A Family Adventure at Camp Bestival
As I looked around our living room, I couldn’t help but think this wasn’t going to work. There was one inflatable tent that was bigger than our coffee table, two sleeping bags, a double duvet, air beds for four, two rucksacks, three backpacks, one weekend bag, one cool bag, and a bag of food. It felt like we were preparing for an expedition rather than a family camping trip.
We had two children under ten to fit into the back of the car alongside all of this, but somehow, we managed to get everything packed and set off down the A3 toward Dorset for a four-night stay. This wasn’t our first time at Camp Bestival, the award-winning family festival that marks the start of the summer holidays at Lulworth Castle by the Jurassic coast. In previous years, we’ve used the festival as a starting point for our summer breaks, staying in neighboring counties. This time, however, we aimed to maximize our time on site while improving our camping skills.
Previously, we arrived with little more than clothes and food, enjoying the luxury of pre-pitched glamping options such as bell tents, yurts, and trailers. But with a growing group of friends attending the festival, we wanted to create our own camping community. That meant a military-grade packing list. After a last-minute trip to Decathlon, we had what we hoped would be just as comfortable: an inflatable tent, self-inflating mattress, compact chairs and table, solar fairy lights, and a decent cool bag. Unfortunately, the reality didn’t quite match the expectation. We forgot about the pump for the tent, and even after borrowing one, we struggled to get it to stand up. Maybe poles are easier after all.
After a couple of hours and some friendly help from neighbors, we finally got everything set up, with cold drinks in hand as the kids ran wild with their friends. Other families had even more gear than we did. Alice and Mark, from south London, were at the festival for the first time with their two children, aged four and seven. They were drawn by the free tickets for under-fives, which opened the floodgates to a new audience. They planned to travel on from Dorset to the Isle of Wight for their summer break at a caravan park in St Helens with extended family.
“We had to ask my mum to take some of our stuff for us,” Alice explained. “There was no way we were getting two weeks of clothes in the car.” They’re not alone. Recent research by Ticketmaster shows that festivals are becoming a popular alternative for family holidays, with over two in five parents seeing them as a replacement for traditional summer breaks. More than a quarter of parents said the convenience of staying closer to home was a key reason for choosing a festival over a holiday abroad.
The proximity of ferries to the Isle of Wight was a deciding factor for Alice and Mark’s extended holiday. Meanwhile, almost three quarters of parents believe festivals offer a better way to introduce their children to new cultures and create lasting family memories. According to the State of Play Report by Ticketmaster, more than half of UK festivalgoers now attend with their families.
Our group of five clans made the most of what was on offer. School holiday childcare typically costs £10 per hour, plus packed lunch costs, and might include sports and games or arts and crafts. Camp Bestival tickets cost £210 per adult and £108 per primary-school aged child, covering three days of live music, performances, and a busy program of activities. Over the weekend, our six- and eight-year-olds packed in an hour of football coaching, three hours of pottery and woodland wand making, an hour of potion making, three hours of circus skills, a Horrible Histories: Gorgeous Georgians live show, two circus shows, performances by Taylor Swift tribute act Miss Americana, and hours of street theatre.
Working out at less than £40 per day, ticket-wise, that’s not bad going. Recent holidays at European campsites have included just a fraction of that activity with football and tennis clubs and mini discos. We also took advantage of Camp Kids Extra Passes (£49 per child), which we exchanged for cotton bags with refillable water bottles, daily fresh packed lunches with fruit, and daily ice cream and dinners from selected food trucks each evening. Supplemented with plenty of snacks from our tent, I did not hear “I’m hungry” all weekend.
The thrust of our experience was keeping the children happy and entertained, but their familiarity with the site allowed them some freedom to explore the Dingly Dell woodland and adjoining Little Town area with its sand pits and hula hoops while we watched from the adjoining campsite. A collection of male peacocks proved endlessly fascinating.
I took advantage of the extensive free yoga programming, enjoying an early morning 45-minute session that eased my midlife camping aches, while my husband enjoyed the campsite sauna and cold shower. Friends took off for Lulworth Cove, less than 10 minutes away, for a refreshing morning swim.
Now in its 18th year, Camp Bestival has matured, evolving its wellness offering to a festival-within-a-festival. Founders Rob and Josie Da Bank are developing their Slomo Wellness concept with a growing collection of saunas and retreats on their home turf of the Isle of Wight and nearby Dorset coast. This summer, they decamped to Lulworth Castle to form the new Slomo Wellness field. “Even from the first festival, we had [a wellness offering] there – it was probably called the yoga tent,” Rob said. “It’s an important part of what we do.”
This year’s offering was a sun-drenched haven of tepees and tents offering sound baths, yoga, meditation, reiki, shamanic healing, tarot readings, hot tubs, ice baths, and sauna sessions. “It just made sense to make a bit more of a song and dance about it,” added Rob. “This year I think we had one of the best festival wellbeing offerings out there.” Highlights included an ayurveda workshop with the David Lynch Foundation and a sound bath hosted by Jasmine Hemsley.
But most impressive was that most of it was free, including yoga sessions for families, women, teens, and mental health, as well as family tai chi, and meditation. “That’s really important to us. You don’t have to pay to learn to meditate or try a gong bath,” Rob explained. “There was also some really fun stuff for beginners and family, like a morning shake-out just to get people going,” added Josie. “We wanted to make Slomo more accessible.”
When it came to packing up our tent at the end of the festival (infinitely easier than putting it up, it turned out), we managed to get everything back in the car. But we had to make space for pottery creations and woodland magic wands, and layers of new memories that are still being talked about. Going back to school holiday camps was going to have a lot to live up to.
Early bird tickets for Camp Bestival 2026 (30 July to 2 August) are on sale for a limited time, with prices starting at £210 for adults, £152 for teens, £125 for 10-12 year olds, and £105 for five to nine year-olds, with under-fives going free. A 12-month payment plan is available.
DIY Glamping: How We Did It
We used Decathlon’s Quechua Air Seconds inflatable tent (£600), which had two black-out bedrooms at one end with the option to add a third at the other end, to sleep up to six people. We kept this large, standing-height space for storage and changing. The tent also had lots of storage pockets that were useful for keeping things tidy.
The Quechua Ultim Comfort self-inflating double mattress (£150) is lightweight and folds into a reasonably sized parcel with a carry handle, which makes it easy to transport. It didn’t deflate like traditional camping mattresses and was warm and reasonably comfortable. We used standard inflatable mattresses for the children.
We took two Quechua compact low camping chairs (£35), which fold down into very small and lightweight bags that our children could carry easily. They were also comfortable and felt robust.
The Quechua low compact camping table (£45) was useful at mealtimes, for drinks and coloring-in sessions among the children.
We boiled a Vango kettle (£14) and cooked on a Campingaz Bistro one-burner stove (£24), using an additional griddle plate (£12) for pancakes and toast.
We kept food and drinks cold for a solid 24 hours in the Quechua 35l inflatable fresh camping cooler (£50). Next time I’d freeze a large bottle of water to use instead of ice packs, which melt more quickly.
A touch of glamping fun was added with a string of solar-powered camping fairy lights, widely available online for around £11.
