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Hi everyone, we're very new new to camping, so far have spent one night in our new tent in the garden. We can't wait to go on our first adventure. This may sound like a daft question but do you always need to book your site, if so how far in advance. I think I was being quite naive because I thought you could just up and off when it suited.

Any advice is a bonus

Thanks

Welcome to UKCS - you will find this site invaluable - there are some really knowledgable people who will help you with any queries you have.

It depends when you want to go and where you want to go - Bank Holidays i would definitely book especially if you need EHU (electric hook up). Also during main school holidays you might want to book -

    HI. IT'S BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. THERE NOTHING WORSE THAN ARRIVING AT A SITE THATS FULL ,THEN HAVING TO LOOK FOR ANOTHER SITE NEARBY A PHONE CALL IS ALL IT TAKES

When we used to camp as a couple we hardly ever booked, we did sometimes for the first night which was a Friday as we left after getting home from work and didn't pitch until it was nearly dark as we liked to get a fair bit of travelling done on the Friday and we needed to know we'd definately have somewhere to stay without having to search around in the dark!

For the rest of the week we didn't book then we had the option of moving whenever we wanted. We always camped outside of the school holidays though - perfect!

Now we have kids, so far we've only been away once - last August, I booked around 2 weeks in advance for that it was for a long weekend not bank holiday though.

We're going away for a few nights over Whitsun and I'm just booking that now. Over the weekend I've been emailing various sites and they all had availabilty for Whitsun.

I'm usually travelling solo with scooter and small tent and try to avoid booking( might ring up the day before!).

However my main travelling area is North/North East Scotland where the school holidays etc doesn't seem to fill the sites en masse like it appears to further south!

For example my local campsite was pretty well empty over Easter.

However, I'm going to test the water a bit this summer because I'm going further south for three weeks and don't intend to book at all.

It would be different if I was intending to stay at a site for say a week or two, when I would certainly book.