Immense tents

Team Sluttery is divided on the issue of camping. For Sara, it's a no-go, while Sian quite enjoys spending nights in tarpaulin. I regard it as a sometimes necessary evil. And, like all evils, it's something that can be made better with improved shopping options. Yep, I'm superficial but a pretty tent is going to increase the likelihood of me camping tent-fold.

Most varied of the options come via Field Candy who we've featured before: their crazy designs are also available through shops including Urban Outfitters. But it's also worth checking out their website for limited edition designs, such as the fine plumage on this Birds of a Feather tent. It's designed by Philip Gatwood and is £495.

For a much cheaper, but an equally well-feathered nest, check out this retro birdy pop-up tent. It's reduced to only £30 in the Millets sale.

Blacks also have a bit of a bargain in stock at the moment. This pretty teepee meadow tent, sleeps up to ten of friends (pick your friends carefully in such close circumstances), and has been reduced from £300 to £99.

For anyone who can't bear being without their phones, Bang Bang are the tent makers for you. They come in a colourful range of patterns - I especially love these jelly beans - and include a solar panel and storage bank so you can charge those cameras, phones, speakers and everything else you need to enjoy the great outdoors. It's £200 from Urban Outfitters.

If you have a hankering to do camping on a grander scale, check out the bell tents available from Boutique Camping. Their website notes that this '4m tent is perfect for couples but can sleep up to 5/6 people, luxuriating in an open-plan bedroom'. While I wait to be convinced by their use of the word 'luxuriating', it's undeniably nice to have a tent you can stand up in. Such luxury costs £459.

From the potentially sublime to the ridiculous. This is the Empire beach tent, enabling you to make a shoreside change of clothes with dignity. I'm sure the humiliation of carrying this onto the beach almost beats the humiliation of accidently flashing your breasts at a grandad while changing after a dip. Or you could set this up in your garden for snoozy summers in the shade. Pick one up for £295 from Deckchair Stripes. 

We've already shown you the genius that is the camper van tent (now available in new colours), but for transportation tent delights it's got to be Firebox's London Underground Tent, Escape from being crammed in on the tube each morning by being crammed in this tent with 19 of your mates instead. It's something of an attention grabber though, as this Mirror article points out. It's also £1999.

But, for my ultimate tent fantasy, it's got to be Anthropologie's Altair tent. Priced at an equally fantastical £5998, I'd expect it to come complete with this beach setting too. But for convincing me that camping could actually be fun, it's definitely the one. 

Sluttery Travels: The Pop-Up Hotel

There are pop ups popping up everywhere. London seems particularly more full of pop ups than it is pop up books (a ratio that frankly needs to swing back the other way). Some of them are great and a while ago they were exciting, but it's all a little bit 'so what?' these days.

And then there's the Pop Up Hotel. And I really want to stay here.

The Pop Up Hotel has popped up a few places since its launch in 2011, but in a couple of weeks it'll be popped up outside the River Cottage in Devon, looking very swish indeed.

The Pop Up Hotel are canny - they've got to mix a sexy boutique hotel with the romance of sleeping under a canvas tent in a sunny location. But with English weather. That's not at all easy, but with a clever design and some gorgeous interiors, I think they've cracked it. For a start, their rooms have interiors. No tent I've ever stayed in has had that little luxury. Unless you count a pillow fashioned out of seven coats and the grumpy look on my face.

The Pop Up Hotel is popping up at a few events over the summer and if you're lucky enough to bag a River Cottage date, it's about £500 for three nights. Don't think of it as a very expensive campsite, it's more than that. It's a boutique hotel that be folded up and taken to another destination for someone else to have adventures in.

Sluttery Travels: The Beer Moth, Scotland

I'm not quite ready to be back at work. My brain hasn't quite switched from festive laziness to 'wahey! 2012!' yet. I am a fug of Benedict Cumberbatch, red wine and the rubbish toffee sweets leftover from the Christmas stash, all wrapped up in a Slanket.

It's brilliant.

As I'm not ready to get out of my holiday head just yet, I thought I'd share this excellent little holiday destination with you.

The Beer Moth is a strange little destination. Just look at it. Yep. It's a hotel room on the back of a truck in Scotland. It's actually part of the famed Inshriach House in Inverness. The Beer Moth was rescued from the Manston Fire Museum in Kent and has since had a little bit of a makeover.

With oak floorboards rescued from a Tudor mansion and a Victorian bedstead in place, this isn't your average B&B. It's not even your average truck anymore.

Oooh, that chair is nice.

The Beer Moth has been refurbished with the most unusual of touches. The back wall is an old doghouse,  the hearth and fireplace an old snooker table slate. There was a stuffed squirrel, but he's gone walkabout. Lots of love has gone into this conversion. Lots of bizarre and bemusing love.

Yeah, that view is rubbish.

If you fancy waking up to this for a couple of days, The Beer Moth is available for booking via Canopy & Stars from February 16th. It's around £120-£135 a night at the moment and the price creeps up to £170 in August. It's the prettiest truck hotel I've ever seen.

Baby, You Can Drive My... Tent?

Festival and holiday season may be coming to a close but there's no reason not to start planning ahead. I recently spent a week camping in Cornwall in a very functional tent and envying people pootling round in VW Camper vans. I can't afford a camper van but if I needed a new tent, I could afford this which is *almost* as good. A camper van tent! Amazing.

As well as looking cool, it's also practical. It's based on the same dimensions as a 1965 T1 Camper Van and sleeps up to four people. It also has a sewn in ground sheet and two separate rooms. It'd certainly stand out and makes a nice change to all those Cath Kidson and Union Flag tents.

If you want one, they come in red, yellow or blue and are available for pre-order from Firebox for £299.99

Sluttery Travels: The Lovestruck, Scotland

I didn't think that I'd be writing about a horse box today. But until this morning, I didn't know about The Lovestruck, a cabin converted from a horse box into a cute little Scottish haven.


Now, The Lovestruck isn't exactly five star accommodation. But it's cute. Like a really rustic caravan.


There's a double bed, and also a fold out double as well, so it's great for a getaway with friends, as well as a little romantic hiding spot. But where is it?


At the moment, The Lovestruck is currently in Mhor, Perthshire. It's right by Loch Voli. Now, I've not been, but I'm fairly certain that no loch in Scotland is ugly. Lake views, rolling hills, countryside - all dead certs here.


If you're not smitten with the idea of totally roughing it, you're right by Mhor Hotel so if you fancy popping in for breakfast, you can. They'll even make up a breakfast basket for you so you can sit outside in the sun with your tea and toast.

Fancy staying here? A two night stay in The Lovestruck will cost just £250 and you can book through Canopy & Stars. Bet you didn't think you'd consider stay in a horse box today, did you?

Festival Fun: Bunny Sleeping Bag from Anorak

I'm not really very good at 'roughing it'. I try, but I'd much rather someone put me up in a pretty B&B instead of making me sleep in a tent. Camping is cold! There are bugs! The ground is bumpy! But, I'm really excited by Secret Garden Party next month, so I'm going to buy this bunny sleeping bag from Anorak. At least the inside of my tent will look pretty.