nice campsites - not Nissan Navaras and Sports Direct?

[hornetrider]

GreatGranny said:

...this looks a great place if a little pretentious.

http://oceanpitch.co.uk

Hipster as fk

[GreatGranny]

hornetrider said:

GreatGranny said:

...this looks a great place if a little pretentious.

http://oceanpitch.co.uk

Hipster as fk

I know :-)

Think it would wind me up but there's no way it would attract the "Sports Direct" crowd.

There's a few more around that area no doubt less hipster and cheaper.

OP, also search in Dorset. Wonderful coastline but as North Devon will be expensive.

[Trabi601]

hornetrider said:

GreatGranny said:

...this looks a great place if a little pretentious.

http://oceanpitch.co.uk

Hipster as fk

£99 per night to stay in a VW Bay camper?

[C0ffin D0dger]

I've never really had this problem, maybe on one or two places you get the odd loud type but for the most part I've always found camping to be quite a pleasant experience.

I do research carefully though, we're members of the Camping & Caravanning Club and their sites book is quite a good starting point, I usually then check the reviews on http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/ The C&Cs own club sites are generally well run and if anything a little to regimented for my liking but you won't find anyone being loud.

If you really want to get away from it all get a chemical toilet and look into certified location sites offered by the C&C, these are small sites often on farms etc. with minimal facilities and a limit of 5 caravans + tents.

If you want coastal the Three Cliffs Bay in the Gower is absolutely stunning though quite pricey.

Not long after we moved to our current house my parents were wanting to come up and see us but stay in their motorhome nearby so we offered to go a scope out a few nearby sites. We drove onto the one in a nice spot but with the clubhouse and several pubs nearby just as a fight was about to break out between some Sports Direct aficionados, parked at a safe distance and watched for a while Luckily found a C&C certified location site a bit further along which was pretty much just a field at the end of a dead end lane, when they visited they either had the place to themselves or 1-2 other vans. Barn owls flying about every evening, rabbits scampering about in the field next to it, just beautiful and peaceful.

Edited by C0ffin D0dger on Monday 24th April 14:12

[C0ffin D0dger]

GreatGranny said:

Get away from the SE coast and there's lots of decent sites not populated by those types :-)

North Devon for example.

Yes it gets busy in the high season but there's always plenty of big beaches to go on and surfing/body boarding is great fun.

We go in the caravan so can't comment on specific campsites but this looks a great place if a little pretentious.

http://oceanpitch.co.uk

I love Croyde bay and that site looks stunning + the proximity to the beach would be great but £45 a night for a family of four

[JQ]

Trabi601 said:

£99 per night to stay in a VW Bay camper?

On the basis it would cost me £48 per night to camp there, it doesn't seem that expensive.

[piecost76]

2 in Kent that I can personally recommend - no scum!

http://badgellswoodcamping.co.uk/

https://www.bedgeburycamping.co.uk/

Nowhere near the sea though but the Bedgebury one is excellent for MTB and Bewl water

[JQ]

C0ffin D0dger said:

I love Croyde bay and that site looks stunning + the proximity to the beach would be great but £45 a night for a family of four

Seems to be the way these days. The National Trust sites are near enough £40 a night for us. However, something that's starting to grate is that campers seem to get charged more than caravanners. For example we'd get charged £19 per night to bring a caravan here (http://www.llandeglafishery.com/accommodation/caravanning/) with electric hook-up, however if we wanted to pitch a tent, without an electric hook up the cost would be £31 per night - 63% more to camp.

[egor110]

hornetrider said:

Caravan Club sites. Strict rules on noise, behaviour etc. You may need a campervan or caravan however, not many allow tents. Tents are for Sports Direct chavvy types.... oh

That's what wild campers would say about caravan club site's though.

Why shack up in a field with others in caravans/campervans when you can wander into a national park and just sleep there in a tent in complete isolation .

[hornetrider]

egor110 said:

Why shack up in a field with others in caravans/campervans when you can wander into a national park and just sleep there in a tent in complete isolation .

I guess it depends what you want from a camping holiday, both have their merits. I have a 4 year old and she loves whizzing about on her bike making friends with other campers children. You wouldn't get that on Dartmoor...

[battered]

Mr Peel said:

If you want middle-class enclaves you won't go far wrong with the Cool Camping books. They are online too, but they cast the net quite a lot wider on the web - the books have the highest quality threshold.

