What to expect

Tents have been used for centuries – by Native Americans (wigwams), by Mongolian and Central Asian nomads (yurts), and by armies moving from battleground to battleground. As a pastime, camping took off in popularity in the British Isles towards the end of the 19th century, as the Victorian era drew to a close. A fellow by the name of Thomas Hiram Holding, who was the author of the first known camper’s handbook (1908), which detailed the essentials of camping, is regarded as the father of modern recreational camping. Holding, an itinerant tailor by profession, was one of the movers behind the Camping and Caravanning Club – among those who have acted as head of the club are Captain Robert Falcon-Scott (‘Scott of the Antarctic’) and Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the scouting movement. Holding’s experiences in the outdoors included crossing the prairies of the US in a wagon train as a young boy, camping with a canoe in the Highlands of Scotland, and camping with a bicycle in the northwest of Ireland.