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Stick thin scratty looking woman, late 50s, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown with flip-flops. Walking to the toilet smoking a fag with a Yorkie on a thin red lead.
I'm pretty sure every campsite and caravan park has one of those...
Similarly to the overnight camper who has everything seriously organised in their vehicle with a nicely pitched tent and seating/cooking area - takes ages setting it up, takes ages drinking the morning cup of hot brew and then lazily unpacks and heads off - never really clear what they are doing but seems to have all teh time spent pitching their bed for the night and the next morning taking all the time to pack it away meticulously...I'm just never brave enough to go and ask where they are heading, so this is a mystery to me and likely to remain so for some time!
The people you read on STW?
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Sexist, ageist, weightist, judgemental presumeably non-smoker bloke airing his prejudices. 😉
Cannich. Two Scandi-looking young ladies wandering over to the toilet block topless - while I'm cowering in my tent from the midge onslaught.
Though this still happens at luxury mobile home sites
🤮
The 'windbreak' family. Every metre around their tent blocked off with windbreaks! 🙂
Whilst camped at Charmouth a few years ago in a farmers field campsite one guy was mowing the lawn around his tent, I had to do a double take yes he had brought his own lawn mower
Swiss family Robinson - 3 adults + 6/7 children all aged 4-10
more, probably!Though this still happens at luxury mobile home sites
I love camping but don't love your average "camper" 😂
So the sites I go to are either very expensive eco style ones with tons of space or something like a woodland area, or very cheap no-frills ones with no amenities that might attract the rabble
I'm sure my mate and I are the people look at weirdly when we go camping. Two middle aged men camping together? Hanging out with surfboards and wetsuits but complaining about bad backs. Waffling on about real ale and quoting 90s songs at each other. Freaks.
I once met a patient in a campsite in france. Or more accurately she spotted me. After I’d walked or run past her sat by the pool a few times doing laps of the big slide with the kids who’d have been 9-11ish. I was in budgie smugglers as per the rules. After a few minutes of me denying all knowledge and not having met her before the penny dropped and she roared out “You’re my GP”
Had to pretend a child was drowning over there>>>>>> and scarper!
as long as you are on the ale not just chatting about it, and vice-versa for the music, that sounds just fine by me!! 😃Waffling on about real ale and quoting 90s songs at each other.
Me😎
I was dipping my toe into bikepacking recently and had ridden to a local campsite to test things out.
Some people on the campsite wandered over as I was packing up, asked me where I'd come from.
Probably expecting me to say Scotland or Denmark or something. Um....Leamington, I said (7 miles away) 😂
I’m going with wind break. Although they are rare on Troytown. I did nearly point out to a bloke who was new this year that if he wanted to spend his summer staring at the inside of a wind break he could have saved a bunch of on cash ferries, transfers and a premium campsite
On that campsite I’ve met
Prince Charles (well I say met , I saw him, but he does own it)
A couple who invited me to Opera in their back garden (it was fab)
The bloke evil took out the first patent on a flat screen tv (as he said “of course not the one that anyone uses or I wouldn’t be here”)
A doctor who use to pop in helicopter rescue documentaries
Her husband who wrote the environmental assessment for decommissioning Britains nuclear submarines
A women who persuaded her village to buy a share solar farm and battery so they could be self sufficient in electricity
An ex speed skier who is one of the few Britains to have competed in world cups
2 secondary head teachers who realised that they new each from being the same WhatsApp group
A woman who apologised mid morning coffee and said she had to find some where quiet to be interviewed on radio 4
I’ll stop there but walking any where in the campsite takes hours is there is so much to talk about
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A small child with wild long blondy hair, completely naked, riding a balance bike. 😂
Retired couple sitting in an expensive caravan (or motorhome) all day every day never going anywhere and apparently barely talking.
