Fact 1: there will always be a root...
You can find the smoothest, flattest piece of ground in the history of smooth and flat pieces of ground, but once you have pitched your tent, laid out your sleeping bags and crawled into them, you will discover a hard root, or rock, or something utterly unidentifiable piercing through that smooth ground into your back. Just accept this, there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid it. Also, however level the ground may seem, once you lie down your head will be lower than your feet and you will have to switch everything around.
Fact 2: You exist to serve the bugs.
Again, just accept this and practise your meditation.
Camping is in it's inner nature quite horrible, but once you have accepted this you can ignore it and just laugh at every inconvenience. Enjoy the pain!
Have a fantastic holiday, send love to the missus!

I love it. Get a lamp you can hang up inside the tent. Have a decent sized water holder. Take your wellies. Get a head torch. Pitch your tent down wind from the prevailing wind so when it rains it is not being blown straight at your door. Have a small bottle of spirits/hip flask for grim moments. Lay out all the gear you need then ruthlessly cull 50% of it. It will only be in the way and you won't use it. Have fun - it will be great.

If you've not chosen already, go to a site that allows campfires. There's nothing like sitting round a fire in the open air with a beer in your hand - it's always good to indulge your inner caveman.
Imminent arrival of sprog number one means we'll be missing out this summer, but I can't wait to get back under canvas.

We have finally shaken off the grim memories of our last two camping trips and expect to be under canvas again this year.

Last trip was to Yorkshire, where it was so windy we couldn't even pitch the tent at the site we chose. The proximity of so many wind turbines should have been a hint... Ended up at my sisters, Googling other sites and phoning round. The only one that had space told us it was 'a bit windy' there - to the extent a static caravan had blown off its blocks!

The time before that we were on the IoW when gales hit the island. Our igloo-style tent was almost flat under the force of the wind. When we finally packed up at the end of the week we dismantled the tent and found five sections of the carbon fibre poles had been shredded. We also found a frog under our bedroom.

But we still had a brilliant time.

Only advice - take some Crocs or similar. I know they look horrid but they are great for treks to the shower/toilet block or mains tap when it has been pouring down and the site resembles the Somme and less trouble than wellies. Easily washable too.

Have fun - I'm sure you will.

RULE 1: It's good to be clean
The ultimate rule: A good toilet/ shower block. Everything else is surmountable but a decent khazi/ shower, especially if the weather has let you down, is absolutely invaluable.
Sub rule: Lots of wet wipes (for you) and kitchen wipes (for the gear).
RULE 2: Never run out
Spare gas, a good mallet and spare pegs are invaluable. Tea, coffee, Marvel (other dried milks are available)
RULE 3: Man needs fire
Matches, lighters, flaming torches, have any means to light the stove for a cuppa at any time.
RULE 4: Man need light
As Twang says, have a torch (head, handheld and gas lamp) even for the inevitable trip to the jacks at 5am, with a screaming wee 'un.
RULE 5: Facilities
Bring a bucket for a late night call of nature - your pitch may not be close to the facilities (see Rule 1)
RULE 6: Air beds
Get air beds to sleep on and buy a car lighter generator to inflate them. I once saw a poor English girl blowing six up by foot in Normandy while the hubby happily barbecued and drank beer. Lucky sod, he had the gender divide right.
RULE 7
Have a mountain of toilet paper, just saying, it has more than one use
RULE 8
Joss sticks, lemon candles, whatever you need to beat British midges and insects, bring it.

1. Two weeks in Borrowdale in an old two-man tent with my first girlfriend. No car. Two weeks of solid rain. The relationship did not survive.

2. Many years later, the in-laws flew over from California with their spanking new "Edmund Hilary" tent and we headed up to the Lakes for a spot of rest and relaxation. First night, rain descended. Woken at 2 in the morning by the sound of in-laws migrating to the very centre of their tent to avoid the water draining through the walls.

Great days.

Those Trangia stoves are quite nifty. Also, I like an airbed if I'm camping for more than a couple of nights. The hardcore camping cognoscenti won't approve, I'm sure. But it makes a big difference to comfort levels.

