I was reading a forum post about the Boat and Caravan show at the NEC which said it felt like camping was the poor man's alternative to caravaning. To be fair to the poster, they were referring to the way the NEC show is laid out. The caravaning section is central and glamorous whereas the camping section is shoved into a corner and a bit drab.

This idea that camping is the poor man's alternative to caravaning is one that I think is quite common and totally wrong. As I see it the two activities are very different, they just happen to take place in the same venue. I think it's like saying sailing is the poor man's motor-boating.

Camping involves building yourself a shelter and making it habitable. OK moderns tents are pretty sophisticated and the accessories available now make things quite homely, but the basic principle is still there. You arrive and there is nothing there and then you build your shelter. you then live within the constraints of the shelter you've built, which is very different from the way you live at home. There is no running water, sink, shower or (usually) toilet in your tent. Heating if there is any is rudimentary. You sleep on the floor. You cook outside on a basic stove or a camp fire. you spend the evening sitting under the stars chatting.

Caravaning on the other hand, involves towing what is basically a compact version of your house to a different location. Then going about business as if you were at home in that new location. You've got running water, a sink, a shower and a toilet. You can sit and watch TV. You have a cooker, a microwave, an oven and a fridge. OK the caravan is relatively compact but the way you live in it bears more similarity, in my opinion, to the way you live in a house that the way you would live in a tent.

I'm not saying that one is better than the other I'm just saying that camping and caravaning are different. One isn't the poor man's alternative to the other. They are chalk and cheese, some prefer one, some prefer the other.

I think the most obvious manifestation of the difference can be seen if you go to a campsite that has both. Look at the caravaning field and then the camping field and they are like different planets, perhaps that's it ... Campers are from Mars and Caravanners are from Venus.