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12 Oct 2022
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camping or cheap hotels on a 4 week trip
if your camping in say europe .... wet and cold
if your camping in say morocco .... to hot !
and
you have to " lug " all that stuff with you !
cheap hotels for me every time ! 
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12 Oct 2022
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Independent hostels in the UK, https://independenthostels.co.uk/
I've stayed in maybe 20 so far. Often no more expensive than a camp site but without all the faff.
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badou24
if your camping in say europe .... wet and cold
if your camping in say morocco .... to hot !
and
you have to " lug " all that stuff with you !
cheap hotels for me every time ! |
I'm just back from a four week trip and we used campsites, hostels cheap hotels, (and even the occasional expensive hotel (when my wife was paying!)). Good luck with solely depending on cheap hotels - this was one in northern Spain that we booked on line (and paid for in advance). When we got there it was shut. And it wasn't the only one we came across like that. In Burgos we had a choice of hotel or hostel in the same building. The hotel entrance was on the ground floor (as you'd probably expect). The hostel was on the 7th floor with no lift and a external metal staircase. The difference in price wasn't that great.
On the other hand this was a campsite we stayed in near Le Mans in France. It was in the grounds of an old chateau and had some of the best 'infrastructure' (toilets / showers / restaurant/ bar etc) of the whole trip. It was expensive for a campsite but still only much the same as the seventh floor hostel. Yer pays yer money as they say, and I agree that camping gear can turn a racehorse into a cart horse, but on a 'long' trip I'd prefer the flexibility that being able to camp adds.
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backofbeyond
Yer pays yer money as they say, and I agree that camping gear can turn a racehorse into a cart horse, but on a 'long' trip I'd prefer the flexibility that being able to camp adds.
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I agree. Camping gear might be a bit cumbersome, but you get used to it quickly - I carried a camping drybag on a 33-day cross-Europe trip, never needed it once, but it served me well as a backrest! And the advantage of having it with you is that can camp only in advantageous conditions. A warm evening, a nice secluded lake or a hilly view, no campervans or other tourists around... So you finish your trip, and you've only ever camped when it was enjoyable, using cheap hotels when it wasn't - that's the perfect way to go!
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AnTyx
I agree. Camping gear might be a bit cumbersome, but you get used to it quickly - I carried a camping drybag on a 33-day cross-Europe trip, never needed it once, but it served me well as a backrest! And the advantage of having it with you is that can camp only in advantageous conditions. A warm evening, a nice secluded lake or a hilly view, no campervans or other tourists around... So you finish your trip, and you've only ever camped when it was enjoyable, using cheap hotels when it wasn't - that's the perfect way to go!
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That's exactly what we did - camped when it was the preferred option, hotel / hosteled when that was the better bet, and 'scrounged' accommodation when that was possible / offered. The person I was travelling with belongs to Bunk-a Biker in the US and hosts bike travellers himself (three over last weekend) so he used it to find us occasional accommodation in France and Spain. That was a real eye opener for me and we met some amazing people as a result - even got invited to a wedding reception!
It's not all wonderful in the tenting world though, particularly if you're using commercial sites. Compared to some years back a surprising number have had to reassess their viability and particularly in inland Spain budget campsites were trickier to find than you might think. One we tried to book into had 'reinvented' itself as a skate park, another looked like it had been ploughed up and a surprising number on the coast have just been abandoned.
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backofbeyond
(...) I agree that camping gear can turn a racehorse into a cart horse, but on a 'long' trip I'd prefer the flexibility that being able to camp adds.
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So funny that biking and going offroad by 4x4 has similar topics.
Doing serious offroad with an upgraded but overlaod(ed) overlanding rig - isnt the same funny experience than with an 4x4 in stock konfiguration but very lightweigt.
It is still possible, but will need more material, more power, more use of the winch.
I answer the question about carrying camping gear in other words: if you ask here about carrying camping gear, you probably dont plan to use it - leave it at home 
Surfy
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badou24
if your camping in say europe .... wet and cold
if your camping in say morocco .... to hot !
and
you have to " lug " all that stuff with you !
cheap hotels for me every time ! |
Depends where and when. I've seen temperatures below zero C in the Sahara and temperatures above 30 C lots of times in various places in Europe.
I think a key driver is cost - the only way for us to travel in Iceland and in Australia is camping - even cheap hotels are not cheap. Whereas in most of South America, Africa, and SE Asia you can find good hotels with rates less than an Australian or Canadian campsite.
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13 Oct 2022
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Camp 90% of the time. Even in temps upto 45-50 degrees, it’s no fun in those temps but neither is a cheap hotel room.
I use a hotel in a few places if I want to be a certain part of a town or if I’ve done and long remote desert section.
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13 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badou24
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How much is a cheap hotel for you?
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13 Oct 2022
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Depending on location it would be mostly camping for me with the odd night in a cheap hotel or hostel in developed countries which is usually Europe or North America but when I go to South or Southeast Asia it is cheap hotels the whole way.
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13 Oct 2022
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My last few road trips have been a mix of both. I'm okay with staying in a tent for a couple or three nights when the weather is decent, but my back appreciates the extra expense of sleeping on a proper mattress in a warm dry room with a hot shower and a coffee maker.
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13 Oct 2022
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and .................. its the middle of the night ............. and you need a "P "
,,,,,,,,open the tent door all wet on you and get back and more wet !
nice hotel with warm bathroom ?
A few years ago i used to camp all the time , but as you get a wee bit older it does not have the same appeal !
anyway a hotel in Morocco is about £10 so why even think about the camp thing !!
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14 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badou24
and .................. its the middle of the night ............. and you need a "P "
,,,,,,,,open the tent door all wet on you and get back and more wet !
nice hotel with warm bathroom ?
A few years ago i used to camp all the time , but as you get a wee bit older it does not have the same appeal !
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Things got that bad have they.  I suppose it gets us all in the end 
You're probably right and the reality (my observation of it anyway) seems to be that fewer and fewer people are tent camping. Festivals and special occasions, yes there's loads of people camping at those but during our recent trip it wasn't unusual to find that we were the only people in tents in the entire campsite. In the US we've been refused access to sites because we wanted to use a tent - 'camping' being something done in an RV, not under canvas (or nylon or whatever the fabric is).
It's not all wonderful in cheap hotels (or expensive ones come to that) though. I reckon I can't sleep in the bed in one hotel in three (roughly) as the bed is too soft and I end up with back pain in the morning. It's a little depressing to have to sleep on my camping mat in the hotel room while the bed I'm paying for is unused.
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14 Oct 2022
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Cullis
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I quite like the quirky nature of some of those places and it looks like a site worth bookmarking. I'll have a browse through it in due course, but my initial look was a little eyeopening - I stayed in a campsite in North Devon last weekend that cost me £13, but the place across the road that's on the independenthostels site (I saw signs for when I was there) wanted £285. That didn't seem terribly competitive until I read a bit further and realised that was for 40 places.
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14 Oct 2022
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 dont get me wrong............. when you wake up in the morning and the sun is rising and your by a nice river , away from it and .:........... its dry and warm its great ........... but the reality is most days are wet and nights are damp .  me wild camping in wales !!
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