Wednesday 28 August 2013

I hate camping......

....However



I normally cringe at the thought of going camping however due to a drastic change of plans of for my summer leave period so going camping was the one offer of fun I had had from my sister. So I decided to embrace it say YES and go for it!! And boy I am glad I did. I wanted to write a little post detailing the stuff to take with you to make camping awesome from someone who normally hates camping! So lets get on with it....


  • A large tent
  • - I realised that my main fear of camping is a have "littletentaphobia" a fear of being in small tents alone. This time a shared a massive tent with my sister and her boyfriend. This thing was bigger than my room and you could full on stand up in it which is the most important factor. I am 5ft 10 and not being able to stand up to put clothes on is just wrong!! Also if you have a rainy day like we did, where it did not stop for 7 hours!! You at least have somewhere you can all hang out and have a tent party, it turns a rainy day into a fun day!!!
  • Gas stove - Nothing beats waking up climbing out of a hot toasty tent to have a cuppa tea in the sunshine! Bring extra gas canisters too!!
  • Tea, sugar, milk and biscuits - See point above 
  • fluffy socks and fleecy PJs (Onsie's are also an option) - It gets fricking cold when the sun goes down and if you are sat outside the tent with friends chatting you wanna be warm.
  • Air bed and a car pump - best thing I borrowed was that car pump especially when you pump up the air bed at midday in the blistering heat (UK version of it anyway) and then realise its a lot flatter by the time you come to sleep!!
  • Camping chair - goes without saying but there are chair politics and you do not want to be the one who doesn't bring a chair when you are in a group.
  • BBQs - next time I think I would actually pack a small coal BBQ as we had some dramas with or disposable ones, like them relighting themselves 4 hours later so it may be works packing of folding one that can also be used as a fire pit if your site lets you have them of course, always check! It's good to have something you can do cheap meals on as eating out becomes expensive quickly!
  • Duvet and own pillow - best decision I made here also, I was toying with the idea of taking my king sized duvet or just using the sleeping bag. So glad I chose to take my own duvet and pillows, I hate the restrictions of sleeping bags I get so annoyed not being able to stick a leg out when you want to so taking your own stuff from your own bed makes you feel like you are at home!!! 
  • A Good book - for those early evenings when you just want to go to sleep early but 6pm is far too early however you drank 8 pints the night before and then did a raft race where you thought you were going to die ...I digress. It's good to have a light hearted read that you can chill with when you just fancy a quiet moment or two. 
  • Slip on shoes - finding shoes, tying laces or risking barefoot to nip to the loo at 3am can be fun. Just have something easy to hand that doesn't require brain power to get on your feet in haste. 
  • Samsung Galaxy S4 - I was the only one out of our convoy who had a phone that could pick u signal at out camp site and could get on the WiFi too, I love my phone :) sad I know!!
  • Extra sleeping Socks - feet get cold at night when in a field. Simple but effective.
  • Torches, push lights, head lamps, mini lamps and 10,000 candle lamps! - the more the merrier no one will ever say you have too many and they will also be useful!
Well other than the obvious things like pants and a toothbrush I can't really think what else to include. I really enjoyed my camping trip so much so we stayed an extra day as the weather was so nice. I went to Praa Sands in Cornwall for the Pirate raft race which we got called in to do last minute and it was amazing even those my blood sugars were 0 and a started shaking. A coke and a Kit Kat fixed that!!!

Oh I did forget one last thing... 
AMAZING FRIENDS!!!! That is what really made the time camping to be oh so special! 

What are your essentials that make your trips more comfy?? Let me know! 

xoxo