Since the lockdown has eased, we’ve been making up for lost time and camping once a fortnight!

Clearly if you actually have COVID you need to stay home! … but otherwise what is it like camping in a panedemic?

Book ahead

Everyone is having staycations and camping is an attractive option as its out in the fresh air.  You’re also sleeping in your own tent and bedding using your own crockery etc, so it feels a lower risk option than other holidays.  Thing is that the world and his wife have all realised it’s a good idea, combined with campsites reducing their capacity to manage the risk, it means that sites are getting booked up well in advance.

Pack what you need to stay safe

Pack your hand sanitizer, your mask so that you can support local shops, perhaps some anti-bac cleaning spray for your table/equipment and you should be pretty safe.

Think it out

As with everything these days, just think about the contact points that could be a risk and then make sure you are careful about those.  Where is it that everyone in the campsite will touch with their mucky paws? …the water tap.  Better sites will provide sanitizer at the water tap, but if not, just make sure you wash or sanitize your hands after fetching water.  Apply the same logic to other contact points such as the doors, handles and taps in the communal facilities.

Think about who you are camping with.  If you are one household that’s easy.  If you are several, then maybe you need to pack separate tents and travel in separate cars.

It’s a good idea to wash your hands when preparing food anyway, but things which are simple at home can be tricky on a campsite.  A collapsible bowl for the cook and some soap and water for the cook to be able to wash her hands easily and frequently is a good idea.  We always have pre-dinner snacks in the form of crisps.  Usually we’d have passed a big bag around.  Shaking them out into individual bowls is probably a better idea to avoid sharing germs.

Look for recommendations

If you’re feeling nervous, look for some recent reviews or ask a friend where they’ve been and whether it felt safe.  We will list our COVID reviews below.

It’s wonderful to be able to escape to the countryside again, and with a bit of thought hopefully it will be just the lockdown tonic you need!

R & L

Rowbury Farm – this campsite is very well thought out.  The facilities are new, which probably helps.  But there were sanitizers in sensible locations eg by the water tap, the toilets were being cleaned very regularly and there were cleaning materials available for you to undertake further cleaning yourself if needbe.

Weekend campfires – this campsite is very basic.  As you will have seen from our review, the toilet facilities left something to be desired, but they did provide hand sanitizer and cleaning materials in each cubicle. There wasn’t sanitizer by the water tap nor were we convinced by the cleanliness of the ‘screwdrivers’… but once you’ve identified these contact points you can of course take your own precautions if you’ve packed some sanitizer.

Hook Farm – there was sanitizer in the toilet cubicles, but there were not cleaning materials available.  There was no sanitizer available near the water taps either.

Cat Inn – while we were at Hook Farm, we called in at the Cat Inn for a cold drink and were very impressed with how they had thought through their COVID prevention.  There was no need to book, but we did have our temperature checked and log our details on an app.  There was sanitizer available on arrival, staff  wore masks and had thought through little details like single use menus.  We sat in the garden, but the inside had been carefully partitioned.