to calm down or to respect the tent boundaries and running too close. I really don't mind kids, but mine are grown and my dog gets really wound up

On this boundary issue as well. We once pitched up on what we thought was a great pitch but what we didn't see was a whole in the hedge behind our tent which was becoming a short cut to the toilets, even though they had to really go close to our tent.

I quite like school and DofE parties on campsites. They leave the site for the day, come back and run around having fun in onesies for an hour then early to bed. Rather have them than large extended family groups who play rounders and take it in turn to drive granny the 200 yards to the loo block in Barbarian trucks.

St George crosses everywhere and dodgy patriot stickers on their car as happened to us recently.
He was such a prick and we were next to them for 3 days of our trip.

OK, I am changing my mind on DoE friendly campsites.

I do regularly visit a site that has big cub and scout rallies / camps - they keep strictly to one end of the site, it's brilliant to see the way the leaders and helpers organise them and keep them occupied and while my heart DID sink when I saw them all arriving and setting up rows and rows of tents , by the time they left after 2 nights I was glad to have witnessed young people behaving well and having a great time and being wholesome!

Yeah.
"Of course they're running around aimlessly screeching like banshees and kicking footballs at your tent, it's just kids being kids!"

......said no scout leader or teacher ever 😆

If I won the lottery I would pay Akela whatever she asks to come and be my nanny.

One’s who talk loudly and look beseechingly at you in the hope you’ll join in with their conversation. But that irritates me anywhere to be honest.

anyone who makes any noise after about half ten - I’ve not been camping for a while though it’s not for me on that basis alone.

The route to the toilets on my favourite campsite on Dartmoor is through a hole in the hedge in the corner of the field, climbing rocks across a stream, across a railway sleeper laid across a bog and up a hill. This route is not signed in any way.

Woe betide any newcomers who set up their wanky stockade in that corner 😆

Bubble machines. That shit wrecks waterproofing.
Yobs who think it's fun to run in to shower locks and bang on doors.
Went to a Welch site three years ago.
A group like this were gone within 24 hours.