On the subject of people you know, when I was a primary school kid I met my actual current head teacher on a campsite in Southern France, one who'd been bollocking me a lot and wasn't well liked. He was there with his family for several weeks as we were, so because of the rules for campsite kids we had to socialise with his kids and mix with him more than I really wanted to.
# family who, on a lovely sunny evening are inside the caravan watching telly
We need a sidebar of shame.
# That dickhead with the acoustic guitar
This is a random one but I'll always remember it. Two blokes turning up to a campsite in Edale in separate cars. Only the cars were Aston Martin Cygnets (a £30-35k Toyota iQ with Aston badging). Pitched a tiny tent and disappeared the next day.
Never mind windbreaks, the next level people who surround their tents with their cars.
Dutch people. I mean there are not that many in total. At the moment they are all in a French campsite somewhere. Who's left in Holland?
People with a camper and 2 badly behaved dogs who bark too much; or people who show up with too much ultralight kit strapped to gravel bikes. Oh no wait they're all me.
Saw someone brought a vacuum cleaner to clean their tent (after one night).
retired couple with ebikes, full safety gear inc fluorescent tabards and handlebar mounted mirrors.
Oi my ancestors are Dutch!
Oh. 😁
scotroutes
Full Member
Cannich. Two Scandi-looking young ladies wandering over to the toilet block topless – while I’m cowering in my tent from the midge onslaught
Whilst peeking through a slightly unzipped flap?
DPSR!
Mr "I'm going for a shit and don't care who knows about it "
Found proudly striding across the campsite holding nothing but a toilet roll.
Whilst peeking through a slightly unzipped flap?
DPSR!
That's what mosquito netting is for...
Which campsite was this again? 🤔
Camping in Oz for me normally involves trying to find places where there are no other campers, but of the many times that’s not worked one of the funniest was a guy who turned up in the dark and was clearly talking to an animal. In the morning my suspicions were confirmed, he had brought a pet goat with him (illegal in National Parks too).
I’ve seen a lawnmower too… but it was converted into a portable fireplace. Ingenious really as it avoids scorching the grass.
Most embarrassing is all the British people that insist on feeding the wildlife… they’re often apologetic once you point out the problems though.
@northernmatt - that pr**k was at Nant Gwynant a few weeks ago, basically murdering the play list of Absolute radio until nearly midnight every night.
the anal retentive ex-headteacher - always faffing around with something on his immaculate van, never seems happy
Just me who for a moment wondered why the woman in the OP would be dragging a chocolate bar along?
The French family who proprietorially lay out stones on the perimeter of their pitch and grannie in a tabard sweeps the sand.
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First time parents in their mid 30s. Both wear high end branded active wear and smart haircuts. Their tent is a Teepee. Their trekking sandals cost over £150. They are pulling a 4 wheel flat trolley with a fat happy baby in who keeps trying to grab things but only succeeds in making everyone smile.
Dutch people. I mean there are not that many in total. At the moment they are all in a French campsite somewhere. Who’s left in Holland?
The Netherlands is entirely taken up with housing, offices, factories, sand dunes and intensive agriculture. If you want to go somewhere that's not a small cute town with wooden houses then you have to leave the country.
We usually go to Europe for 2 or 3 weeks in September in our campervan. Most people we meet midweek tend to be deliriously happy Dutch or German couples who are semi-retired or fully retired, hence the happiness. They're usually in a motorhome. We had one bloke who complained he had to go home in 7 weeks time to water this greenhouse as his daughter had inconsiderately booked a holiday.
I love French campsites. I often see some fat old bloke spending the whole afternoon cooking on a campingaz stove on his camping table (on the edge of his fully utilised and clearly demarcated pitch) whilst quaffing red wine. I'm usually jealous as we're knackered from a hot ride or walk.
When i used to go on family holidays in France, there would always be at least one person who had brought their cat on holiday with them...
