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In memory of Georgina Smith and
Michael Price for all the joy they brought
everyone lucky enough to have met them

Disclaimer: Naturally, the outside world can be a dangerous place. Plants, fungi and wild animals can all pose potential threats. None of the advice in this book should supersede common sense. All activities in this book are undertaken at the reader’s own risk.

INTRODUCTION

‘It is surprising with what impunity and comfort one who has always lain in a warm bed in a close apartment, and studiously avoided drafts of air, can lie down on the ground without a shelter, roll himself in a blanket, and sleep before a fire, in a frosty autumn night, just after a long rain-storm, and even come soon to enjoy and value the fresh air.’

From building a fort in our living room made of sofa cushions and a bedspread, to pitching a tent in our own back garden or maybe even being forced into a rainy family holiday under canvas – camping, in some form or other, is something we all seem to be introduced to fairly early on in our lives.

For many, that initiation into a world of Trangias, sleeping bags and ice-cold trips to the toilet block is something we first experience as a child on family holidays. The campsites we go to become the places where very first adventures are had, friends are made and lasting memories created. For many, that’s where it ends – as something left firmly in the past. Something to laugh about from inside our cosy centrally-heated houses and then think, ‘Why did we ever do that?’ But, for the rest of us, those trips sparked something within us. A love for bedding down outside. For us, camping is addictive.

We don’t mind sleeping with a hat on, or waking up with a cold nose. It worries us not that we are kept awake with the rhythmic spitter-spatter of raindrops drumming against our tent walls. We, proudly, are campers and we know something that all those brick-building dwellers do not: that these are the times of our lives.

People are different on campsites. There, without four walls to contain us, we smile a little easier, we help each other a little more willingly and we begin to realise that there’s more entertainment in a campfire than anything to be found on the internet; more excitement in sleeping with nothing more than a zip between us and the wildlife outside, rather than in seeing it on TV; more sense of satisfaction in erecting our own shelter than in paying someone else to do it for us; more magic in a sunset than money could ever buy – and more exhilaration found in waking up to fresh air and natural views than we can ever really explain.

It’s not that we ignore the negatives we face when camping – the cold nights, the damp mornings, the noisy neighbours, the sheer refusal of a tent to fit back inside the same bag it came in – but we’re so content to be out there, breathing in fresh air amid spectacular surrounds and like-minded people, that they just don’t bother us.

There are a great many more things we could do with our precious free time than camp – as we’re used to people telling us frequently. We could stay in five-star hotels, indulging in spa treatments and fluffy duvets with gourmet food served on tap. We could simply buy a conveniently pre-arranged package holiday where all we need is contained in our resort – along with group activities and on-hand excursions. We could simply stay at home and do nothing, enjoying a lazy time of it in the warmth of our own bed.

So why do we do it? Perhaps it’s the camaraderie of the campsite. It could be the simplicity of making do without all the so-called luxuries we’ve been convinced we can’t live without. Or maybe it’s because pitching our tent allows us to feel like children again, building a temporary den on a little patch of wilderness where, outside the door, anything could happen…

‘Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…’

With quirky designs coming out every year, tons of accessories available and shops devoted entirely to the activity, it would be easy to believe that camping was a fairly recent invention – something done only for fun rather than necessity – but it’s not. Don’t forget that ever since humans have existed on earth, we have dedicated our time to finding some kind of shelter in which we can sleep safety.

From our hunter-gatherer ancestors who made structures among the trees and caves, to the nomadic tribes who would pack up their self-built communities and move according both to the seasons and the prey, we have always been on a quest to create warm, dry and comfortable sleeping compartments.

All that culminated in the creation of one key camping ‘must have’ – the tent. Though no one can trace exactly which type of tent came first, among the earliest were teepees (North America), lavvu (The Arctic) and yurts (Asia). Though slightly different in shape and structure – either pyramids or bell-shaped – all had the same properties in common: the ability to be taken apart, moved and rebuilt somewhere else. Those same designs were adopted when tents began to be mass-produced for military purposes – replacing wooden poles for metal, and animal hide for canvas. The technology may have changed, but tents were still used and designed for more utilitarian purposes rather than pleasure. That was until 1853, when a young man who had travelled across the prairies of North America with his family – sleeping in a wagon en route – arrived back in Britain.

Thomas Hiram Holding yearned for the kind of experiences he remembered from his childhood: that endless, exciting movement, and the ability to call anywhere home when you could take that home with you. So he started to undertake a series of adventures.

First he headed to Scotland with his canoe and tent and travelled around the Highlands on a mini-expedition. Next, as cycling was his passion, he persuaded a group of friends to accompany him as he journeyed to Connemara, Ireland, for a few weeks of pedalling and sleeping out under the stars. This ‘cycle camping’, as he called it, enthralled him so much that in 1901 he formed the Association of Cycle Campers.

That was only the beginning. A tailor by trade, he combined his knack for design with his pastime and began experimenting with tent structures. Using oiled silk and bamboo poles – which he even fashioned to be telescopic – he is credited as being one of the early pioneers of lightweight shelters. And it didn’t stop there. He also created a portable stove and then wrote a book called The Camper’s Handbook (printed in 1908), which was one of the first books in Britain to detail ‘how to’ and ‘where to’ information about tent sleeping in the UK.

