Short Camping Trips with Kids

[Welshbeef]

https://www.wowcamping.co.uk/productDetail/kampa-c...

We have too it’s great and properly warms up the tent

Clearly not left on all night long rather only if cold and then in the middle of the tent until we go to bed. It gets cosy.

[mike9009]

We keep a few weekends free each year (during the school term). If the weather looks good, we just book somewhere on the Friday morning, pick the kids up from school and off we go...... Although we do usually stick to the Isle of Wight (where we live) for these impromptu trips.

Usually sites are free most weekends as long as it is not school holidays.

We have been camping with our kids since our youngest was about a year old. As with everything, routine is important even when camping. Set limits and stick to them.

We have an old VW camper but take a cheap Vango four man tent too. Putting the tent up and setting up with the kids 'helping', is part of the experience, IMO.

This year, we are going back camping in France, which we cannot wait for. Our youngest is now nine years old and eldest will be thirteen. They can't wait.....mainly because of the friends they make on the sites.....

[Welshbeef]

mike9009 said:

We keep a few weekends free each year (during the school term). If the weather looks good, we just book somewhere on the Friday morning, pick the kids up from school and off we go...... Although we do usually stick to the Isle of Wight (where we live) for these impromptu trips.

Usually sites are free most weekends as long as it is not school holidays.

We have been camping with our kids since our youngest was about a year old. As with everything, routine is important even when camping. Set limits and stick to them.

We have an old VW camper but take a cheap Vango four man tent too. Putting the tent up and setting up with the kids 'helping', is part of the experience, IMO.

This year, we are going back camping in France, which we cannot wait for. Our youngest is now nine years old and eldest will be thirteen. They can't wait.....mainly because of the friends they make on the sites.....

With the camping in France do you have a cotton tent or polyester? If it’s the latter how have you dealt with the sweltering heat that product gives?

I say this as if you buy tents in Europe especially the southern countries you’d struggle to find non cotton as they wouldn’t be usable whereas in the UK if UK only camping it doesn’t really matter.

[PurpleTurtle]

OP, I was having a look at these yesterday, Dometic are very impressive as a brand and top spec for family tents.

Your budget for the Robens would be ~£950 but if you were to throw another 200 quid at it, gets you into one of these.

https://www.attwoolls.co.uk/dometic-rarotonga-401-...

There's a lot of clever design in them, and although you imply travelling light, there's always an assortment of things to take with kids, especially as they grow older.

These tents have very well thought out storage space out of sight behind the sleeping compartments, plus great living space. If I were in the market for a family tent I'd be looking at these. £1150 sounds a lot for a tent but if you think that should give you 10yrs use at least it is peanuts really, over its lifetime.

[Welshbeef]

PurpleTurtle said:

OP, I was having a look at these yesterday, Dometic are very impressive as a brand and top spec for family tents.

Your budget for the Robens would be ~ 950 but if you were to throw another 200 quid at it, gets you into one of these.

https://www.attwoolls.co.uk/dometic-rarotonga-401-...

There's a lot of clever design in them, and although you imply travelling light, there's always an assortment of things to take with kids, especially as they grow older.

These tents have very well thought out storage space out of sight behind the sleeping compartments, plus great living space. If I were in the market for a family tent I'd be looking at these. 1150 sounds a lot for a tent but if you think that should give you 10yrs use at least it is peanuts really, over its lifetime.

I’d really go for air beam tents over poles. / this is from someone who’s had plenty of pole tents before this current air tent.

[Ntv]

biggiles said:

Great fun. The first night is normally rather difficult as the children are over-excited, and every noise they make is audible across the whole field.

Second and third nights are fab. Don't make your first trip a one-nighter, stick with it.

Very true. Night two is when people are tired, and after than it straightens out.

As others have said - main thing is the weather. Kids will love it.

I'd say go pole tent. More reliable and cheaper.

Air mattresses of various sorts are fine. For really young kids get ReadyBeds. They are superb for kids up to 4 or 5 years old. And machine washable.

As a fallback, if you have a Phil & Ted fold-up cot, then you can take that as a back-up. Young kids like what they are used to at bedtime etc.

There's beds that have inflatable higher sides, if that makes sense, which keeps kids in place.

When they are a bit older (e.g. 5/6+) take their pillows. It helps. And yours!

It's quite incredible how much stuff you end up taking tbh, but there you go. I also think a gazeebo adds quite a bit. Obviously a blanket, camping chairs, foldaway table and Campingaz type stove etc etc. And some battery/rechargeable warm white LEDS.

I've never bothered with heaters. Just take pyjamas, onesies, and decent sleeping bags. A range of different thickness bags is a good way to go.

Edited by Ntv on Friday 10th June 17:57

Edited by Ntv on Friday 10th June 17:58

[Steve Kimberley]

As mentioned elsewhere, avoid slopy-door tents like the plague. We had a Vango Icarus 500 for a while, and although most aspects of it were fine, the door finished us with it. We replaced it with a Kampa Hayling 4 (ostensibly a berth smaller, but in truth there's very little in it size-wise). Crucially it has a vertical door with a good canopy overhang. Believe me, it makes all the difference in less than perfect weather. Mind you, it doesn't get used now we've splashed out for a Moho, which is a shame. It took me maybe 40 years to find the 'family' tent I really wanted, and now it sits under the spare bed! 🤣

[XJ75]

Bit of a follow up here. We found a site in Dorset that had empty bell tents to hire, you just take your own beds etc. We did that for a couple of nights as a trial run.