The families with feral kids are by far the worst - normally it's 2 or 3 families all combined with their tents/vans facing each other, windbreaks surrounding them, 6 adults and about 20 uncontrollable kids, oh and at least 2 cockapoo yappy little bastard's which bark at anything that moves within a 3 mile radius.
They'll be the ones with drum'n'bass still going at 2am, with that one sloshed women who's witches cackle scithes through the night air for miles around...
I tend to avoid anything resembling a family campsite.
scotroutes
Full Member
Cannich. Two Scandi-looking young ladies wandering over to the toilet block topless – while I’m cowering in my tent from the midge onslaught.
As someone due to stay on that site in October, you have raised my expectations beyond the grumpy campsite owner welcome and foul, unclean day visitor loo we experienced a couple of weeks ago.
The last time I stayed on a larger site:
Group No. 1 - wondering what the hell possessed Person No. 2 to not only bring the large gas BBQ and table, but also the chef hat and apron to cook with out the front of their 25' long double wheel van with huge telly in the window, so that everyone can see them.
Person No. 2 - wondering what the heck a smelly Group No. 1 of canoeists in tiny mountain tents and Jetboils were a) cooking and b) celebrating with beer so much.
Yes, we were camped next to each other 😉
@ta11pau1 - had a bunch of these last year. 3 families and one night the women decided it would be fun to sit up until the small hours banging on about how much they didn't like their other halves, who were in the tents next to them. Asked them to be quiet a few times until I got really pissed off and started shouting at 3am. Spoke to site management and had them kicked off the next morning, ****ing ****ers.
People you see on a campsite!?
Middle class winkers, escorting badly dressed kids with terrible hair and cringeworthy names to the toilet blocks. Desperately trying not to make eye contact with the 'rough types' whilst still giving off an air of smug superiority.
Middle class winker's wife will be at the tent, staving off a wine hangover, dressed in oversized and well worn, expensively branded fleece top and thoroughly skanky PJ bottoms. Crocs optional. She will be coping stoically but deep down, the thought that her girlfriends were right and that she'd regret marrying Tobias is never far from the surface.
A women who persuaded her village to buy a share solar farm and battery so they could be self sufficient in electricity
Bet's she's now achieved some kind of god/prophet status round her way.
#couple who are clearly on the point of divorce, and one of them being forced to go camping is DEFINITELY not helping.
Just to add a reminder to watch the greatest Julia Davis' 'comedy' ever, 'Camping', if you can find it. 🙂
Many years ago was cycle touring in Slovenia I got a bit lost and spent the night at a nudist camp in Austria. I expect somewhere some Dutch nudist are still talking about the funny looking, slightly embarrassed, British nudist with the worst nudists tan ever seen and his tiny little travel towel not covering his modesty in the unisex showers!!!
# family who, on a lovely sunny evening are inside the caravan watching telly
My grandparents used to do a lot of caravanning so as kids we often went along as part of our summer holidays. This was almost standard on every campsite we visited - we'd be walking back from a day out past all the caravans looking in at the folk sitting there watching TV.
A couple arrived at the pitch next to ours once, the first thing they did after unhitching the caravan was to put a bloody great satellite dish up and they spent the rest of the week barely venturing out - wake up, TV on, sit there all day watching it. Weird.
The couple, who'd managed to grab the nicest pitch in the Forestry commission campsite above Aberfoyle overlooking a beautiful little loch, on what must be the busiest weekend of the year but then placed a 70" LCD tv between them and said loch blocking the entire view. Watching cash in the attic or some such crap, they were still there 2 hours later when I passed by on my way back. That was when I knew there was truly no hope for humanity....
