Hello fellow traveller,
It’s Abi from Bradt and let's get started!
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"There cannot be a child that hasn’t, at some stage in their childhood, draped a duvet cover over a couple of chairs and ‘camped’. That hasn’t created a den in their bedroom or garden, had a picnic – pretend or otherwise – or a midnight feast and devoured an entire packet of Wotsits and Jammie Dodgers by torchlight or attempted to sleep in a makeshift tent. That was me. That was my children.
"Camping, in all its guises, became a part of my life and defined many moments throughout childhood and has continued to remain a focal point. Since my three children successively arrived, we have ventured on many camping road trips as mother and son/daughter(s), with all three children, or I alone, touring across the entirety of Europe from France and Germany to Spain and Scandinavia."
Those words come from Caroline Mills, from the best campervanning road trips in France and Germany. She is also the author of bothCamping Road Trips France and Germany and Camping Road Trips UK.
As I sit down to write this, a mass of unruly tools, trinkets and pleas for hope lie strewn across the room. Gas cylinders. Folding washing up bowls. Thermos flasks and a head torch.
For, dear Bradt lover, I am going camping this weekend - for the first time in years. It's a combination of a love of the great outdoors, the thrill of the road trip and the gnawing sensation that I'm letting my daughter down if I don't make the effort to take her.
As life goes by, my suspicion grows that some people are natural born campers, while others, well, are not. The fact that I've had to borrow most of the gear makes me even more suspicious about where I belong in this binary categorisation.
Still, I don't have long to wait before I find out.
And how about you?
Do you love camping? Or not so much...
Cheers, Abi
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