It has made us completely rule out a bell tent. The door was a massive pain, and with no dedicated bedrooms, it was like daylight inside until it got dark inside, not good for the kids.

The kids loved it though, a little too much which meant the second night there was no sleep happening, so we cut our losses and came home. It hasn't put us off, but it has made us decide to avoid bell tents!

[mike9009]

Welshbeef said:

mike9009 said:

We keep a few weekends free each year (during the school term). If the weather looks good, we just book somewhere on the Friday morning, pick the kids up from school and off we go...... Although we do usually stick to the Isle of Wight (where we live) for these impromptu trips.

Usually sites are free most weekends as long as it is not school holidays.

We have been camping with our kids since our youngest was about a year old. As with everything, routine is important even when camping. Set limits and stick to them.

We have an old VW camper but take a cheap Vango four man tent too. Putting the tent up and setting up with the kids 'helping', is part of the experience, IMO.

This year, we are going back camping in France, which we cannot wait for. Our youngest is now nine years old and eldest will be thirteen. They can't wait.....mainly because of the friends they make on the sites.....

With the camping in France do you have a cotton tent or polyester? If it’s the latter how have you dealt with the sweltering heat that product gives?

I say this as if you buy tents in Europe especially the southern countries you’d struggle to find non cotton as they wouldn’t be usable whereas in the UK if UK only camping it doesn’t really matter.

We have always camped with the plastic tents. And yes, it can get pretty hot inside. Before kids we used to only take a small three man tent with the vx220 (or similar) and when really hot we would soak our towels and lay them over the tent to cool it. This worked - plus cools drinks quite nicely too!!

With a bigger tent, we just have to suck it up, which usually means pitching near trees/ high hedges and observing where the sun is when it is setting. Or just waiting until the sunsets and the temperature drops.

[aberdeeneuan]

As others have said, ours have loved camping since they were little. We have a Vango Icarus 500 (poled, but they do it as an air tent). While the previous poster made a great point about the door on this style of tent, we bought the extension to the front and use that for longer than a weekend, or if the weather looks iffy and we want more inside space. We also have a couple of tarps, so use them to create an overlap over the door if need be as well. Just gives us a lot of flexibility without having a mammoth tent to deal with every time. You'll find what works for you though!

[HardtopManual]

We went camping three times last year with a 1 and 3 year old, and will be going again this year. They loved it. We camped in a Vango Solace TC 400 inflatable tunnel tent which was great, but have now upgraded to a Ventanas for a bit more space. The technical cotton fabric makes for a much nicer tent than plastic, with none of the sweaty/damp feeling you can get in polyester tents. Blackout bedrooms are a good idea too, although when we didn't have them, we draped weed membrane over the inner and it worked fine.

It's also worth investing in decent sleeping gear. We have two thick double SIMs next to eachother on the floor, so kids can't fall out of bed, and sleeping bags that convert into quilts. We put foil backed mats underneath to keep the warmth in.

Electric hook up is a nice to have, for me. The most important thing is to find sites with a nice family vibe and lots of green space for kids to run around in.

[Welshbeef]

HardtopManual said:

We went camping three times last year with a 1 and 3 year old, and will be going again this year. They loved it. We camped in a Vango Solace TC 400 inflatable tunnel tent which was great, but have now upgraded to a Ventanas for a bit more space. The technical cotton fabric makes for a much nicer tent than plastic, with none of the sweaty/damp feeling you can get in polyester tents. Blackout bedrooms are a good idea too, although when we didn't have them, we draped weed membrane over the inner and it worked fine.

It's also worth investing in decent sleeping gear. We have two thick double SIMs next to eachother on the floor, so kids can't fall out of bed, and sleeping bags that convert into quilts. We put foil backed mats underneath to keep the warmth in.

Electric hook up is a nice to have, for me. The most important thing is to find sites with a nice family vibe and lots of green space for kids to run around in.

Quite a few campsites we’ve been to have a local ice cream van do his round 4-6pm. A nice touch (& yes £20 for 5 of us daily but who cares it’s heaven ice cream sun going down kids happy & happy wife.).

[XJ75]

Bit of an update here. We have just ordered this:

https://www.dometic.com/en-gb/outdoor/uk/products/...

It's a bit bigger than I had planned to get, despite technically being a 4-man it's pretty deep and fairly wide, but it will give us the option of staying for longer breaks. I'm hopeful that the darkened bedrooms should make bedtime manageable, and it seems to be a highly rated brand. It's a pretty chunky pack size because of the 150D material (despite not being polycotton), but hopefully we will manage OK.

[XJ75]

Also got something of a bargain. Despite the £1,550 RRP, Camping World had it with the carpet and footprint for £1,030, and with their 10% new customer discount we got it for just over £900.