Camping for fun is quite new
People have slept in tents for as long as they have travelled, but sleeping outdoors for pleasure is a modern idea. In Britain it owes a lot to Thomas Hiram Holding, a tailor who had crossed the American prairies by wagon as a boy. In 1901 he founded the Association of Cycle Campers, which grew into today's Camping and Caravanning Club, and in 1908 he wrote The Camper's Handbook, one of the first guides to camping as a hobby.
He designed lightweight kit so a TENT could be carried on a bicycle. Before that, tents were heavy canvas, the sort armies and explorers used. Scouting, which began in 1907, made camping part of growing up for millions of children.
The ground takes your heat
The biggest mistake new campers make is spending on a thick SLEEPING bag and forgetting what goes under it. When you lie on the bag, your weight squashes its filling flat underneath you, and the cold ground draws heat away from your body far faster than the night air does. A foam or inflatable mat does more to keep you warm than an extra layer on top.
A TARP stretched over the tent keeps rain off, and tent PEGS go in at an angle, leaning away from the tent, so they grip. Pitching a tent in the dark for the first time is a camping tradition nobody enjoys, so a practice run in the garden first is sensible.
Some more
SMORES, usually written s'mores — a toasted MARSHMALLOW and a square of chocolate squashed between two biscuits — first appeared in print in a 1927 Girl Scouts guide in the United States, under the name Some More, because that is what everyone asks for. The marshmallow itself is named after a plant, the marsh mallow, whose root sap was once used to make the sweet.
A CAMPFIRE needs care: only light one where it is allowed, keep it small, and put it out completely with water, stirring the ashes until they are cold to the touch. Many campsites only allow a camping STOVE, and a food COOLER and CANTEEN of water keep the rest of the meal going. The countryside rule is to leave no trace, taking every bit of rubbish home.
Seeing the stars again
Away from street lights, the sky changes. More than a third of people on Earth, including most people in Europe and North America, live where light pollution means they cannot see the Milky Way from home. A campsite in a dark area can show thousands of STARS, and several places in Britain have official dark-sky status to protect that view.
Finding the way needs a MAP and COMPASS, and a compass needle points to magnetic north, which is slightly different from the north at the top of the map — our map skills page explains how to allow for it. The rest of the grid is the adventure: the TRAIL, the HIKE, the BACKPACK, the LANTERN and the FLASHLIGHT, the FOREST and its WILDLIFE, the great OUTDOORS, and an early SUNRISE.