British people tend to go on holiday abroad and do not like to stay in the UK. This is because of our involvement in Europe enables us to travel on budget airlines and have package holidays to places like Spain and Germany. Did you know that 13.8million British people travel to Spain each year compared to 1.2 million who go camping each year.

The UK has lots of amazing attractions and places to visit. If you like walking with gorgeous scenery the Peak District and the Lake District are lovely places to visit for that. Scotland has amazing castles and Cornwall has Cornish pasties. All these places don’t seem like they’re places you would visit compared to if you had the money to go to Spain but actually they are. We as a society have just moved on and thought that because it’s cheap to let’s go abroad. But what’s the point If you’re going just to stay in a hotel.

How far away do you need to be to feel like you’re on holiday? Does go to all the amazing places in the UK, with amazing sights cut the bill for you? or are you just one of those people who pay for the sun in Spain because the UK has bad weather and is not seen as being exciting enough for you.

When I was younger I used to go camping a lot with my family of five. I loved going camping because I meant that as a family we went to places like Cornwall. I still have memories today of my childhood camping times, I made friends, went on days out to the zoo, it was great. I did not just go camping just once, we nearly went every year because it was so fun. The Lake District was another favourite place to go when I was younger. By the age of nine I went all the way up Scafell Pike and through all the walks in the Lake District. We were quite adventurous as a family when we went camping, but so where the other families there, so it was like whoever you met you became good friends with.

Now since having the best time camping we have upgraded to a caravan. But the caravan we have is not that far from where we live. So instead of going on five hour journeys to Cornwall, we go on a twenty-minute car ride down the road and hop in our caravan.

At first I felt a bit sceptical about having the caravan so close to our house because it makes you think that your defeating the purpose of camping. But after spending a week there I suddenly realised that it’s great. The caravan is a lot more practical to use and on a sunny day or weekend we can go down and have a barbeque with friends. Also if I run out of clothes one day during the summer I can just go home and get some clothes and some essentials that I forgot.

When I go to the caravan I still get that feeling that I am on holiday because I have the woods all around me with wildlife spurring around and humming in the trees. Fields either side of me as far as I can see with the farmer’s livestock in it. It’s as if I have escaped the London smog by only being twenty minutes away from home in Kent. But I feel as if I am 4 hours away from home.

The idea of a holiday is getting away from your repetitive usual life of going to work and earning money. I think that going to the caravan that is only twenty minutes away really makes you forget all of that. When you’re in your caravan next to someone else’s caravan you could be richer than the other person but it’s as if that does not matter because you feel far from home. When I go caravanning only twenty minutes away you make friends with a lot of people who are in the same situation as me, living close to the campsite. It’s great because I made good friends with people by doing that. I also get to explore places near me that I would not usually go to in Kent. Brands hatch is close, go ape and other places like Charles Dickens world. So it makes you look at what is near you and what you can go see.

 by Luke Boyton-matthews, Farringtons school