Met some very odd people whilst living on a campsite in Sagres, Portugal during the pandemic winter 2020. Certainly out of our friendship bubble. Next-door neighbours, a Hungarian hippy and her silent German boyfriend plus cat and dog. All 4 of them in a converted panel van. She literally never left the campsite boundary for the 4 months we were there despite the most glorious sandy beach and epic waves nearby. Would smoke a spliff, hula hoop and dye clothes using leaves. Anti vac, anti any kind of establishment. Neighbours the other side, elderly German hippy couple with 2 pitches, a caravan and old van with Buddhas etc painted on. Lived there 14 years apparently! Didn't do much but every night 8 till 10 fired up the tv to top volume watching police chase style programmes. The 1st night we thought the cops were driving round the campsite it was so loud. Must have been a proper surround sound set up in there. Lots of surf dudes and one absolute nutter, Aussie, pro golf tutor living in Switzerland but out for the body boarding. Totally anti lockdown, had covid bad in the early pandemic, dragged into hospital because he was nearly dieing and refusing all treatment but relying on praying that God would heal him. Told us all about the Great Reset and also the time he was directly hit by lightning during a golf lesson. Oh and likes his lsd trips 😂
Serious end of the road place that Sagres!
Not at campsite, but they were going to one, at a very wet, windy and rainy garage forecourt, a large elderly couple in oilskins, touring Scotland (very slowly) on a Honda c90 motorbike (*90cc, yes ninety with 3 speed semi automatic gearbox)), equipped with windscreen, leg shields as standard, top box and panniers, they would probably go backwards in a strong headwind. (To be fair they were both happy as Larry, it cheered me up no end)
Old French couple, huge, old Peugeot saloon, small tent, table, chairs & all the kitchen utensils from home. They had visited the same camp site near the Ventoux each summer for years and insisted on giving me a bag of apricots and some fresh coffee. They must have been in their eighties & the memory of our chat still makes me smile.
She will be coping stoically but deep down, the thought that her girlfriends were right and that she’d regret marrying Tobias is never far from the surface
😂
Recognise so many of these, not sure which one is me - possibly more than one
Edit - my favourite campsite folk were the kids with Harry Potter cloaks, head torches and light sabres having a huge play fight in the dark. I was a bit tipsy and it looked ****ing awesome.
Guy shows up. Fairly old and frail looking, small, thin with a long white beard. Starts to set up his tent. Except it isn't a tent. It is a kind of house/tent construction that he is attaching to the back of his small caddy sized van. The sides and roof are made from thin coregraged semi opaque plastic. The frame is thin plastic poles. The method of construction is to tie the sides/roof to the frame. He takes a long time to make it. It's tiny, just big enough for him to sit in at a small table, which he does most of the night: sits there in the light of a camping gas light. We can all see him through the now might as well be clear plastic thing he has made. Just sitting there, doing nothing, not reading, no phone, dead still nothing. It is windy and the panels hum with the vibration continuously. Next morning he's already packed up and gone. Sometimes I think I dreamed it.
Simon, who I last saw at school 30 years ago.
The bloke who plants a 'Yorkshire Tea' flag outside his tent.
The retired Major who sweeps his tent out every morning and drinks port before turning in.
The man with more photographic gear than Jessops, who wheels his elderly dog around in a pram.
The blind scouser.
The chap who snores so loudly that he often wakes up to find other campers have moved their tents. Once had a tent stolen whilst sleeping in it.
The woman who trips up over the tent entrance every single time she goes in or out. Often organises random 14 a side football games and farts like a RG500.
Once woke up next to a duck.
Attracts midges.
These people are some of the friends we go camping with.
One of them might be me. The other is definitely my wife.
Campsite in Finale, German guy in his 50s turns up with a battered VW van.
Ten mins later his daughter turns up in a car and her brother arrives in another VW van. The three vehicles make a corral and proceed to string a large tarpaulin between the three.
The old van was like a tardis. They brought out of it a dining table and matching chairs. A domestic fridge and freezer. A large TV and a sky satellite dish which they then mounted to the roof of the van. Last thing out was a cooker and microwave and an armchair.
At one point I thought some one was loading in from the other side.
Son and daughter were great but never heard the dad speak to them, us or anyone else.
