Glamping is the luxury vacation we all deserve in pandemic times
IT’S OK if you’re not an outdoor person. If we’re being honest, the idea of sleeping on the ground and eating only slightly warmed-through tinned food isn’t really that appealing. But with many of us stuck at home and looking for new ways to use up our vacation days, glamping offers the peace of nature without the downsides.
The Heritage and Nature Glamp Camp, which is located right along Germany’s Mosel river, provides a perfect example of peak glamping – which is a portmanteau word combining “glamour” and “camping.”
There’s a garden for relaxing, a terrace and a firepit at the site, while under a huge tent, visitors can sleep in a real bed while enjoying running water and a kitchen with a coffee machine.
Vacationers don’t even need to leave the tent’s bed to see the opposite shore of the Mosel. Fireflies flit by, the scent of lavender fills the nighttime air. An owl hoots – a little nature after all.
Master glamper Celine Bossanne knows a thing or two about how to go camping in style. She and her husband founded their first camping village, Huttopia, in France in 1999. “We wanted to transform the image of camping, to offer stays in nature, at beautiful spots – but in comfort,” she explains. Two decades later, Huttopia has expanded to 60 spots around the world, offering tents, huts and little houses.
”We all have a real need for nature. We are increasingly urban and need special, natural and simple experiences, but we don’t want to give up our comforts,” says Bossanne, explaining the need to glamp.
The coronavirus has made taking a vacation in nature all the more popular. On portals such as glamping.info, vacationers who can make their way to Europe can book accommodations across the continent.
Even though glamping used to be a thing of extreme luxury, on the fivestar level, Bossanne says that has not been the case for a long time. “Operators have different understandings of what glamping means,” explains Sven Schuurmans, who runs the Glampings portal.
”A safari tent with a bathtub and panorama view, or a row of caravans with verandas – these days, it’s all considered glamping,” he says. – dpa