God you chaps are great! Thanks for all the tips (any more gratefully received).
I am going to print them all out at the weekend and study carefully.

I'm actually getting quite excited after reading your posts and am definitely approaching the whole thing with a sense of humour and a 'what's's the worst that could happen' attitude.

Have a great time - I've been camping all my life. It's great to be able to look at the weather for the coming weekend and just get up and go at a moments notice.

Top tip - Take some cable ties. They really are a versatile for all sorts of repairs.

I just don't understand why anyone would want to forego all the comforts of a well appointed home to live like a refugee.Each to their own and I hope you and the Missus have a wonderful holiday.Only two tips,take lots of Brandy and pitch near a pub,one that rents rooms.

I lived in a tent one summer when working in Montrose. It was great fun. I had done a bit of camping before, so I had packed spare tent pegs & hammer, etc. This was very useful for others who were working in the same factory over the summer and helped me make new friends quickly. It also made my arrival less stressful because tent pegs are easy to lose - I didn't have to worry about that.

One night, as the sun was setting and rain was starting to fall, a family arrived, and started bickering as they tried to assemble a tent with a frame. The poles of the tent were colour-co-ordinated, but in the gloom of the evening they couldn't see which colour was which. They also had no idea what they were doing - endless shouts of "Where does this go ? Where does this go?? ". They spent half an hour getting wet and shouting and swearing at each other, then started retreating to the car, "I told you we should have tried this at home", leaving the father fulminating "Right you bloody shower, I'll put the tent up myself." They drove off and left him to it, which he completed in a higgledy-piggledy way, a tour de force of physical comedy that Eric Sykes or Norman Wisdom would have been proud of. The tent had been designed as one to walk around in - what he finished was soaked through and 2 feet high at the high point.

repellent. Alcohol. Airbed. A good view to wake up to. Bacon. Eggs. Nice coffee.

a couple of sherpas to be indispensable.

You are in a tent. It's not a house and you will have to pack it all up. Decent mugs are a good idea - a coffee plunger mug is great for camping. Lots of tea bags as well.

Freezer blocks and a cool box. Write your name on the freezer blocks. A number of campsites have freezers you can put these in. Have enough for the coolbox and some in the freezer.

Don't underestimate how cold it gets at night. A decent sleeping bag and sleeping mat helps.

Some chairs to sit on (assuming you packing a car) and a little table if you have room.

A washing up bowl and some washing up liquid. And batteries. And moist toilet tissues.

I've been camping in the Lakes in May, and it's been bloody cold. I've also been wild camping in the hill forests of North Wales in early February and been snug as a bug. It's all about the kit.

I would recommend a good base layer that you don't take off, unless it gets wet, then you change into your spare. Long johns will also keep you nice and warm. An airbed will keep you off the ground and keep a nice warm layer of air insulation between you and the warmth-sucking earth.

When i go camping with the lads, it's usually whatever we can carry on our backs, and is therefore about economy of packing. However, when I'm with the GLW, it's normally in the car, the car can be parked either next to or near the tent, and in that case we take a duvet or heavy blanket as well as the usual sleeping bags.

Have fun, camping is a great experience. I love getting up early, when the world is still waking up and enjoying the silence and tranquility.

Rich

You can sit comfortably in a car with a reading light and a beer. And listen to the car radio. Attempting to sit cross legged in a tent with a storm lamp and a wind-up or battery trannie is just self-flagellation ...

Don't camp when it's windy. I mean, seriously windy. Even if you get the tent up (and it stays up) some millions of tonnes of air whooshing in from a North Atlantic weather system can make even the best tent go BADA BADA BADA TSSSS BADADADADADADADADA for hours on end, making sleep highly unlikely

Campsites that allow fires are ace; but you are not sleeping under canvas, You are sleeping under nylon. Be careful.

