Disclaimer: we were kindly gifted a motorhome to review at Gloworm Festival thanks to Hey Campers, however all words are our own honest opinions
We’ve visited festivals for several years in our trusty blue tent. As a mum on her own with a small child at a festival, I’m confident I know how to put our tent up by myself and how to easily put it away too. We love camping and have found ways around most of the challenges of it – it doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but I do love it!
However, I’ve dreamed of taking some kind of live-in vehicle to a festival, and thanks to Hey Campers in Leicestershire, I had the opportunity of doing just that at Gloworm Festival 2022.
Was it everything I hoped and dreamed of? Yes! Here’s just 10 of the reasons why…
1. Simply park up & party
It’s so much easier and quicker to get started in a motorhome. You simply turn up to the festival campsite (make sure you have a live-in vehicle pass as they’re often a different field), plug the electricity in, and you’re ready to party.
In complete contrast, with a tent you often have a long walk to/from the festival campsite, carrying/dragging your stuff up/down a hill, putting you into a deep sweaty mess before you’ve even started erecting the tent, setting up the beds and getting everything inside, while making sure your kid hasn’t eaten the entire weekend’s stash of snacks.
We love camping, don’t get me wrong… this was just waaaaay easier!
2. The weather isn’t a problem
Rain? It’s fine, you’re going to be dry. Sun, heat? It may be warm, but you’re sure happy to not be under a canvas, let alone setting up/putting down a soggy tent if the heavens open on the last day.
Gloworm happened to fall in a 33-degree heatwave – I can safely say I was happy not to have had to put a tent up in the heat!
What’s more, you have a lovely awning that simply winds out from your van to help keep you dry or give you shade if needed.
Nights are beautifully cosy and even if it’s a bug-fest, you’re protected with the bug blinds on all the windows and doors (thanks Poppy!)
3. You can wash properly!
Ahhh, yes, the good old running water you take for granted in most places. Unless you’re filling your bottle or using a flooded festival shower (that you’ve generally queued to use), you’re unlikely to come across running water at a festival. It’s just a fact you get used to.
However, with Hey Campers, this was totally revolutionised and in the 33 degree heat, covered in sweat, suncream, grass, dust and goodness what else, I was so thankful to have had a sink with running water and our very own shower to enjoy.
4. You have your very own toilet
I think after years of festivals, we’re used to portaloos, and to be fair to the ones at Gloworm Festival, they’re the cleanest portaloos I’ve ever come across at a festival – always with toilet paper and 99% of the time they were beautifully clean.
However in the night, when we’re camping, I’m not leaving Lily in the tent on her own, nor waking her up just to trek across a field at 2am to visit a compost plastic toilet, so we generally use our own camping toilet, aka a bucket with a toilet seat lid.
With Poppy from Hey Campers, it was so lovely to not have to use our little bucket and I could just pop into our own little shower room and use the toilet, without a care in the world.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Hey Campers was like having your own hotel room in the middle of a festival field – definitely the best of both worlds 🙂
5. You have a fridge
For weekends at festivals, we take our handy little cooler box, however in the heatwave (did I mention the heatwave?!), even our travel mints were melting.
Having a proper fridge in our Hey Campers motorhome meant we could take a 4-pint of fresh milk for breakfasts and tea/coffee, a full picnic and some cans of drink.
Not only was it really nice to have everything on hand, perfectly chilled, whenever we needed it, but it also saved loads of money on festival food/drinks too.
6. You don’t need to pack the kitchen sink…
… because the team at Hey Campers have thought of everything!
When you’re camping, you literally have to pack everything, from loo roll to your washing up bowl.
With Hey Campers motorhomes, you have your beds, cutlery, bin bags, toilet roll… even an array of miniature toiletries… so all you need to pack are your food and drinks, your festival trailer and your choice of festival outfits!
If you don’t own all the camping equipment too (which I know can be an expense in itself), you have it all for you in the motorhome already, without having to worry if you’re missing something – let alone having to drag it all across a festival campsite!
7. It is quieter
We slept so well in our Hey Campers motorhome. You forget until you get to a festival campsite that canvas on the tents is thin, so you can always hear every sound from your campsite neighbours. In our Hey Campers motorhome, it was so quiet.
Yes, you’re always going to get noise from the neighbours, but we barely noticed it in the motorhome, which makes a big difference for us as earlybirds, rather than listening to our campsite neighbours* raving ’til the early hours 🙂
*rave if you want to rave, it’s totally our choice for going to bed early – you do you!
8. It is easier when on your own
I tend to head to festivals solo with Lily, which does have its own challenges, including carrying our equipment to the campsite (which usually takes 2-3 car trips), setting it all up by myself and getting it all back to the car afterwards (another 2-3 car trips!).
Gloworm Festival’s campsite is noticeably closer to the car park than most other festivals, which already makes a difference, but in a motorhome then you don’t actually need to go anywhere with your stuff, making it so much easier when on your own too – particularly at the end of the weekend when you really don’t want to leave anyway!
At some festivals, I’ve had to take advantage of kids’ camps or festival nannies to be able to do the long trek with the stuff back to the car (several times) as it is a long way for Lily’s little legs doing an hour round trip to the car with a load of camping stuff up a hill, so a motorhome is already a game changer for this!
9. You have so much storage
Our little Focus is usually filled to that absolute brim with camping stuff, and that’s the reduced version that we’ve learned we can get by with at festivals. If we are heading for a longer trip, including table, chairs, washing up stuff and even more cooking stuff, it barely squeezes into the car.
With the motorhome, not only do you already have everything you need for sleeping, cooking and washing, not to mention all your outdoor furniture, so you don’t need to bring it all with you, but you also have a huge ‘garage’ area at the back to store everything you do want to bring as well as cupboards throughout the motorhome, so you can take all your luxuries with you too!
We take a festival trolley, wind breaker and extra clothing to festivals, which all fitted so well into the back of the motorhome, without needing to squeeze any of it in – so if you do want to take any extra glittery outfits (plus have a shower room and mirror to dress up in), then the motorhome totally has your back!
10. Unplug and head home
When you’re in that post-festival lull, not wanting to leave, but knowing you have to put the tent down and trek it back to the carpark in another field, you often start to wonder why you do it. You’re tired, may have a sore head, the kids may be grumpy, but you know it’s your job to not only put down the tent and get it back to the car, but also to drive home too.
In complete contrast, it’s so much quicker in a motorhome. Not only are you not craving that post-festival shower (see point 3), but you can simply unplug the vehicle and head on your way.
The 3am Diary 