We've visited about 20 sites from these books all over England and Wales and have never been disappointed with the location, views or the other campers. Highly recommended.

+1. They are a bit light on facilities but don't attract the big-telly-on-electric-hookup brigade.
Other than that, it pays to keep an open mind. You can always move on.

[blugnu]

JQ said:

Seems to be the way these days. The National Trust sites are near enough £40 a night for us. However, something that's starting to grate is that campers seem to get charged more than caravanners. For example we'd get charged £19 per night to bring a caravan here (http://www.llandeglafishery.com/accommodation/caravanning/) with electric hook-up, however if we wanted to pitch a tent, without an electric hook up the cost would be £31 per night - 63% more to camp.

I presume this is down to those 'Sports Direct' types and their enormous tent-labyrinths? One site I went to was lovely - we'd all pitched around the edges giving each other lots of space and leaving the centre of the field empty for kids to mess about it and so on, and then a family turned up with what was basically a human-sized hamster cage made from tents - it was like an octopus of polyester, and pretty much filled the middle of the field.

With a caravan the site owners know roughly how much room it will take up - a 'tent' could cover anything from a 2 man thing upwards. It would make more sense to price by size though

[Trabi601]

JQ said:

Trabi601 said:

£99 per night to stay in a VW Bay camper?

On the basis it would cost me £48 per night to camp there, it doesn't seem that expensive.

£99 for a double 'room' gets you into all kinds of decent hotels.

I have a campervan for a couple of reasons - one of which is so I can go on holiday without spending £99 / night on places to stay.

£99 to stay in someone else's campervan is insanity.

[LasseV]

Vixpy1 said:

Plenty of good B&B's around

+with a proper car you can actually enjoy driving and still have room for 4 people and luggage.

[battered]

Trabi601 said:

£99 to stay in someone else's campervan is insanity.

No more insanity than owning your own, I'd suggest. You lay down, what? £10k? Insurance and tax are £500 pa, say. I'll presume that you have a carport or garage. Set aside a bit for repairs. If you take it out 6 weekends over the summer that's 12 nights out. You aren't going to see change from £1000, so call it £80 a night. Not a cheap do, is it?

My folks had this with a caravan, by the time they had finished with a towcar, insurance, annual service, depreciation, their annual costs were £1000 and up. If they used it a lot, great, but for a fortnight in Europe and a couple of weekends out in the UK it becomes an expensive lifestyle choice.

[vsonix]

A friend of mine's parent run the Orchard Campsite in Suffolk near Ipswitch. It's in an orchard, hence the name. Wifi over the site, all the pitches have power points next to them and if you fancy the full glamping experience they have an old wooden gypsy caravan very nicely done out. I dunno if they get a lot of twin cab 'condom' trucks (so called cos they are 'Trojan' etc etc) there mind you, I've only been twice and both times the whole site was booked out for private function. they have a website.

[andye30m3]

I'm not the most enthusiastic camper but have been to this place for a few days each year for the last few years

http://eweleaze.co.uk/eweleaze-farm

I've not got a lot to compare it to but it seamed good to me, fairly relaxed, close to the beach, with a few different options for food and things for kids to do.

Edited by andye30m3 on Tuesday 25th April 08:46

[brianashley]

Get up towards Snowdonia . some amazing campsites there. This one is perfect

http://gwynant.com/ walked through it just before Easter on our way up towards the "rangers"


Neds/council types you wont find .

[Vixpy1]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Centre parks is great but i literally could fly all 6 of us to Dubai for the same price at peak times

[Trabi601]

battered said:

No more insanity than owning your own, I'd suggest. You lay down, what? £10k? Insurance and tax are £500 pa, say. I'll presume that you have a carport or garage. Set aside a bit for repairs. If you take it out 6 weekends over the summer that's 12 nights out. You aren't going to see change from £1000, so call it £80 a night. Not a cheap do, is it?

My folks had this with a caravan, by the time they had finished with a towcar, insurance, annual service, depreciation, their annual costs were £1000 and up. If they used it a lot, great, but for a fortnight in Europe and a couple of weekends out in the UK it becomes an expensive lifestyle choice.

Sounds like they had a motorhome.

We have a campervan, which is no bigger than my 5-series. So my wife uses it as a regular car. It runs on LPG, so cost per mile is equivalent to my diesel BMW, too.