Tent Sniffing for Beginners

I admit I toyed with Enid Blyton style titles for this blogpost. Five Go Camping with a Mooncup. Secret Seven and the Mystery of the Perfect Sanitary Protection. Third Form at Mooncup towers.. yeah I know, I'm losing the plot. But! The mooncup is the perfect sanitary protection for the female traveller. The mooncup has many benefits. If you need to deal with monthly bleeds, then you will no doubt be aware of  some of the options around. They are mostly disposable like tampons made of cotton or rayon/cotton mix or sanitary towels made of paper and chemical gels, etc. There are also reusable towels, but these, while very enviromentally friendly, are a pain to wash and dry when travelling, especially if you are camping and it's raining. Note : Menstruation does not attract bears according to science The mooncup is an environmentally friendly option, not adding to landfil, and it's a cheaper option, needing only a single purchase. It's internal sanitary pr...

Yes I've been married 25 years this year! I know, I don't look old enough etc etc Unfortunately Mr Tentsniffer is more of a Hotel-lover than a tentsniffer and so while we share a marriage we rarely share a tent! Which just goes to show that time apart is at least as important as time together. But whether you and your beloved camp together or spend weekends apart, and even if you have no significant other, if you like festivals, fields and fun of a historical nature you need to be thinking about England's Medieval Festival who are also celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year! (and if you are celebrating 25 years of marriage too - click the link as there are some FREE tickets available for you!) So an extra special festival of historical fun and frolics in the English countryside is planned in August and it's not something you should miss. I went for the first time last year, and can vouch for the relaxed nature, the wealth of shopping experiences, the del...

Today on the blog, a beauty blogger gets down and dirty at Download festival and gives us the benefit of her experience. Much of her advice applies to all festivals, not just Download Camping isn’t my usual topic when it comes to writing blog features, instead opting for beauty, lifestyle and parenting features over on my blog, Tattooed Tealady , but today I’m quite looking forward to being able to share something different, and what better place than here! Today I’m going to run you through my Top 5 Tips for Camping at Download Festival , a metal festival held in the East Midlands at Donnington Park and the festival I have frequented the most over the past 8 years. First things first, plan where you’re going to camp. Of course, you can’t guarantee you’ll end up in the camp site you want, but Download Festival does have a handy map which shows all the campsites and the earlier you get there, the more likely you are to land the spot you want. There’s different areas for different ...

Maybe you are off to a festival, maybe you are a minimalist camper who doesn't use EHU , but either way there may be times you are away from home, away from the power to refrigerate things, but you are not quite rich enough to eat out for every meal. What options are open to you? As a camper that uses a cool box occasionally but never uses EHU I have a few ideas. Let's start with breakfast. On the first day you could splash out with a fry up of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomato and potato. These things will keep for a day if you can keep them cool - but I tend to just bring enough for day one. Other things that you can pack for breakfast include lots of things that are individually packed, many bread based things go mouldy quickly in the moist summer heat inside a tent, so things that are packed singly are a good way to keep things fresh. The pound shop is a good source of camping food. My personal favourites are brioche , croissants , breakfast biscuits and cereal bars....

DD and I started our festival forays with Eastern Haze in Suffolk in 2007.  Sadly that year Eastern Haze suffered dreadfully from bad weather and the organisers wound it up, never to return. But DD and I were hooked. Hooked on the mud, the toilets, the late nights, the friendly festival goers, the laughter and the music. So I looked about for a new festival, suitable for an eight year old and her mum to attend and I found Camp Bestival . Billed as a cross between a festival and a holiday camp, with a mix of music and kids activities it sounded perfect, and so it turned out.  We went to the 2010 festival, and have been to every Camp Bestival since. This year is the tenth Camp Bestival and the headliners have just been announced. (and yes I'm going to save that for later) It made me think back to previous year's headliners and who I would have picked for this year if I was asked to choose (I wasn't) The first year of Camp Bestival 2008 , which we didn...

Today's top tips are around festival essentials and are from Rhian who blogs over at Rhian Westbury . The first time I camped at a festival was Reading Festival in 2008 and since then I’ve done over 30 of them which is crazy considering I was never a fan of camping as a kid. There’s something about being relaxed and chilled with your friends knowing you’re going to be listening to a whole load of music that makes camping feel that bit more acceptable. Over the years’ I have made do with items which probably weren’t right for me, but also discovered some gems for camping at a festival so here’s some essentials you need. A double skinned tent This might seem like an obvious one, course you’ll need a tent when camping, but a double skinned one is what is important. UK festivals are notoriously unpredictable with their weather so you need as much protection as possible from the elements. These kinds of tents don’t have to be expensive but it’s worth while if you’re not sleeping in...

Camping with kids. You all know that I take DD with me, and though she is now 17 we've been camping as a couple (of crazed fools?) since she was 7. But not only did we start when DD was already old enough to be useful (!) I also only had to cope with one child. Today's guest post is from Amy who blogs over at Eps and Amy  who camped with two, and who started with a babe in arms! Here's her experience and advice. Camping with children, the good, the bad and the ugly! I have two children, now aged 5 and 8, and we first attempted camping when the eldest was just 9 months old. I bought a special camping travel cot and we get her used to taking naps in it a for a few weeks before we went. Unfortunately, once we got to the campsite trying to get her to go to sleep in daylight (tents are very see-through) and with a lot of noise going on around. In the end we gave up and had to take Bethany home. Not one to give up, we tried again when Bethany was around 2 years old. That ...