Tiberius901
Free Member
7 years motorhoming, 7 years caravanning, 2 years tenting. 16 years as a member of the "friendly club". 16 years on many club sites in the UK, several years travelling Europe using Carefree travel. Only this year have we decided to expose ourselves to the less friendly independent sites and engage in the disreputable pursuit of wild camping in the darkest extent of Argyllshire. After one month of going off the rails I now come home relaxed after our travels and my wife does not have to talk me down from selling the van and wrestling with the anti-depressants. How encouraging it is to arrive at a site at 11pm, walking nervously to the reception to only be greeted by an a4 sheet of paper telling you to park where you want and the roundsman will take the fee in the morning. Oh how i dont miss the red polo shirted greeting through the teeth that it will cost forty five pounds and you will have to use the car par because you have the temerity to want to leave at seven to pick your son up from the airport. Twenty pounds less to have a site where the owners actually want you to relax rather than be seen as an irrelevant obstacle to the wardens desire to sit in their awnings eating chips and waiting for their own friends to arrive. Twenty pounds less not to be told that it costs forty five pounds for one night because "you will have kids", twenty pounds less to be told that you can leave whenever you come back fron hill walking, seven oclock should be fine, twenty pounds less for a site that is not full of old cronies in their swift cottages block booking the sites months in advance so that there is absolutely no flexibility, never turn up to a friendly site unnanounced because you will be told, in a friendly way that there is no vacancies and that they cannot believe you wouldnt call in advance. Every year in nearly every site we have come across nearly every form of poor customer service, ever increasing site fees and an unnerringly unhelpful approach to the nuisance that is normal family members. After sixteen years I am convinced that the C and C club represents everything that camping and caravanning should NOT be about. I do hope you post this because I do feel that many more people will have this experience