There's a moment every June where someone in a group WhatsApp says "shall we just go camping?" — and the consensus is yes, on the assumption that the weather will hold and someone else owns a tent. By the following Friday three of you are at Halfords at 7pm trying to remember if the airbed punctured last year and whether the pegs in the shed bag are still bent at the top.
The fundamentals — somewhere to sleep, something to peg into hard ground, a way to find your tent at 2am — get sorted last. These are the cheap, specific bits that actually get used. Everything is under £50, none of them need a plug socket, all of them stow small enough to ride in the boot next to a cool box.
If you only buy one piece: the folding camp bed at around £41. Sleeping 22cm off the ground is the single biggest comfort jump in cheap camping, and once you've done it you don't go back to a punctured airbed and a cold groundsheet.
How I'm thinking about this
The brief is the same most summers — a Friday-to-Sunday on a Pembrokeshire field, a Glastonbury-adjacent festival, a kid-friendly site in the Lakes, or a back-garden trial run with the kids before committing to an actual trip. Three filters when picking:
- Folds flat or stows small. Boot space disappears once you've added camping chairs, a cool box and three sleeping bags.
- Works without mains. Half the appeal of camping is being off-grid; anything that needs a plug socket gets demoted to "holiday cottage only".
- Sorts a specific failure mode — wire pegs bouncing out of compacted soil at the edge of a sheep field, phone torches dying at 11pm, the 6am realisation nobody packed a way to make breakfast.
The picks
1. Folding Camp Bed With Mat — £40.99 · The "I'm too old to sleep on the floor" pick
The first proper kit upgrade most people make after one disappointing airbed night is a folding camp bed, and this is a fair entry-level version: a steel frame, a pearl-cotton mat, folds down enough to ride in a car boot next to a cool box. Sleeping 22cm off the ground is the comfort jump that actually matters — you stop feeling every pebble and you stop waking up at 4am thinking the ground is colder than it actually is.
Honest caveat: it's around 7kg with the mat. If you're hauling from a festival car park to a pitch, recruit the trolley brigade — this is not a backpacker bed. The mat is thin pearl-cotton, fine in summer, marginal in a British shoulder season. Pair it with a decent sleeping bag.
- Pros: 22cm off the ground, steel frame, folds for boot storage, no assembly
- Cons: 7kg with the mat, thin padding for cold pitches
- Best for: car campers and festival-goers who want a proper night's sleep
See the folding camp bed on Villalta Home →
2. 2 Pack Portable Camping String Lights — £12.99 · The "find your tent at 2am" pick
These are the bit I genuinely wish I'd had a few years earlier. A 10-metre LED string lives inside a small lantern-shaped housing; pull it out, drape it across your guy lines or zip it round the porch, and your tent is identifiable from the bar across a field. Each unit charges by USB-C — you can top them up from the same battery pack that does your phone. The IP44 rating is sensible for damp British evenings.
The caveats: they're warm-white only (no colour change, which honestly looks better), the lantern body is plastic so don't kick it around, and the magnet on the back isn't strong enough to grip damp metal. Treat them as portable electronics — dry them off before you stash them in the box.
- Pros: 10m per light, USB-C rechargeable, IP44 rated, packs into the lantern body
- Cons: warm-white only, weak magnet on the back
- Best for: festival pitches, garden parties, tent porches at night
See the camping string lights on Villalta Home →
3. 10-Piece Heavy Duty Camping Spikes — £9.99 · The "for the pitch where standard pegs bounce out" pick
Most cheap pop-up tents ship with wire pegs that fold over on the second hit if the ground is even slightly compacted. This is the backup set worth packing: pointed metal shafts with chunky orange T-handles, the kind you can actually grip when you've twisted one too deep. Drive them in with a rubber mallet (or a flat rock — we've all done it) and they'll hold guy lines and awnings on a Yorkshire moor in a stiff breeze.
The T-handle is the genuinely useful detail. Pulling pegs out of dry summer soil at 11am on packing-down day is the kind of small chore that ruins a morning; a proper handle lets you twist them out clean. They're not stainless steel, so dry them and stash them somewhere they won't rust. And it's a 10-piece set — for a six-peg tent you've got spares; for a big family tent you'll want a second set.
- Pros: chunky T-handles, hi-vis orange tops, suitable for hard or rocky ground
- Cons: not stainless steel, 10 may be short for a family tent
- Best for: rocky and compacted UK pitches where wire pegs bend
See the camping spikes on Villalta Home →
4. Non-Stick Stovetop Sandwich Press — £13.99 · The "proper camp breakfast" pick
The bit nobody packs and then regrets. A hinged double-plate press that sits straight on a single-burner gas stove (or the hob in a holiday cottage) and turns a couple of slices of bread, some cheese and whatever filling survived the cool box into a proper toastie. The non-stick coating handles cheese and butter cleanly; jam and honey will leak round the hinge and bother you for the rest of the trip if you let them.
Caveat that's worth flagging: the handle gets properly hot, so bring a tea towel. Expect three to five minutes per toastie over a medium flame — slower than your kitchen sandwich maker, but it doesn't need a plug. Clean it while it's still warm; let it cool with melted cheese inside and you'll be at it with a wooden spatula.
- Pros: works on any gas hob or camp stove, hinged double plate, non-stick coating
- Cons: the handle gets hot, slower than an electric press
- Best for: camp breakfasts, holiday cottages with one good hob ring
See the stovetop toastie press on Villalta Home →
5. USB Rechargeable Camping Shower Pump — £21.45 · The "Sunday morning rinse" pick
The most divisive of the five. A small USB-rechargeable pump that drops into any container of water — a 5L jerry can, a builder's bucket, a washing-up bowl — and feeds a 1.5m hose with a handheld showerhead at the other end. Flow rate is around 4-5 litres per minute, so it rinses rather than washes; for a proper scrub you'll want a wash bag at the shower block. What it's perfect for is the in-between use cases: getting the worst of the mud off the dog before they jump in the car, an end-of-day face wash by the tent, or the post-river-swim rinse that's still bracingly cold without it.
Battery life is the honest limitation — a full charge is good for two or three short rinses, so top it up overnight from your power bank. The showerhead is light plastic and the suction-cup hook isn't going to win prizes, but for £21 it covers a problem nothing else under £50 really does.
- Pros: USB-rechargeable pump, 1.5m hose included, fits any container
- Cons: rinses rather than washes, battery life limits use to a few rinses per charge
- Best for: dog walkers, wild swimmers, festival-goers, end-of-day rinse offs
See the camping shower pump on Villalta Home →
The verdict
If you've got boot space for one upgrade this summer, it's the camp bed — once you've slept off the ground you struggle to go back. If you're putting together a from-scratch kit and want to keep the whole lot under £100, take the spikes, the string lights and the toastie press and you've covered the three problems that quietly ruin most spontaneous British trips. The camping shower is the bonus addition for anyone with a dog, kids, or a wetsuit in the car.
By the Villalta Home Editorial team, June 2026. Edited by Juan Antonio Villalta Pacheco.
