h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have several decades of camping experience, but will not write about camping in the wild. A. it is illegal in several regions. B. My husband's best friend got killed that way. Murdered while sleeping out in the open in the South of France. Forget it, folks.

Thats terrible new, my condolences.

However you cannot let that spoil your and other peoples enjoyment of camping. I bet you know someone who has had a car accident.. do you still travel?

Yes, but there is an alternative to camping "wild". OK it costs money. But - your money or your life`?

Of course, if anyone's interested, as I say, I do have decades of camping experience of the legal sort. First with my parents and then with my husband and children. In fact, it wasn't till I was about 38 that I realised that holidays could be spent in other places than tents....

I try and avoid it now. What sort of a holiday is it where you have to change your baby on a towel in a field of cowpats or in the boot of the car? Where you have to wash up by hand - going home to the dishwasher is the holiday in my view. Ditto washing machine - I used to have to plan a whole morning or afternoon to get the washing done. That's not what holidays are for.

Why go away with babies and small children - you're forever on your toes that they don't run to the swimming pool or lake and drown, or burn themselves on the barbie or cooker, or find a hedgehog and play with it, or the neighbour's dog, or simply get lost.

The kids are bored because the camp site is full of Dutch people and they can't play with any of the other kids.

Even without kids - you drive 8 hours and then spend an hour and a half putting up tents and connecting the gaz stove and pumping up air beds, fiddling with the zips on the sleeping bags and unravelling guy ropes, all the time balancing piles of towels and sleeping bags somewhere because the ground is wet and it's raining, by which time it's dark and you haven't found out where to get water yet and you can't find the matches and then you have to start cooking a meal and are all whacked and bad-tempered and the meal tastes awful and is cold anyway but the tin plates scald your knees and there's only cold water in the showers so you drink a week's supply of whisky and go to sleep on an airbed which loses its air and you're rolling around on tree roots as from about 2 in the morning, or, failing that, the slightest gradient will increase by several degrees overnight, and you wake up 10 yards downhill from where you went to sleep, totally squashing a very disgruntled spouse.

LOL - I hope you realise that was really funny. Thank you.

Have you read Three men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. It was written about 1888 and is a classic student comedy. He describes camping (Victorian style) in a similar way, which is why they decided to go on a boat trip.

I only thought of that AFTER I'd written that posting, though - please take note, copyright vultures.

Boats - I could do another one on that, but must dash off to fetch my son from trampolining. (Have spent plenty of holidays on boats, crossing the channel ... )

Reminded me of the Monty Python "Travel Agent" sketch...