He just sat in the armchair from morning till night watching TV and drinking beers from the fridge which had been conveniently placed at the side of the armchair so he didn't have to get up.
Most people on campsites seem to be OK
Bloke playing a trombone intermittently, and extremely badly, at Rhaeadr Nantcol.
Thankfully we were pitched the other side of the site but could still hear it
Early in the evening it was really very funny.
Late in the evening it started up again when I was on my way to the loo. I was treated to the site of irate next door neighbor camper to the trombonist smashing said trombone up and threatening to "shove this *ing trombone up your *ing arse!"
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The 'Temporary drunken commune' comprising 3-5 family units, each with 2+ kids all pitched side-by-side. The plan clearly being the various children would just take care of themselves, while the parents get shit-faced together. There will be one falling out (shortly patched up), one lost and then found child drama, lots of sunburn and a minimum of 4 complaints by other campers when they're still talking pissed nonsense, loudly at 2:15am...
Oh yes, when we were away in July there was a guy camping on his own - apart from his tomato plants.
I'm assuming he had no one to water them while he was away from home, so he'd brought them with him, but it looked rather odd.
Campsites are wonderful, wonderful places. You see humanity at its best and everywhere else right down to the other end of the spectrum.
So many stories but I'll never forget looking around my favourite site down Cornwall one morning after a horrid storm.
Tents bent and wrecked everywhere, just torn apart and many deserted, their owners having bailed during the night.
I and the kids went looking around the abandoned ones looking for anything salvageable as I was up during the night repairing our tent, it had been a beast of a storm.
We approached the remains of one tent with its unzipped door flapping in the wind... Inside the dark, tiny living area was a cereal packet, a bowl of half eaten cereal (complete with spoon) and nothing else. It was the most tragic sight id ever seen.
Storms also brought out the best in people too, offering to help people shore up a broken tent during/after a storm etc.
Damn, I miss the yearly camping trip to Cornwall.
By the way, you aren't camping unless you are in a tent.😁
Cougar
Just me who for a moment wondered why the woman in the OP would be dragging a chocolate bar along?
Not just you Cougar.
On the subject of the people of the Netherlands it was noted by our family in the 70's that it must be an really empty place in summer as the amount of NL registered cars in any other country than their own was quite frankly staggering!
We were on a campsite in the Montafon valley (Austria) in 2014. A geriatric German couple arrived in an original VW camper from the 60s in pristine condition. Every night they sat outside and had dinner about 5pm. He then practised his accordion for about an hour whilst she did some knitting. They were so sweet and clearly enamoured with each other despite being older than Methuselah
Anyway my knee had gone pop on the way there and it and my calf were swollen to twice normal size. I needed to go to hospital but it was miles away and I was hobbling around the campsite for day or so. One evening they came over, apologised for their lack of English and gave me some arnica gel to rub into my messed up knee, "fur die knee-schmerzen". Then she gave me a huge hug and said good luck. . They really were a joy to all they encountered (made my old cynical head/heart melt too). The world needs more people like them.
Most people on campsites seem to be OK
Very much this.
I spent a season working on campsites, generally camp about a month a year. I think that when they are camping the vast majority of campers behave pretty well, as most people do most of the time in public spaces. Their differences are part of the charm of camping, people from many different social and national backgrounds in a melting pot without brick walls sharing space.
You can predict what people will be like according to the location and type of campsite. Choose one where you're likely to find like-minded people. We've met some great people and shared good times.
The people with TVs are handy, invite yourself to watch the TDF stage finish or the news. The idosynratic ones provide entertainment. Can't start the car or need a tool for your bike, someone will be able to help.
Good thread!
The parents on a definitely middle class (nice toilets and a price to match site) whose kid screams blue murder in the middle of the night until one of the parents loses their shit, and the whole campsite hears the sound of a hand smacking the child. Then there is horrified silence across the campsite, and you can hear the stares of the other parent looking at the one who gave the slap and the ‘wtaf did you just do’ moment dawning between them. The kid redoubles their bawling at a new pitch, and they all pack up early and quietly the following morning, avoiding the eyes of all the other campers.
