We are quite an Internet-savvy lot as you may have worked out (running a website is not something most people consider doing). In fact we're a bit addicted to using the Net. So going camping and not having access is a nice idea from the getting away from it all point of view but it's also a bit scary to think of the withdrawal symptoms. Even in the getting away from it all scenario I can still see how having some access to the Net would be really very useful for planning  trips, finding local places of interest or just working out what the weather's going to be like tomorrow.

So with that in mind I thought I'd look at how you would go about it, how realistic it is and what the benefits and pitfalls might be.

First of all you need a couple of things in order to get access to the Net wherever you are, a connection and something to connect to it. At home most people have some sort of fixed line connection (ADSL, Cable, Dial-Up) and a PC of some sort (usually a big ugly beige box in the corner of the room somewhere). Neither of these are available on a campsite and so alternatives need to be found.

In this first post I'll look at the 2 main options for getting a connection, Wifi and 3G.

Wifi

Some campsites are beginning to offer wifi hotspots on site and they are also available in coffee shops, pubs, kids soft play-areas and so on. As it's a patchy coverage it means that your Net access is restricted to when you are within reach of a hotspot, but if that happens to be when you are back at camp that would be ideal.

There is a directory website that is dedicated to European campsites with wifi (if you can read Dutch).

In the UK you can add 'wifi' as a criteria on The Camping and Caravanning Club's SiteSeeker site, which reports 19 of it's sites have wifi access. It's also possible to add 'Internet Access' as a criteria on the ukcampsite.co.uk search.

As it's a low cost service which is relatively easy for site owners to supply I'd assume that there will be more sites offering it soon. The descriptions of what is on offer are somewhat patchy. Some sites say "Internet Access" but others give very detailed descriptions for example "An internet connection service to each pitch is currently on trial at no extra cost. This service is not yet assured so please check in advance if you have a requirement.". As with anything you may be specifically interested in it's probably best to check what's on offer at what price before you book. The other thing to remember is that 'Internet Access' could mean access to a PC in the site office when it is open, which is not really what we're after here.

3G

3G has a more widespread coverage as it's supplied over the mobile phone network. So pretty much anywhere you can get a phone signal you can get 3G access. Obviously that's not everywhere and often the very places that are nice to camp are also those places where the signal is patchiest, for example in the middle of a forest. 3G requires you to have some sort of contract with a phone operator and possibly a dongle to get access. The cost of the connection depends on which particular deal you have gone for. Most 3G deals include the hardware that you use to connect, this is usually some sort of smartphone (like an iPhone) but it could also be a laptop or netbook. The disadvantage to this type of connection is that you would need to pay for the access all year round even if all you want it for is camping. The flipside of course is that many people already have such access bundled into their mobile phone contracts.