During the gloomy winter months, my mind often turns to making plans in the summer and seeing as how I’m floating between post-wedding and pre-mortgage money is understandably a little tight, so a budget camping trip is looking like the only chance of a holiday this year. Luckily, I LOVE camping! If you are camping with a family, have friends too lazy to set up their own tent, or just like lots of space, the Saturn 6 from ‘Skandika’ could be exactly what you need.

One of the biggest pains in the butt when it comes to camping is actually pitching your fabric home. It often involves a whole bunch of poles that look exactly the same and trying to work out where on earth they go. The Igloo from Khyam takes away some of the hassle, but using their ‘Khyam Rapidex Quick Erect System’ (no giggling please), where all poles are sewn into the flysheet, all you have to do is simply click them into place which takes a matter of seconds. This makes it easy to move between sites and just sit down with a beer.

When we took the Neoair Dream out camping we also took out a bog standard blow up Argos basic air bed, once they were blown up, my partner, being a gentleman, asked me which I would prefer I looked at the Neoair Dream and then the thicker basic bed and choose that, epic mistake! In the morning my air bed had deflated so much my butt was touching the ground it was really uncomfortable and the material itself felt horrible if it touched my skin, so I made a big fuss and he gave up the Neoair dream to me for night two.

When you think about hammocks the first image that comes to mind might be a large net hammock hanging between palm trees on a sun kissed beach but lately it has become a growing trend to exchange the traditional tent for a sleep hammock. Norwegians have a wonderful relationship with their countryside and camping is very popular out there so when we received the Norwegian designed Amok Draumr 3.0 hammock I already had high hopes and I wasn’t disappointed.

This British company started out creating body warmers in the 70s but truly made a name for itself when they started making lightweight and low pack size sleeping bags, still made in a Yorkshire mill today Snugpak prides itself on creating high quality sleeping bags for all kinds of conditions. The Softie Elite 4 is a 3-4 season sleeping bag meaning you can use it throughout the year into early winter (something a bit warmer might be necessary for mid-winter conditions), suitable for up to -15°c.

Sleeping bags are where it all began for Rab and to this day they are still the core of the brand, hand filled in Derbyshire they take pride in using high quality European goose down. The Andes 800 uses 800g of goose down and is suitable for 8000m altitude or on exposed belays, in temperatures as low as -22°C.  Rab have also just been RDS certified for sourcing all of their goose down ethically from Europe, this is a seal of approval and a massive plus to them as being transparent with their down production.

Have you even been put in charge of tea duty whilst out in the wilderness, only to turn you back for a second and then find the whole thing has tipped over? The Primus Lite+ stove features a unique locking system and a lower burner that makes the whole system much more sturdy than the usual camp stove.  There are so many great little things about this stove, firstly it packs down to a really compact little bundle, if you are using a 100-gram gas cartridge, that and all the accessories can be safely stored inside the 500ml cooking pot.

The Collaps Kettle by Outwell is a collapsible camping kettle made from a combination of stainless steel and silicone, available in 1.5LT or 2.5LT, and is part of the Outwell Collaps camping kitchen range.

This four-person dinner set consists of 4 x 250ml mugs, 4 x 26cm dinner plates and 4 x 13cm deep bowls. They are available in either green, blue or off-white; we tested the off-white option.

As my friends and I get older, our annual camping trip has progressed from 2 man tents, ground mats and a tin of beans to a miniature village with all the latest camping gadgets and creature comforts. The Coleman FastPitch Air Valdes 4 Person Tent is just the thing to knock my friends’ pop-up tents out of the park; the Valdes offers idiot-proof erection due to its inflatable pole system, with a high pressure valve for quick inflation and deflation, meaning  the tent can easily be put up by one person.