From small beginnings, his club continued to grow and flourish, extending on many years after Holding passed away. Wondering what became of the Cycle Campers? Well now they go by a different name – The Camping and Caravanning Club, which not only has in excess of 800 sites and 400,000 members, but also offers pitches overseas too. Not bad for a project that began with only passion to fuel it…

Camping Fact

per cent of campers head out with their tent more than three times a year.

In a strange and unexpected twist of fate, the advent of World War One had, perhaps, the biggest impact on camping. Though people like Thomas Hiram Holding had already begun to do it for fun pre-1914, and many climbers had been camping for years before that in order to stay close to the crags they wanted to ascend, it wasn’t until serving soldiers returned from the trenches that the hobby really started to become popular among the masses.

It’s logical if you really think about it. The conditions in the trenches were very basic, but being stuck in them for four years made people realise that they could get by without any mod cons or home comforts. The war forced people to travel to fight for King and Country and, for many working-class men, the first time they had seen the world had been from within the walls of a tent. Therefore returning to the luxury of home and staying in one place would have felt very strange for some, and so they would have looked to the outdoors for a sense of freedom and familiarity. Add to that the quantity and cheapness of army surplus kit that suddenly flooded the post-war market, as well as the increase in people buying their own vehicles rather than using trains, and it’s not surprising that the years that followed the Great War saw more and more people heading to the Great Outdoors with their families on camping trips.

In 1932, camping had become so popular that The Camping and Caravanning Club formed the International Federation of Camping Clubs (Fédération Internationale de Camping et de Caravanning, FICC). This meant that other national camping clubs worldwide were affiliated with them, creating a global network of opportunities to camp out.

Though an understandable dip in spending time under canvas happened during the late thirties and early forties, people were still eager to escape the cities and, once World War Two ended in 1945, people picked up where they left off, and tent-based holidays became popular once more.

You get to wake up without an alarm clock. Surrounded by natural light, you rise when the sun does and it’s perfectly acceptable to go to bed when it gets dark – meaning many more hours in bed than you'd normally get at home, so you wake up feeling refreshed.

Sleeping bags. There’s no scientific reason to explain this, but why is it that snuggling down in a sleeping bag is so much cosier than a duvet?

Pubs are always close by. Good campsites are always close to great pubs, which means you can spend the day walking or having outdoor adventures, reward yourself with a pint and a hot pub meal, then curl up inside your well-deserved sleeping bag (see above).

Visitors of the wild variety may drop by. Sleeping in the outdoors means wildlife will literally be on your doorstop. From rabbits to foxes, birds to bats, you’ll always have guaranteed ‘wild nights out’ when camping.

You have an excuse to leave Facebook/ Twitter/the phone at home. Embrace the fact that some campsites are off-grid and that camping will give you a chance to reconnect with the natural world, so set your Facebook status to ‘completely happy’ and enjoy!

Stars will always beat any ceiling. It’s amazing how a night spent gazing at the blanket of constellations up above can remind us just how big the world is, and how lucky we are to be a part of it.

It’s cheap. Once you’ve made the initial outlay of buying your kit, you suddenly have the chance to sleep in some of the best places in the world for the smallest price tags.

It can be as mild or as wild as you’d like. Just because you are outdoors doesn’t mean you have to be Bear Grylls. If you want to bring everything and a kitchen sink – do it. Equally, if you want to go superlight and wild camp in the hills – do it. The choice is always yours.

You start to realise that the best things in life aren’t ‘things’ – when you’re watching that sunset without intently using your smartphone, watching TV or having anything else distract you, you’ll begin to talk to your family or friends, or simply start to take in the wonderful world around you.

You’ll meet like-minded people – socialising with fellow campers is what it’s all about, from conversations on the latest tent models to simply sharing a mallet to hammer your tent pegs in, camping will bring you together with some wonderful people.

Camping Fact

In the 1930s, the establishment worried that the increase in camping activity would mean that the countryside would fast become crowded with tent-carrying poor, so a number of Government bills were mocked up in an attempt to restrict it. Thankfully, it was not passed. (Source: www.campr.co.uk)

Another activity that planted tent-based trips in the public’s imagination was mountaineering. The race to be the first person to summit Mount Everest had been going on since its height was first officially published in the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1856. So, predictably, by the time it actually did happen, nearly 100 years later in 1953, interest in expeditions to distant lands had reached fever pitch. When Hillary and Tenzing finally stepped foot on the summit of the highest mountain on earth, having tented their way to the top, camping’s popularity soared.

Enter the 1960s, and from that point on it wasn’t just the idea of camping that had evolved – tents themselves changed. Gone was the dull and heavy khaki canvas. Now came the era of nylon and printed fabrics boasting bright colours and intended for families. Destinations also stretched further afield. The introduction of affordable flights and cheap package holidays meant that people were no longer confined to British shores. Camping went overseas, European-style, with people seeking guaranteed sun rather than risking a rainy escape in Britain.

Camping Fact

The most popular overseas camping destination with the British is France – with a whopping 61 per cent of campers choosing it as the place to pitch in 2014. Spain, Germany and Italy came in second, third and fourth, respectively.