Guides
Your first camping trip: where to start
One or two nights, close to home, on a graded site: the order of decisions that makes a first camping weekend work without over-buying kit.
5 min read
Many first camping trips go wrong for the same reason: a cold night on a mat that is too thin, in a tent pitched by head torch. None of that takes experience to avoid; it takes an order of play. For a first trip, aim for one or two nights, within an hour or two’s drive, on a graded site with facilities; borrow or hire the tent, sort out your sleeping first, pitch the tent once at home, and arrive well before the end of the afternoon. The rest of this article walks through those decisions in the order you will meet them.
Start small, and close
One night, two at most. The reasoning is simple: everything you do not yet know (how you sleep outdoors, how long pitching takes, what a busy site’s noise does to your rest) shows itself on the first night. Far better to learn it on a Saturday than on day four of a week away from everything.
Staying close to home has a cost: you travel less far from your routine, and the scenery may resemble your everyday one. In return, if the rain sets in or sleep will not come, the car has you home within the hour. It is insurance, not surrender. The remote spot and the lake an hour’s walk away can come next, once you have something to go on.
Choose a site that forgives
A beginner is better served by a graded site: drinking water, toilets and showers, marked pitches, a reception or warden reachable in the evening. What you lose in solitude you gain in margin for error: a missing peg, an empty gas canister or a craving for a hot shower at 10 pm can all be solved on the spot. The criteria are set out in our guide to choosing a campsite, and what the stars mean is covered in stars and labels (in France, the classification is a national one; other countries use their own schemes).
Two useful adjustments for a first stay:
- Avoid peak periods. A full site is noisy, and the pitches left are rarely the best.
- Look at the forecast three days out, not ten. A night at 8 °C or a forecast shower can be prepared for; a distant forecast tells you almost nothing.
Borrow, hire, buy: in what order
You do not buy a tent to find out whether you like camping. A friend, a neighbour or a hire firm can help, and some sites offer ready-pitched canvas accommodation so you can try the atmosphere without carrying anything. If you would rather own from the start, how to choose a tent covers hydrostatic head, seasons and capacity.
If you buy only one thing first, make it what you sleep on and in. The reasoning is physical: at night it is the ground that chills you, by conduction, far more than the air. A poorly insulated mat lets body heat drain away whatever the thickness of the sleeping bag, whose filling is crushed beneath you and no longer insulates. A tent is a shelter; your bedding decides your mood the next morning. The trade-off: good sleeping gear takes boot space and budget, whereas a borrowed tent costs nothing. The sleeping section, the guide to choosing a sleeping bag and the comparison of air beds and camp beds will help you decide.
The rest (cooking, furniture, lighting) can wait or be borrowed. For the list itself, see what you need to go camping and the complete checklist; this guide does not repeat it.
Pitch the tent once at home
A quarter of an hour in a garden, a park or the living room. Count the pegs, see how the poles work, check whether the instructions tell the truth. You also find what is missing: a bag without pegs, a broken guy line. At home, that is one order away; on a site at 7 pm, it is a problem.
Then pack it away as you would on site, to see whether everything fits back in its bag.
Arrive early, in daylight
Aim to arrive in early or mid-afternoon. A first pitch takes time, and daylight lets you choose the spot on foot before putting anything down: flat ground, no hollow where water would collect, shelter from the prevailing wind, neither too close to nor too far from the toilets. A tree gives shade in summer but drips long after the rain has stopped.
A walk around the site to find the water, the bins and the reception takes five minutes and saves trips in the dark.
First-night mistakes
They repeat from one beginner to the next, and almost all can be prevented:
| Mistake | What happens | Remedy |
|---|---|---|
| Mat too thin or under-inflated | Cold rises from the ground | Inflate on arrival, insulate from the ground |
| Pitch on a slope or in a dip | You slide, or water gets in | Choose on foot, in daylight |
| Tent slack or poorly pegged | Flapping fabric, rain touching the inner | Guy out, tension the flysheet |
| Torch at the bottom of a bag | Searched for in the dark | Lighting out before dusk |
| Daytime clothes only | An evening at 8 °C feels long | A warm layer for the evening |
After the first night
On the way home, write three lines: what was missing, what was never used, what got in the way. That is your real shopping list, far more reliable than any general advice. On the second weekend you can aim a little further, a little simpler or a little wilder, but with your eyes open.
Frequently asked questions
- How many nights for a first camping trip?
- One or two. One night is enough to find out whether you like sleeping under canvas; two give you a full day on site without having pitched for nothing. Beyond that, a mistake in bedding or location weighs on the whole stay.
- Do I need to buy a tent before going?
- Not necessarily. A tent can be borrowed, hired, or replaced by ready-pitched accommodation on the site. If you buy anything first, buy what affects sleep: mat and sleeping bag. A bad night spoils a weekend more than an average tent does.
- Where should a beginner pitch the tent?
- On a flat pitch, away from the lowest point of the site, sheltered from the prevailing wind, at a reasonable distance from the facilities. Arrive in daylight so you can choose on foot before putting anything up.
- Should I pitch the tent at home before leaving?
- Yes, once, in a garden, a park or even a living room. You spot missing parts, learn the order of the steps and avoid finding all that out at dusk, in the rain.