How Do You Choose a Campsite?

Two four-star campsites three kilometres apart can produce two entirely different fortnights: a heated pool and a five-a-side pitch tell you nothing about which spot you’ll actually be handed, or what happens fifty metres from your tent between 8 pm and midnight. The star rating and the facilities list matter far less to how a stay turns out than most people assume. What actually decides it comes down to two things: the pitch — in the geographical sense and in where it sits within the site — and the kind of stay you’re after, somewhere between mobile-home comfort and canvas self-sufficiency.

The pitch, on two scales

The word covers two separate decisions, and conflating them is the most common mistake.

The first is geography: how far is the sea, the lake, the village, the trail you want to walk? A campsite advertised as “500 metres from the beach” as the crow flies can turn out to be a fifteen-minute walk, with a road to cross and a hill to climb. Check the distance on a map rather than trusting the blurb alone, and look at the gradient if you’ll be carrying beach kit or small children.

The second is where your pitch sits inside the site itself, and that’s the one photographs hide best. A pitch on the main thoroughfare gets easy access, but takes the passing traffic of cars and pedestrians from morning to night. A pitch next to the sanitary block spares you long walks after dark, at the cost of constant foot traffic and lighting that never really switches off. Near the pool, expect children’s noise from opening to closing, and sometimes music in the evening during summer. Under trees, the shade is genuine in July, but sap marks the canvas and the ground takes longer to dry out after rain.

None of these positions is bad in itself; each suits a different kind of trip. A couple who comes back late from the beach will appreciate being near the sanitary block; a family that turns in early will want to avoid it.

Grass pitch or rental, shaded or open

Two further choices then shape the stay.

Touring pitch or a rental unit. On a grass, or “touring”, pitch you bring your own shelter and manage the set-up yourself, which means having already put together the gear you need for camping, tent included, and checked that its footprint matches the size quoted for the pitch — the criteria are covered in how to choose a camping tent. It’s the cheaper, more flexible option on dates, but it puts on you everything a mobile home settles in advance: bedding, a kitchen area, your own toilet. A rental generally costs more and often locks you into fixed Saturday-to-Saturday dates, but it simplifies a great deal with young children or when poor weather is forecast.

Shaded or open. Shade is a comfort in high summer — a tent left in full sun from 9 am becomes hard to sit in by the afternoon — but it comes at the cost of damp: a pitch under cover stays wet longer after rain, and the ground dries poorly late in the season. In June or September, when nights are cooler and days shorter, an open pitch that catches the morning sun can beat the reflexive choice of shade that suits July. On ground that has stayed damp, an air mattress insulates far better than a thin foam mat.

What the photographs don’t show

A campsite’s gallery shows the pool, never the real size of a standard pitch or the amperage on offer. Four points are worth checking before you book, usually by phoning reception rather than trusting the listing.

On that last point, “entertainment” on a campsite listing covers very different realities: a low-key children’s game in the late afternoon has nothing to do with an amplified evening that runs past 11 pm. If the listing doesn’t say, ask how far your pitch would be from the area in question.

The same address, two different campsites depending on the month

A site running at capacity in early August and the same ground three-quarters empty in June don’t compare, even under the same name. In high season, the crowds put pressure on water points and sanitary blocks at peak times, fill the pool, and put tent neighbours a few metres apart. In June or September the same pitches breathe, but some services — the snack bar, bike hire, sometimes part of the sanitary block — may run reduced hours or close altogether. If you’re aiming for shoulder season for the quiet, check what’s actually open on your dates rather than trusting the site’s general description.

Read the three-star reviews, not the five-star ones

Five-star reviews rarely say much: they confirm a good experience without describing the conditions that produced it. Three-star reviews, and especially one-star ones, are more useful because they describe a specific problem — a pitch consistently assigned near the road, a sanitary block that can’t cope at weekends, entertainment that runs well past its advertised hours. Look for details that recur across reviews rather than the tone of any one of them: a single unhappy guest with an isolated gripe tells you little about the site; three separate reviews mentioning the same night-time noise tells you a great deal.

The star rating itself mostly rewards the presence and number of facilities — pool, play area, average pitch size — not the quality of the welcome or where your own pitch ends up. A well-run three-star site, with a flat, well-placed shaded pitch, beats a four-star one where you’re put next to the bin store.

Before you pay

Three booking details are worth reading in full, even when the payment page is pushing you to finish quickly:

• Cancellation terms. A non-refundable deposit in the event of bad weather is a very different arrangement from free cancellation up to 48 hours before arrival.
• Arrival and departure windows. Some campsites close reception early in the evening or block access outside a set window, worth knowing if you’re facing a long drive.
• The deposit or security payment amount, and how it’s returned, particularly for a rental unit.

For a family with young children, the ideal pitch also comes down to details no rating grid measures; the guide to family camping gear covers what actually matters once you’re on site, as does choosing a suitable camping table and chairs if you’re heading for a touring pitch.

The best habit before booking is still to phone reception and ask three specific questions: the real distance between a typical pitch and whatever concerns you, what’s actually open on your dates, and whether you can request a particular part of the site. A vague answer often tells you more than an entire brochure.