Picture the scene: a field somewhere in the Midlands on a Tuesday evening. It has rained continuously for seven hours. You are in a tent that took 45 minutes and three minor altercations to erect. Inside, there is no room to stand. You are sitting on a bare groundsheet, shivering, staring at an unopened tin of beans and sausages with a broken ring pull. A friend, whose idea this was, is somewhere nearby — in their tent, also rethinking the collective decision to sleep in a field. 

Meet the Middletons – 15 years on

The Greens are facing a reckoning

Seven things to look out for as Britain heads to the polls

With Easter out of the way, we are now heading face-first into another camping season. The industry enjoyed an enormous boom on the back of the pandemic, though according to the Great Britain Tourism Survey, the number of camping, glamping and caravan trips taken in England has now fallen by nearly a quarter since 2022. We are, it seems, coming to our senses. This year, however, may be slightly different. With the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz threatening Europe’s jet fuel supply, the week away in Puglia that many of us were counting on may not materialise. 

I am a recent (and regretful) contributor to the camping industry. I must be clear: I didn’t go into the trip blindly. I knew full well that camping and I were fundamentally incompatible. Call me a snob, but my idea of fun isn’t spending a week pretending that I live in a........

© The Spectator