Personally I’ve never been a fan, but as Tim Dowling of the Guardian puts it “Why do I regularly, voluntarily, drive six hours to a wet field so that other people can hear me shout at my children? …. And yet, despite these warnings from history, I’m actually excited about the idea of putting up my tent. Again.”
Could it be because we’re all trying to save money?
That’s certainly a possibility and it is true that camping has risen in popularity by around 27% since 2009 so it might well be that the campsite is gaining some popularity as a cheaper way to have a UK holiday, or as the tourist boards would like us to call it – a “Stay-cation”.
Companies such as Park Resorts and Haven are also offering a lot of family style UK holidays with early booking discounts which might also be helping.
Perhaps camping is in vouge?
This sounds like a bad idea for camping as it’s not really intended to be a fashionable idea which lasts a year then goes away, but there’s even a new term “Glamping” to describe luxury camping. This is essentially when someone else puts up the tent (or it’s semi-permanently constructed) and it usually has several rooms with various amenities close by.
Luckily for most of the regular campers this is likely to only occur in more specialised campsites as muddy field really doesn’t fit well with cocktail dress and high heals.
The most likely reason – same as it’s always been, a sense of freedom.
Examining all the various reasons why Brits sit out in fields when they could have a nice en-suite hotel room leads me to one conclusion. It’s all about the freedom and escape that camping can give.
Even a hotel addict like myself has to admit that getting out into the countryside especially at night does have a lot of instinctive appeal, maybe harking back to our earlier simpler days when we didn’t worry about who would win X-Factor or whether Dirty Den was coming back to Eastenders.
Beyond all that camping can and does from the friends I know who regularly partake, give you that freedom to just get out there and reconnect back with what it really means to be human, ie: being able to appreciate your surroundings.
Links relating to this:
Tim Dowling on Brits camping (Guardian)
Campsites around the UK
Park Resorts campsites and holiday parks
Haven park camping & self-catering
Hoseasons caravanning holidays
Tentastic Tents for sale
One Comment
I LOVE camping but it has to be wild camping,
I can’t stand being in a field with loads of other people having to worry about noise, smoke from the BBQ etc.. Nothing beats waking up in the middle of nowhere with no one around and amazing views.
Last year we did it up in Glencoe and had deer running round our tent – it was fantastic!