With Camping and Festival season in full swing Halfords have produced a great guide to all things camping. Perfect for those of you who are new to camping but also full of great tips for the more seasoned pro.

Filled with useful information on great campsites across the UK, and most useful for disorganised types like myself it has a handy camping checklist to ensure you have everything you need for your next trip.

You can download a free copy of the guide here.

I’ve been camping for a long time now, having been through an array of tents and adventures. These days I sit firmly in the glamping camp, I love my creature comforts and a dash of glamour.

Another thing I absolutely adore is festivals.

I love music, the atmosphere and the sense of escapism that is so unique to the festival scene.

We are huge fans of family festivals and I  love that at a young age my children have experienced a couple of major festivals – hopefully my love of the scene will rub off of them too.

This year I’m very lucky. A festival trip away with some friends to celebrate a Birthday.

I’m hugely excited but a few of my friends are new to festivals so have a few nerves – mostly regarding the toilets. 😉

The Halfords guide has a handy section for festival survival, with some great tips such as choosing where to pitch – crucial, and how you can add a bit of luxury to your trip – honestly it can be done!

My usual tent for camping trips is a rather full on, floral, canvas bell tent. However it won’t be coming to V festival.

I don’t want to wreck it and seriously those things weigh as much as a small planet.

The perfect excuse then for a bit of tent browsing.

Fortunately Halfords have launched some great new ranges of tents, you can check them out here. Personally I absolutely adore the Orla Kiely range, providing a dash of fun and glamour but also incredibly practical.

My favourite solution though for festival tents has to be the pop up tent. Bright, light, colourful and cheap enough that if it does get wrecked, well it doesn’t really matter.

Halfords have sent me an Aventura 2 man pop up tent to test.

My initial surprise was how light it is, easy to carry and as it folds up flat is a dream to store and transport.

As the name suggests putting it up is quick and easy, just unfold until it pops up. Peg out the corners and a couple of guy ropes and let the fun begin! 

In fact I was surprised at how quick it was to put up, within five minutes it was up, pegged and ready to go. 

With enough space for one comfortably and room for your gear – what can I say I’m incapable of packing light. As a 2 man tent it is a bit of a squeeze for more than one and therefore quite intimate, but for a short break or festival where you don’t plan on using the tent for much more than grabbing a little bit of sleep, it more than fits the bill.

With it being the height of British summer the tent was naturally tested in the rain. 😉

Thankfully with it being so easy to erect it was quickly up before we got too wet and the taped seams kept us dry in the light rain.

Packing away is again fairly easy, once you’ve mastered the knack of folding it that is – but a helpful video is available if you need to see how it’s done. It did take us a few attempts on the first use.

 Most surprisingly though I’ve actually managed to easily get a tent back in the bag it came in… no mean feat!

If you are used to a more substantial tent this one does seem a little flimsy in comparison but for a cheap festival fix it’s spot on, with less time spent putting it up that leaves more time for having fun, and for me that’s what it’s all about.

This is a collaborative post. I was sent a tent from Halfords for the purpose of testing and honest review.