Gone are the days when camping meant loading your car with pillows and duvets, kettles and lanterns and lugging it all to some remote destination. All you have to do now is tell someone what you want, where you want it, turn up and snap! – there it is, ready for you, just holding its breath waiting for your holiday to begin.
Inspired perhaps by childhood fantasies of faraway trees, mysterious cupboards and enchanted vehicles that whisk you away by magic to wondrous places, some companies are coming up with increasingly inventive self-contained mobile abodes that can be wherever you'd like them to be.
Ever heard of a teardrop trailer? Discover one with Clever Camper (07811 460307, clevercamper.co.uk). These are tiny, gleaming-white, comma-shaped caravans with a double bed, a kitchen and discreet storage as fathomless as Mary Poppins's carpet bag. With interiors of sky blue, lemon yellow and tomato red, they are like a Quentin Blake illustration for the digital age. You can even take them abroad with you.
Or take delivery of a bell tent. Like a mini-big top, full of handwoven mats and comfy low seating, they bring to mind the tents used on desert safaris. Posh Pitches (07855 265952, posh-pitches.co.uk) will deliver them free across a large wedge of the south-west – or to anywhere beyond for an extra fee. The full camping package offers a fully furnished and prepared tent, with everything from bed linen to multicoloured floral bunting. Or you can simply order it empty and pre-pitched.
Either way, when you arrive your tent will be up and dry, ready to begin an adventure as limitless as the Cornish skies.
In Scotland, Trailerflash will deliver you a retro Airstream caravan . Or, if you object to the bulk of a shiny campervan, then you'll be delighted by the hand-painted style of an old-fashioned Gypsy caravan .
It seems these days there are no end of pods and pens, tipis and trailers, but perhaps the one to surpass them all is the Lovestruck.
This converted horsebox is a cross between a chalet, a Gypsy caravan and a treehouse – the kind of mad contraption that would do Heath Robinson proud. Currently residing on the grand lawns of Harptree Court in Somerset, but soon to head north to Loch Lomond, the Lovestruck (thelovestruck.co.uk) can be found, and lived in, in various beauty spots around the country throughout the year.
The interior is a charming patchwork of reused furniture and salvaged wood panelling with a log-burning stove and a vintage mess of cushions and quilts, drawers and rugs; while there are stained-glass windows and a real front door built in. Camping has never looked quite this surreal – nor this tempting.
