Camping in the wild.......

[#1]

I have never been camping, either on a campsite ( though we did have a caravan for one season which I don`t consider to be camping) or "in the wild".

By camping, I mean surviving in the wild in t he countryside, woodland, . ..in a tent, ... .for a week or more....

What I have wondered about, is how do you manage to keep all the bugs, mice, rats , and other undesirable creatures from invading your tent.  ...  is it safe to leave your tent unattended with all your belongings, while you go hiking or to the "local" shop for milk and bread?

[#2]

I go camping fairly often either in a tent or ‘bivvy bag’ which is basically a small tent that just fits you, and you can leave the head covering open to see and sleep under the stars at night. 

If the tent or bivvy’s covered up then generally nothing can get in.

In the summer especially near water, you do run the risk of midges though when you’re outside walking or around a campfire or similar. 

Leaving your tent etc unattended is normally fine as there’s generally other people around doing the same thing so there’s a degree of trust. 

[#3]

The family used to go camping quite a bit when I was a young teenager, never had a problem with other campers. Like Anoush said, there was always a degree of trust.

Compared to todays camping it really was roughing it, tent was canvas that needed water proofing each year, no fly sheet or built in ground sheet, cooking on a single primus stove for 5 of us, not sure how we ever all got fed on the same day, but we had some really good times and sometimes still go down the 'remember when' route.

[#4]

I've not camped for over 50 years.

For any who know Snowdonia, in my youth a handful of us used to park at Ogwyn Cottage and strike off to camp on the banks of Llyn Idwal, beneath the Glyders.

We never had trouble with rats or security only rain. I remember our A Frame Scooter tent falling down on us at 2am in the pouring rain and the joy of being continually cold and soaking wet. I remember drinking water from a mountain stream and commenting on how pure it tasted, only to find a dead sheep lying in it a bit further upstream. We had a rule of always keeping one dry change of clothes in the car. This was fine to go to the pub in the evening but on getting back late at night we had the joy of changing back into stinking wet clothes for the trek back up the valley to the sopping tent. After a couple of nights we gave up and slept in the car, the next day we plucked up the courage to get back into our wet clothes and go and recover the tent.

I went off camping in the Welsh hills!