Wild Nights By Phoebe Smith

I won this book in a Twitter competition towards the end of last year. This post has been sat in my drafts as I always meant to complete it but in between everything it didn’t happen.

I was determined not to read it while I finished another book that I was reading but then while I was sorting Jaxon for bed and giving him his bedtime feed I picked it up and started reading. What a silly thing to do!

It’s not until we push ourselves past our perceived limits, till we feel so cold and so tired that we feel we can’t go on any further, that we discover what we are truly capable of…

Britain’s most famous wild camper and best-selling author of Extreme Sleeps, Phoebe Smith, is back. After bivvying under boulders and camping in caves on her last tent-bound adventure, she’s decided to hit the UK’s wild places once again but this time take it further. Determined to discover what defines a truly ‘extreme’ night out, and see if she has the guts to do it, she heads to the extremities of the country.

Battling whiteouts in Wales, facing monster waves in Suffolk and attempting to make camp in gale-force winds on Britain’s highest mountain, Phoebe takes us on a series of inspirational expeditions into the wilderness as she quests to find the ultimate pitch.

Now I grew up caravanning, I used to sleep in the bunk inside the caravan until I was a teenager and then I started sleeping in the tent outside the caravan that was part of the awning. Since being married to Chris, we’ve been going camping more frequently. We’ve done hotel/B&B holidays and although they are lovely there is something about camping that I do love. 

We’ve camped all over the place, before we were married we went camping in Corcieux in France. At the same altitude in the German side of the mountain we were in, there was snow on the ground even though it was May/June. I even dreamt that I woke up one morning to inches of snow on the ground (in my dream the tent was lovely and warm and we didn’t even notice that the temperature has dropped that far outside. 

When Chris did Land’s End to Kohn O’Groats we camped in some really cool places. Our first proper night on the road, our campsite was in part of Bodmin Moor. Then a couple of days later we were camping near Glastonbury Tor. In fact we went out for dinner rather than having camping food at the tent. When we got back it was getting dark, the Tor against the night sky and the way it looked over the campsite was like something out or Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. 

We most recently took both boys camping in the Yorkshire Dales. We were staying on a working farm that had a small “paddock” assigned to being a campsite. Our tent was really close to the wall of the paddock so we often heard the sheep and the horse that lived in the field next door. On one occasion we had a visit from the farm’s sheepdog. Our Sidekick loved that. Jaxon is like his daddy and loves being outside so when he had the freedom to roam in and out of the tent he did. Don’t panic one of us were with him while he was roaming. 

Wild Camping would be a little bit of challenge for us because of having Jaxon along with us but just getting out and camping normally is an adventure and I love it (more than I hate it lol). 

You can find Wild Nights on Amazon Here. 

Do you love or hate camping? Are you a hotel holiday maker? Have you had any crazy/fun/different experiences while camping?