I think we will be avoiding the busier areas, same thought process as you Mike. The coastal tourism hotspots will be rammed, so probably won't get to Sandsend. Might have to go to some of the less visited bits of Wales, slightly off the beaten track in parts of the Brecons and other bits. Looking at Northumbria too. Just going to wait and see, no point booking anything and then being disappointed.
As for the C&CC, only had membership for two years, found the club sites expensive and too regimented. The CS sites are a mix, found a couple of decent ones that didn't want the earth for no facilities.
I`ve never pre booked anywhere to be honest and don`t plan to . I joined the C&C club in an effort to get an inside line onto `unknown` certified sites but it`s a waste of money . Anything on t`internet is going to be busy thanks to UKCampsites , Park4night and the multitude of `club sites` - great for the noobies but not for me thanks .. If the site is rammed i don`t want to be there , not due to Covid issues - just not keen on busy sites and i`d rather not go . I have a few `secret spots` , mostly up North but a couple down here and two families with land in deepest Cornwall who`ll probably get a visit so not exactly stuck ... I think @Betty the Bay was moaning earlier about all the sites being full but in the next breath saying he`d managed to book somewhere most weekends between May to September yet if he didn`t fancy it he just wouldn`t go - nothing lost , which is ironic in that if everyone did that the sites would be full if enquiries were made but empty in reality so that`s a pointless excersise for all conerned . As i`ve mentioned many times before , i`ll ring around a few non hook-up certified sites as the noobies won`t have been weaned off the internet and hair dryers ...
Yep, reckon the coast will be chocca for the first few months of freedom, so heading to the hills might be better. Considering I lived and worked within touching distance of the Brecon Beacons, Sugar Loaf, Skirrid etc., I never camped there, but always headed in the other direction to the beach! I think now is the time, especially as my only surviving relatives live in and near to Abergavenny. I wonder if farms will see an opportunity and perhaps open up some pasture to a few overnighters? Edit: perhaps 'Park On My Drive' could become 'Camp In My Field' ?
Sorry that my post was misleading. To clarify, after been unable to get onto a site I intended visiting at Easter, I realised that forward planning was required and I have booked my years main trips through to mid September. When I said ,if I couldn't go, no loss, I was referring to the fact that at present, we have no information as to when we will be allowed out of Lockdown. The only things that will stop me availing myself of the pre-booked sites will be 1) Covid restrictions. 2) Unforeseen breakdowns en route.
My worry about camping this year is that it may no be possible because we are still in lockdown! If we aren't locked down I'll be squeezing in as much proper camping as I can, plus staying on friends driveways!
The increasing likelihood of everybody having to stay very careful waiting for a second round of updated vaccinations for next winter, with campsites restricted means I will book only a couple of days in advance.
Kids People Drunken mummy's and daddy's Avacardo dip in the campsite shop...... Might stay at home and go mad. I really am getting grumpy
I can feel a new you tube series coming for my fat man in a camper van channel. The UK driveway tour. Join me as I ponce around the UK, sleeping on friends driveways, eating their food, out staying my welcome and Marmiteting in their bogs!
I love the general looking down on new camping triers who it seems don't have what it takes and will give it up after their first trip. Who's to say they won't love it? I believe Scousers invented glamping. At any rate several decades ago and for decades before that, dad would set up camp for the entite school holidays, leave ma and the kids there and join them at the weekends. Last time I had a couple of weeks in Cornwall there was a very nice family dong that, Grandma, Grandad, mother, 3 kids. They didn't have a TV that I noticed but they had a big 3 pieces suite, a vast kitchen and a sideboard under their canopy. Frankly I was quite jealous, brilliant for the kids compared to summer in some Liverpool Council estate learning how to take drugs and steal cars. That decamping to the coast for a well equipped summer was always a working class thing in the past. Never mind us yah middle class professionals moaning about newcomers causing high prices and booking difficulties, what does family described above do now, go to the bahamas?
This is a fair point, on at least one Easter trip to France I was quite surprised by the lack of visitor's pitches at the campsite we stayed at. Many of the pitches were semi-permanent and much as you described, with the whole family clearing decanting to the campsite, granny, sofa and all for the long weekend; the place emptied midweek. I haven't seen this as much in the less expensive and more sparsely populated West of France, but it was very evident in the East where (everything seemed expensive) housing is expensive and I assume work is more widely available.
It's more about people who have avoided camping up until this point in their lives, but now have very few options so might give camping a go. Not the liverpool council house families that your referred to, more the middle class professionals that you think we are??!! I live out in Bucks. But the council house mentality I have means I can tolerate crapping in a bucket for a few days and don't need 24/7 internet. Most families with kids won't cope with it - pretty sure of that.
But they've been doing it already through choice, not because they can't go all-inclusive to Tuscany this summer.
The gentrification of all parts of life continues to make it harder to have a nice life on a budget. Canals are a fair example. 60's/70's film shows loads of cheap little boats, many home-made or home converted on the cheap stuffed with people having fun. Now it's £5-6 figure steel narrowboats and even bigger widebeams. The licence was a fiver, now it's £1,000. A section of society that could get afloat using skill and no money and stay afliat for a fiver a year is completely excluded.