We camp a lot. Latest belter was sat at Clachtoll recovering from a bit of water blasting in the waves. Hired landy with a roof tent rolls in, parks up across the way. Very large lady gets out and I not fattist here but she was massive, very thin pale looking man with her. Roof tent goes up, ladder goes up. She goes up. He goes up. Wife raises eyebrows at me. Landy starts seriously looking like it’s springs will be destroyed by the bouncing. I had to look away.
The families with feral kids are by far the worst
I thought half the point of camping with kids is that you can let them go feral???
And it has to be said Amsterdam last week was full of tourists, and not many Dutch people.
And it has to be said Amsterdam last week was full of tourists, and not many Dutch people.
Was the average height much lower than usual?
Was the average height much lower than usual?
Outside of the airport, yes. They really are tall, aren't they??? At 50 I'm used to the fact I'm no longer tall, but it's the first place I've been to that so many women are taller than me!
When I've been to Croatia I've always thought they're just dark, brooding Dutch in disguise. I'm 186cm so not small but they're huge.
Oddly Damian Lewis and Kate Ashfield.
And yep they were very nice to chat to 🙂
I thought half the point of camping with kids is that you can let them go feral???
Yep, we had a family forcing the kids to go to bed at 10 and asking everyone if they could keep it down,everyone’s then woke up at 6am as the kids wake up and want to do stuff 🙂
TBH it could be my upbringing but I never had a bedtime so I don’t get it.
Cycle touring in Spain we stopped in a tiny sea side campsite. We just squeezed 2 tiny tents in the last space guy ropes overlapping. We went out for beers and food. We were in bed at about 10:30. But every kid on the campsite is awake running in circles and screaming. It was so loud that we couldn’t even shout between tents. Then at 11:00 silence. Like some one flicked a switch. We were so impressed
I don't go camping. Previously i had no evidence as to why should not go camping, now i do.
I used to go camping lots as a kid but hardly any since then. This thread makes me miss it and now I'm considering using some of next year's 8 week summer sabbatical to go camping!
I don’t go camping. Previously i had no evidence as to why should not go camping, now i do.
It’s that absolute rip snorter of a fart that someone lets fly at around 1-2am that sets the whole site off giggling.
That’ll really put you off if your of a certain disposition.
Camping near Coed y Brenin we met a young couple who behaved like boyfriend and girlfriend but looked like twins...
Currently on a French campsite that's maybe 40% French, 20 UK, 20 NL and 10% RoW. People are all very friendly and no d***heads spotted after a week.
Everyone's super nice including the staff and the facilities are great. For £60 per night we have unlimited use of the two pools including a pretty awesome indoor one with many flumes, onsite shop, bar, daily kids clubs...
Campings alright by my reckoning.
I love camping. French capsites are awesome the way its noisy as anything up to 10 or 11 then silence.
I do fear im the odd person on the site tho😎🤣
The families with feral kids are by far the worst...
They’ll be the ones with drum’n’bass still going at 2am
Yep the adults are the worst.
Oh yes and I love those wonderful retro style canvas tents the Dutchies use.
Sat outside the van on a campsite in the Peak now hoping I'm not the odd one. 🤔
@whatgoesup - https://www.lez-eaux.com/. Normandy wouldnt be everyones obvious first choice but the weather has been almost perfect, the beaches just south of here (and town of Julloville) are really nice, there's a good batch of other things to do around here too. Worth a trip if you (like me) have kids that mostly want to be swimming.
Thrutching and grunting followed by titanic plopping sounds from the trap next door to me.
I left my safety netted silent ablutions and made my exit the same time as Helga the German shot putter type lady left the next door khazi.
Discussed with MrsRNP about only booking french campsites that didn't have unisex toilets in future.
