About us

Thanks for your interest in Cool Camping. The Cool Camping concept was born after travel writer Jonathan Knight and friends spent an idyllic weekend camping in Caerfai Bay campsite, South Wales in spring 2005. A memorable sun-filled three days of walking, surfing, drinking cider at a country pub and trying to cook sausages on an extremely sloping barbecue, was followed by a long drive back to Peckham. On the motorway, idle banter turned to the subject of another camping trip, but where to go? What campsite could possibly match the one just visited; a cliff-edge site with views out across the sea and organic sausages on sale at the farm shop? There followed a trip to the local bookshop, but all the camping books were aimed at caravanners, and consisted of thousands of directory-style campsite listings. Not one book sorted the wheat from the chaff. And there was certainly plenty of chaff.

There was a desperate need for a book that understood contemporary campers and delivered what they wanted; a hand-picked selection of outstanding tent-oriented campsites.

A light came on in the modestly-sized brain of author Jonathan Knight's head. And that light was the spark of an idea that was to become Cool Camping: England; a revolution for campers and a 256-page book of nothing but great English campsites. Lots of pictures and even more words have been combined to create something very special; a book that actually tells today's campers what they want to know. What are the downsides of each site as well as the upsides? Where's the nearest decent pub? What is there to do if it rains? Really useful stuff to make planning a camping weekend easy and fun. But Cool Camping: England was just the start. The series now includes Wales, Scotland, France, Europe, Cool Camping: Kids, the Cool Camping Cookbook and the Cool Camping Guide to Festivals! And this year we've also published a guide to the best diminutive campsites around – Tiny Campsites. We're just gonna keep on going for as long as the canvas crowd desire!

To get a flavour of what Cool Camping is all about, check out the video below, filmed at Eweleaze Farm. If you haven't been camping before, the views might just inspire you to give it a go!

The Cool Camping series is published by Punk Publishing – the folk behind the Wild Swimming series, Taste Britain and A Brit Different. They're not like a normal publisher. Sure, they do books. But not any old books. They only do books that they really care about. You can find out more about what they do by clicking here.