Campsites open all year: the Winter Campsite Index

It means the gate isn't locked in January. It doesn't always mean the whole site carries on as it does in August, and that is the part worth reading twice.

Some sites close their grass pitches for the winter and keep only the hard-standing. Walnut Farm at Waxham, on the Norfolk coast, says its grass hook-up pitches run from 1 April to 31 October, so a winter visit means a hard pitch. At the other end of Britain, Sango Sands at Durness stays open from 1 November to 19 March for self-contained vans only: power, water and waste, but no toilets or showers. If your van has no washroom, that changes the whole trip.

So the index keeps each site's own words in a column of their own. "Open all year" from a farm with five pitches and "open all year" from a holiday park with a shop and a heated toilet block are both true. They are not the same night.

You will arrive at a winter site in a different mood from a summer one. The light goes early, the reception may be a bell on a farmhouse door, and the field you pictured can be a quiet row of three vans with their blinds already down. That quiet is the reason to go.

Every site the ten Park Up & Walk guides cover that says it stays open through the winter, plus the few that open over Christmas and close in January. Each row links to the site's own page, so you can check it again before you set off. Seasons change, and so do dog rules.

The count below comes straight from the index. A small number doesn't mean a region is closed for winter: it means fewer sites near the walks in that book say so in writing. Others may open on request, and the only way to know is to ask.

For 10 of the 28 winter sites, yes. Most of those are Certificated Locations: small sites on farms and smallholdings that the Caravan and Motorhome Club lists for its members, typically with room for up to five vans. They are small and quiet, and in winter you may have one to yourself.

The Club's larger campsites are a mix. Moreton-in-Marsh and Cirencester Park in the Cotswolds welcome non-members, the Club says. The Castleton Club Campsite in the Peak District is for members only. The index marks every members-only site so you can see at a glance whether a membership would open up your region.

A winter site is often a small operation in its quiet season, and the person who answers the phone may also be the person feeding the sheep. A short call saves a wasted drive. These are the questions worth asking, in the order they tend to matter.

1. Which pitches are open? Grass can be closed or waterlogged in winter, so ask whether you will be on hard-standing, and whether a long or heavy van will fit it.
2. Is the water on? Ask whether the outside taps stay on in a hard frost, and if not, which one does. Knowing saves a cold hunt in the dark.
3. Are the toilets and showers open, and heated? If your van has its own washroom this matters less. If it doesn't, it decides the trip.
4. Is there hook-up, and at what rating? A heater, a kettle and a hairdryer on the same supply can trip a low-rated post. Ask before you plug in three things at once.
5. What time can we arrive, and what if we are late? Ask whether they would rather you arrived in daylight. If the roads are bad and you are running late, ring ahead rather than turning up after dark.

You will often get more than you asked for: the best pub that still serves food on a Monday, the lane to avoid after rain, the walk the owner takes the dog on every morning. Write it down. It is the kind of local knowledge no guidebook can keep up with, and all it costs is a phone call.

Four sites in the guides open for the Christmas and New Year fortnight and then close for the rest of the winter. They are useful for a festive break, and no use for a February trip. Their dates, as each site gives them, are in the last rows of the index. Low Wray on the shore of Windermere, run by the National Trust, gives the latest closing date of the four: 17 January 2027.

The two clubs agree on what matters most. Keep yourselves warm, and keep the water and the drains from freezing. Gas is the other one.

• Gas. Butane doesn't turn to gas as the temperature falls to around freezing, the Caravan and Motorhome Club says, so switch to propane for winter touring. The Camping and Caravanning Club puts it the same way: only propane, in the red cylinders, will carry on working in winter.
• Water. Below zero an outside water container can partly freeze, so keep a small container of water inside the van as well. On-board tanks are less likely to freeze than outside ones.
• Waste. Drain the grey water into a bucket rather than a tank: frozen waste is easier to deal with in a bucket. If you use anti-freeze in the waste or the toilet, use a glycol-free caravan one, never car anti-freeze.
• Power. Tank heaters can flatten a leisure battery, so they are best used on hook-up. That makes the hook-up column in the index worth a look: 24 of the 28 winter sites say they have it.

Then there is the light. You will want to be back at the van, kettle on, before half past four for most of December. Plan the walk around the sunset, not the other way round.

Most winter trips are on ordinary roads in ordinary weather. When they aren't, the Highway Code is plain. In ice and snow, stopping distances can be ten times greater than on dry roads, even on treated roads. Drive slowly in as high a gear as you can, and accelerate, brake and steer gently. You must clear snow and ice from every window and keep your lights and number plates clean, and clear snow off the roof that could fall on someone else.

Arrive in daylight if you can. A farm lane you have never driven is a different road in the dark, and a small site's owner will thank you for not ringing the bell at nine at night.

The whole index downloads as a spreadsheet-ready CSV or as JSON. Every row carries the site's own page and a link back to its row here, so a figure lifted into an article, a forum answer or a newsletter can always be traced to where it came from. You're welcome to quote it and reuse it. Please credit Park Up & Walk and link to this page. A ready-made citation is in the box at the end.