Tent Sniffing for Beginners

Every blogger that does festivals has blogged about what to take. I've done it myself because it's a thing that newbies, festival virgins, the uninitiated, always ask. But the more I think about the planet, the irony of banning plastic straws but taking wet wipes in your festival kit, the more I thought I needed to 'eco up' my game. Now festival going is never going to be all holy. You'll have to buy stuff, and travel(I'm trying the coach to Boomtown this year!). But here are some ideas to make it a little more environmentally conscious, a little more eco friendly, a tiny bit better for the planet we not only profess to love, but actually live on. You'll need a tent , try not to buy cheap to bin later. It's tempting, you might even kid yourself that 'the homeless' will use it or it will be recycled into clothes . In reality very few tents that are binned are reused, most end up in landfill. If you don't want to buy a tent to reuse year...

Anyone that goes to a festival in the UK knows to take wellies. Wellingtons have become a staple item in the wardrobe of the festival fan because whether it rains or not there will be damp bits. Often these damp bits will be near the showers, or the water points, or the toilets...we shall not dwell here. Wellies have come a long way from the days where green was fancy and black was normal. Now there are glitter wellies, fancy patterned wellies, wellies that look like shoes or regular books, wellies that have jewels and probably even bells. But wellies are not the only prep you need for a UK festival. The very first festival I ever attended was Eastern Haze in Suffolk. IT rained. It rained for days. The field become a swamp. The lorries to empty the toilets became stuck in the mud, the toilets over flowed, the car park was a lake. Oh and my tent pole broke. As you can imagine, surviving this was the best fun ever and I was then hooked on festivals for ever! As was my then seven ye...

Life and death? Bit dramatic, we are only going camping.  Every year there are one or two stories in the news about people that die, actually die , in their tents often while asleep. But what is killing them I hear you ask? The invisible killer is carbon monoxide. If you cook in your tent, if you use a heater in your tent, if you use a barbecue near to your tent, you are at risk. Carbon monoxide is a weird gas that can drift about, and being heavier than air can gather in an invisible layer in a tent and suffocate you as you doze. You can't see it or smell it and worryingly the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are headache and drowsiness, the very things that might tempt you to lay down inside the tent! But don't worry. All you need to stay safe is to ensure you either don't cook or heat the tent and stay far from barbecues (including other peoples!) or have a CO alarm in the tent. A CO alarm will detect dangerous raised levels of carbon monoxide and alert you ...

I recently wrote about my number one camping essential over on The Mediocre Dad , and that made me think. If I had some spare money and wanted to treat myself, what would I add to my camping arsenal? Which extra bits and pieces would I buy? So I had a little hunt about the internet, and asked a few companies what they thought I really 'needed' to add to my kit. Here are some of the things I found, and some things I was sent to test out! First up, a bit of comfort. I usually either have no pillow, or an inflatable one. Inflatable pillows are small and light and can be easily packed, but they are not always the most comfortable. I'm getting on a bit so was very happy to try out a new camping pillow. The Hippy Chick memory foam pillow packs easily into its own travel bag (it really does roll up small and go back into the bag easily!), is covered in soft Tencel, and is gorgeously supportive. The Hippychick Waterproof Memory Foam Travel Pillow is the perfect pillow for camper...