Stephen Neale - Camping by the Waterside: The best campsites by water in Britain and Ireland

Ill tell you a secret. These islands are the best in the world to go camping. Its not a Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown-style revelation. But it does involve multiples of the number three. Britain and Ireland are an archipelago of 6,000 islands divided and surrounded by six seas, 600 rivers and canals and 30,000 lakes. They are home to more campsites-by-water per square mile than anywhere else on earth. Only no one realised, or if they did, theyve kept it quiet.

Why? Ive no idea, because these regions also enjoy the mildest seasons found anywhere (neither hot nor cold posh people call it temperate). So mild, in fact, that the three largest camping organisations in the world are based here, with a total membership of almost six million. Those who should know better still stop me and ask whats so special about a pitch by the water. They might describe a wonderful campsite in the Yorkshire Dales, the New Forest or Snowdonia, several miles from a river or lake, but stunningly beautiful. Well, yeah, I whisper. Maybe when the suns out. What about when it rains every day for a week?

Demystifying the myths about camping and caravanning in a damp corner of the northern hemisphere is a challenge. Its not all good, Ill grant you. Pitched up at the foot of the Dales in a three-day downpour surrounded by grazing Fresians, puddles and damp ditches can be depressing. But the combination of lake, wetsuit, boats, fishing rods and campsite amounts to fun in any weather. Canoeing, sailing, surfing, swimming and snorkelling dont rely on sunshine they rely on access to a beach or riverbank. And thats what the campsites in this book have. They get you out there.

Until now, most have been kept secret and treasured by the people in the know. And for good reason. No one wants to discover a waterside gem only to see it become over-run with hundreds of tents, campervans, windbreaks, people and 24-hour noise. So I spent five years looking. Looking for those secret hideaways. I did it by trawling around coasts, rivers and lakes.

It all started from the armchair. Staring at OS Maps and staying up into the early hours on Google Earth, using a computer screen to fly over canals and lakes, searching for anything that resembled a tent or caravan. Once a dozen sites had been saved in my favourites, Id head off for a long weekend of camping, sometimes driving all night to explore the area by day. Within four years Id discovered more than one thousand campsites way too many to worry about keeping them secret any longer. From the Gold Coast of County Waterford to the dunes of North Devon, from the Norfolk Broads to the turquoise waters of the Outer Hebrides and the Pembrokeshire path Britain and Ireland are teeming with great spots to camp by water. And the best news of all is that the list just keeps growing and getting better. Every time I get the map out, more campsites have appeared.