This year (2025) our first camping trip, and therefore the official 'start of the season' came later than usual, and much later than I would have liked! With perfectly good reason though - the start of this year (and the end of the last) had been completely preoccupied with buying our first home. So instead of starting out with some local trips in unpredictable weather (as early spring in the UK can be so hit or miss) our first trip was at the start of May, in Eryri (or Snowdonia National Park), near Llanbedr. We'd stumbled across this site, Rhaeadr Nantcol Waterfalls, when we saw it in a video on social media, which showed the river Cwmnantcol (attempt to pronounce at your own risk) flowing straight through it, dissecting the green fields which were scattered (not rammed - thankfully) with tents and campers. As a child, my first camping trips that I can remember were in north Wales, on the shores of Bala lake, so it's an area that's fairly familiar to me. The video...

Dartmoor National Park. The only, completely legal, safe haven for wild campers in England. Yes, there are plenty of places in both England and Wales where a wild camper can pitch their tent, bivvy, or hammock and enjoy a night immersed in nature, with a very low chance of being spotted and moved on - but that chance is never zero . So if you are a wild camper in the UK, and you're looking for a wild camping experience without bending or breaking any rules (and you don't want to travel to the UK wild campers' Mecca - Scotland) then it is to Dartmoor that you should head.  Wild camping in Dartmoor has been enshrined by law since 1985, and although in the last few years this right has been threatened by land owners in the area (notably when it was banned in 2023 before being appealed by the public and over turned), it still remains the only legal place to wild camp in England. This should make it a special spot for any British outdoor enthusiast, and I have been eager to visi...

 Campsite review: Nearly Wild Camping - Woodland Edge This June I enjoyed my second trip to a Nearly Wild Camping site, near Sparkford in Somerset (for a brief introduction to Nearly Wild Camping please see my previous post here! ). Although I have had my NWC membership since last September, I have so far only managed to use it once, despite seeing lots of wonderful sites on there, it's sometimes difficult to find the time to fit it all in with various other events, trips, and general life! Anyway, myself and two friends were planning a trip, but as one of us lives down in Cornwall, we were trying to find somewhere relatively equidistant, and so, we decided to look in the West Country. For reasons that I have already stated in previous posts , England's West Country has so much to offer campers, and we found an array of sites that looked suitable for our trip, but one stood out above the rest - Woodland Edge. If the name alone wasn't enough, then the pictures of the bushcra...

  Campsite review: Newfold Farm Edale The Peak District National Park is one of Britain's most spectacular areas of natural beauty. Majestic and rugged, it is needless to say that it is a hot spot for camping, hiking, and so many other outdoor activities. Since the events of 2020's COVID-19 pandemic, it has become more popular than ever for wild camping, and as is probably the case for many others, it was the stage for my first wild camping experience back in 2021. On that trip, we caught a train from Manchester to the village of Hope and started walking beneath the sweltering June sun up Lose Hill and along to Mam Tor. From Mam Tor we went down into the village of Edale, where we stopped for lunch, before continuing through the valley and towards Kinder Scout, which would be our home for the night. The events of that trip gave me a love not only for wild camping, but also for the Peak District, Kinder Scout, and Edale, which is why at the start of Spring, 2024, I decided to go...