I’m always partial to a bit of glamping in Cornwall, but this weekend we did it safari style!

It’s funny because my best friend Olivia currently happens to be in Africa on an actual safari right now! I wonder if we’ll be able to compare notes?

After a busy Summer that seems to have flown by without warning, I definitely feel I haven’t lived up to my full ‘camping potential’ this year. Sleeping in the outdoors is one of my favourite things, and sadly we simply haven’t had much of a chance to do that over the past few months.

However, last weekend Alex and I were invited to Trevella Park (an award-winning camping park in Crantock near Newquay) to stay in one of their safari tents for a few days. I was super excited for a chance to have a weekend outdoors and fulfil my cravings for camping. We packed up a car full of stuff (along with two excited dogs) on Friday evening and drove to Crantock, unsure of what to expect from a safari glamping experience – I never knew these things existed!

We drove the car up to the safari glamping area of the park, and released the dogs to have an explore around our home for the weekend. I couldn’t believe how cool the safari tent was; a wooden foundation and structure covered in a thick canvas tent with doors, windows, and electric rig and different sections on the inside. It was huge!

Housing up to 5 guests, the tents have two bedrooms (with real beds, all made up for our arrival), a full equipped kitchenette (with a fridge, microwave, hob and kettle) and even a TV, sofa, gas stove and dining table too. We stayed in a pet friendly safari tent, so there was a bed and blankets ready for the dogs too.

One of my favourite things was our private ‘ensuite’; our very own bathroom block just outside that only we had access to with a key. Housing a toilet, sink, mirror, shower and even a heater, it was beautifully clean and self-contained so no bugs could get in either. It was amazing to have this to ourselves, meaning we didn’t have to worry about cleanliness or taking our stuff to-and-from the tent – we could just leave everything there as you would a normal bathroom and lock it up behind you! Honestly, this was a transformational glamping feature that I think I will definitely be missing when I camp anywhere else in the future…

We unpacked our things (although it turned out, we didn’t need much! Everything was already there for us) and with bellies rumbling, drove down 5 minutes to park near the Bowgie Inn to take the dogs on a walk along the coast path to Crantock beach. It was a beautiful, mild September evening, and the dogs had a great time leaping about on the sand.

We decided to have dinner at The Bowgie Inn, sat on their decking with the dogs. However we quickly regretted our choice after a quick look at their Tripadvisor page, but at this point we had already ordered and were too hungry to care. Predictably, our food showed up and it was pretty awful – I wouldn’t recommend eating there at all (and neither would Tripadvisor!) but luckily there are plenty of other places to eat in the area instead.

Trevella Park itself has a takeaway which does burgers, pizzas and other food, though we didn’t try this ourselves so hard to say what that’s like, but it’s cool that they have this onsite in case you’re feeling a bit lazy! They also have a small convenience shop onsite too, as well as an outdoor pool, an adventure playground for the kids, a fishing lake, crazy golf, summer ‘ranger’ activities for kids, a laundrette, and even a dog groomers too. The facilities looked great, and although we didn’t use all of them (opting for beach excursions instead!) it was good to see such a variety of things to do on this large site.

On the Saturday we went to a supermarket to stock up on snacks so we were fine on the food front, and decided to head to Crantock beach with the dogs again. Crantock is dog friendly all year round, and you can actually walk to the beach from the campsite too! The tide was high when we wanted to go though (the path down to the beach gets cut off at high tide), so we went down to the car park instead.

Maizy and Pepper had a great time running around by the water’s edge and up and down the sand dunes. It was so nice to spend time all together as usually our Saturdays are quite busy. Walking the dogs together is one of my favourite things!

I loved how dog friendly Crantock was as a whole, and Trevella Park made the pups feel very welcome too. I think they rather enjoyed snuggling up next to the stove in the evenings, and lazing outside on the decking for a sunbathe while I sat out on the table there drinking tea and reading my book, listening to the birds and just generally enjoying being outdoors!

We had a fantastic weekend that felt really unique. I would definitely recommend trying a safari tent experience – it was so fun and totally different to anything I’ve stayed in before! It would be great fun with kids too, I’m sure, as the tents are big enough to have plenty of space. It was also really nice to stay there off-season, as the park was lovely and quiet!

* Trevella kindly hosted us for a free stay over the weekend, but all thoughts are my own – we had an amazing time!