The Camping Forum

[dibs958]

Sorry if this topic has been raised before...80% of my camping is done on C&CC sites. The wife & I used an Outwell Montana up to this year, when we have used a Nevada "M". Both are large tents, but, with spondylosis in my back, I prefer a tent I can stand up in, I'm 6'2" tall. As you do, we take an interest in other tents and equipment, maybe pick up an idea or two. I've noticed that some campers seem to pitch large tents, then set out huge compounds using multiple windbreaks. Then there is the car to park, mine just slots down the side of my tent, which I assume to be included in the pitch size i.e. tent plus car. I've only had a problem once, returning from a day out, to find my new neighbours car plonked in my usual position, because of the size of the compound made up as described. I couldn't park at the other side of the tent, as my other neighbour was quite rightly parked there, and parking at the front of the tent just created an obstruction. The situation was resolved very amicably with apologies from my new neighbour. Are some campers simply taking up too much room, should pitches be marked out, or am I a miserable so & so. Rick.

[Wayne]

Are some campers simply taking up too much room

No I don't think so, but some campsite like to cram you in like battery hens, C&CC are good at this with there maximum pitch sizes. Go to Pillaton Pools and you need a compass to hike to your nearest neighbor, then take a look at Shell Island and you can pitch where you ant as long as you stay 20M away from your nearest existing neighbor.


This us crammed in like sardines at Lane Side Caravan Park in Hope (Peak District). I won't be returning there ever, just glad I didn't take the Vermont or we wouldn't have got it on.


Pillaton Pools, taken from my tent looking across at Robs tent on the next pitch


Shell Island, we were set up close because we were all together and it was our choice, but then notice no one is near us and we have plenty of room


Its always worth checking out reviews for a site and trying to look down at the site from Google earth to get an idea and steer away from the sites that say you have a big tent and need to go on a super sized pitch.

Just my opinion, I like to meet and chat to other campers, but I don't like to share the same tent pegs

[TerryV]

We inadvertently cocked up a bit last camp. When we arrived it was peeing down with rain. On one side of us there was a tent, but we thought there was another empty pitch the other side so we set up accordingly. Unbeknown to us the neighbours were with the tent next to them so they had camped further over and actually we had set up too far over. It only came to light when the neighbours packed up and someone moved in and they had been left very little room. As it turned out it was OK, we offered to move but they said no, and we all got on with each other anyway. If we had read the stuff that we were given on arrival, it would have been clearer where we should have set up, but because of the weather we just went for it. Guess my point is that sometimes with the best will in the world, it doesn't always go to plan with pitches and it may not always be intentional that someone is closer to you than you would like. There would have been plenty of room if we had all stuck to our pitches.

[Donnelly69]

It's now a common occurrence to have your neighbours to encroach onto 'your' pitch, it's down to 'castle building'. Where they want as much land as possible and put the wind-breaks up to seclude themselves, especially where you have friends camping together, it becomes cliquey, they don't want outsiders in their castle.

It doesn't have to be campers with windbreaks and huge mega-domes who encroach. This was in Ireland in 2005 on a virtually empty site. Two french domes popped up late one night and this was the morning after.... luckily the language used didn't take any translating and they moved before breakfast.

[in-a-tent]

Donelly they are a bit close :-) perhaps they were hoping for some shelter.

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[M0KAS]

I guess it all depends on the site, some sites need pitch markers, and others dont, it also depends on who you are camping with, normally when i book up the groups trip, its normally 6 adjacent pitches, when we get there we normally park a car at one end and a car at the other, then arrange ourselves in the middle area, our communal area is always set up in the middle, of our land as to speak, then we work away from that, the cars at each end then become our boundary area, as well as supporting the antenna masts, then wherever the caravan ends up, that's our kind of central point for the other mast....

any spare room that we have left then becomes the communal car park, at times to some site owners complaints that they could fit more tents in there, one site we used the owner even got a measure out to make sure we were only on our allocated space lol, he left kind of disgruntled as we were still within 10 feet of our total pitch area..