Jonathan is deeply relieved when Annabel suggests they forgo their customary family holiday in Italy for a week’s camping in Wales. With two sets of school fees for them to worry about, fancy foreign holidays are increasingly looking like a thing of the past. And besides, he has fond memories of childhood camping in Scotland: waking up with the dawn, cooking on a campfire and bathing in a loch.

Simple pleasures, that’s what he’s thinking as he braces himself for a week without a decent night’s sleep or a bath. So Jonathan is first surprised, and then a little shocked, when Annabel tells him she has booked the family into a luxury teepee, complete with Indian day beds, Egyptian cotton sheets and scented candles. Whatever happened to good old rustling nylon sleeping bags and a charcoaled sausage?

In the past three years, glamorous camping, or “glamping”, has evolved as the most aspirational of family holidays. Put camping+luxury in a Google search and you realise five-star comfort, including pocket-sprung mattresses, power showers and champagne breakfasts in bed, are essential to the glamping experience. Lowly nylon tents don’t even get a look in: luxury safari-tent in Kent, anyone?

But the camping tide is turning and glamping is starting to look like a frivolous luxury. Over the past decade, our insatiable desire to consume has meant that everything, even sleeping in a field, was turned into a retail event. But leaner financial times mean that we’re all having to cut back. Combine this with the fact that flying to the Continent for a family holiday is now as environmentally and socially unacceptable as driving a Chelsea Tractor and traditional camping (“tramping”, perhaps?) close to home starts looking like a financially savvy decision that increases your green credentials.

“Camping is about being in a field or on a beach, usually in this country, with your family and friends. While we love a bit of glamour, spending hundreds of pounds on it definitely diminishes the appeal,” says Tess Carr, co-author, with her camping buddy Kat Heyes, of The Happy Campers.

Tags: abe, amp, camping in scotland, camping in wales, champagne breakfasts, china, day beds, dl, egyptian cotton sheets, family holidays, fir, fly, fond memories, frivolous luxury, google, google search, holiday in italy, ins, insatiable desire, love, luxury safari, memories of childhood, nylon tents, power showers, scented candles, simple pleasures, star comfort

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