POP-UP SITES

These sites are growing in popularity. Once limited to a muddy field behind a music festival, pop-ups have become more sophisticated and widespread in recent years, offering visitors a good opportunity to enjoy a spot of camping with a difference.

No longer will you need to endure a wet tent in that muddy field at the festival, because although many still have limited facilities, plenty now offer dedicated campsites with lots of amenities for the duration.

Popular tourist spots are also now realising the benefits of temporary sites for the summer and over bank holiday weekends, building campsites from scratch in fields, car parks and patches of underused land, all well worth seeking out. You might need to be quick, mind you: these sites often pop down as quickly as they popped up!

I tasted this style of camping last summer, staying at the Caravan and Motorhome Club Beaulieu Estate pop-up. On a couple of large fields, a five-minute walk from the glorious motor museum, palace and abbey, the site was ideally located. It provided toilet and shower blocks, and we were also pleased to see a curry stall appear for the evening. Web caravanclub.co.uk

Next year we hope to stay at Newlands Valley, a family-run pop-up set amid the fells and forests of the Lake District National Park. We might also return for more festival camping at a country park in Reading, or by an orchard at Sheppy’s Cider Farm, in the heart of deepest Somerset.

Web sheppyscider.com

The scope of these temporary campsites is wide-ranging and the list of locations keeps growing as interest develops. So keep a keen eye out – who knows where or when the next site might pop up, and for how long?