Camp near a pub. The delightful campsite in the middle of nowhere you saw earlier that day looked lovely in the sunshine but at night you are effectively lying in a field in the dark with nothing to do. Well, there is sex of course but given the noise-retardant properties of thin nylon you may as well just shag on the steps of the campsite reception. If you sit in the pub for a few hours you can sit upright, speak to each other and drink enough to make sleep more likely.

Recommendations:
the Red Squirrel campsite in Glencoe ... showers not good, but fires permitted and it's only around a mile from the legendary Clachaig Inn, a convenient stagger back after closing time along a pitch black minor road
Rothiemurchus at Coylumbridge: better toilets/showers than i have in my flat - but around two miles from Aviemore on a road with no footpath where traffic gets up to a fair lick...

Check into the nearest 'pub with rooms' and enjoy a pint and a slap-up feed in front of a roaring fire whilst watching the rain lash against the windows and thinking of those poor sods trying to sleep under canvas :-)

Life is too short to deliberately make yourself miserable.

1/A remote camping site chosen to "experience the real camping experience".
2/A cold shower facility. Nice.
3/A lunatic somewhere chanting at midnight. Annoying and spooky.
4/A bird stole our bacon.
5/Booking into a hotel on the third night of a five day camping trip.
Priceless.

There` s a good National Trust campsite in Langdale which has beautiful views and decent pubs nearby. You didn`t used to be able to book but it looks like that has changed

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-global/w-localtoyou/w-northwest/w...

They also have a site nearby on the shores of lake Windermere..I went there a couple of years ago and you can pitch your tent just a few metres from the lake. No pubs within easy walking distance though

to the Lakes. It's full. Go to Northumberland, it's empty and beautiful.

Years ago when everyone lived with their parents I took a girl camping, thinking that the combination of the rural idyll, our close proximity in a pup tent and a bottle of Malibu would work its magic for me; and it might have done, if the borrowed tent had had any pegs with it.

But what’s this? I had a set of eight screwdrivers in the car. They were only about four inches long, and that’s including the handle, but they were a perfect replacement. We pitched and dived inside.

Things went well for, ooh, three minutes, before the first gust of wind - more of a puff, really - blew the damn thing down. The next eight hours were memorable for a furious tight-lipped silence (stoppit) and the discovery of how many people can comfortably sleep in the back of a Mini Clubman - one, as it turns out. I lay under the stars, using the useless canvas as a sleeping bag.

Hey ho, great days. Yeah, right. Hotels: they’re there for a reason.

I purchased A Tent.

My mates plus offspring all go camping for the early May Bank Holiday. The last few years have involved heavy rain, pissed-off kids and lots of arguments.

I have decided to take Master Law along for the Saturday night. Mrs Law has given it some consideration and has told me she's staying at home.

Kids love camping. Adults tolerate it.

Although, to camping's credit, it does involve buying lots of Stuff. Which is Very Important. And there's a lot of oneupmanship. Tent labels, etc. OK I'm in a Vango but my waterproofs are by Mountain Hardwear and Rab. So kampaz will know I'm For Real and am part of Da Owtdoorz Massiv. The implication being that, yes, I'm doing a weekend on an electrified pitch in Weymouth but that's only because of The Sprog. I should be in my rightful place halfway up Arfenscarfendale, Crib Llanggoggenscoggengoch or Ben McBastard in zero viz and a howling gale, reconstituting some mush over a petrol stove when the reality is that the most hostile place the gear has been worn is Southsea seafront in a force seven on a Saturday am stroll or in a few places in the French Alps when the weather's closed in whilst ski-ing and I've been trying to find a decent mountain restaurant..

You can't go wrong with Outwell's large family tents for those two weeks away in the warmer climes of Western France.
This is ours.
Takes a wee while to put up and it is incredibly heavy, but is spacious and that is the key to longer stays away. Also the stove can go in the front extension, (or gazebo as we call it) which keeps the smell of onions at a safe distance and you can cook in the rain.
We have a wee, easy to put up, weekend tent for shorter closer stays.
I love stuff too, Lenny, and will often just walk around here staring at all the gear, just for the craic.