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Andrew Jameson enjoys home comforts, enjoying a much-needed getaway at the well-run Cayton Village Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite on the beautiful North Yorkshire coast
A perfect rainbow breaks out over our cosy new home for the weekend. There are some juicy steaks on the barbie, our glasses are well topped up with wine and Glasto tunes are blaring from the telly.
It sounds, and is, the perfect Friday night for our much-needed getaway at the well-run Cayton Village Caravan and Motorhome Club Campsite on the beautiful North Yorkshire coast. Our prime spot on the site is not in a caravan or a motorhome but in one of its many luxurious glamping alternatives – in our case a cabin with all the mod cons as part of the club’s Experience Freedom packages.
Yes, we may feel a bit like cheats of the “great outdoors”, rocking up to plumbed in chalet-type accommodation with a kitchen and a massive telly we’d be happy with at home.
But it’s a fantastic way to experience the incredible countryside and coastal beauty in the area, especially if you’re hopelessly attached to your home comforts like us. It’s spacious: there’s a living room with a comfortable banquette, an alternative seating area and a kitchen with oven and gas hobs.
There is a wonderful decking area outside with a table and chairs next to your own barbecue station. It sleeps six, with a pull-out bed downstairs and a tight-but-comfortable “master” bedroom up some stairs. Plus, you get your own shower and bathroom in the cabin, so there aren’t any shared bathroom dramas.
Basically, it feels like you get all the freedom of camping without any of the hassle (the Experience Freedom glamping offer is also available at locations including Brighton, Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds, the Isle of Wight, the Lake District).
Located just four miles from Scarborough, Cayton is only small but has a couple of good pubs, a few shops and a fish and chip shop all within easy walking distance.
On our first night, we fired up a disposable barbecue (one of two provided as part of our experience) and enjoyed steaks, burgers and an incredible English breakfast, with sausages picked up from the very reasonable T S Horsley butchers near Scarborough station, accompanied by baked spuds from the oven.
The following evening we booked into the highly-recommended Farrier pub in the village, just a two minute walk from the campsite, as a bit of a treat. The pub featured on an episode of Channel 4’s Four In A Bed in 2021 and won, so it wasn’t surprising the food was fantastic.
My partner enjoyed an incredible pork neck dish, while I tucked into a beautiful venison main. But it was the show-stopping desserts, banoffee mud pie and another that had various “tastes of mint” – including some that tasted like a Mint Aero – that really blew us away.
We watch a lot of food telly and these wouldn’t have been out of place on MasterChef: The Professionals. The meal wasn’t cheap but there were no complaints as we waddled back to our cabin, worried about walking off all this gluttony.
Luckily, this section of coast is perfect for a good yomp. The beautiful hike from Cayton beach on the Cleveland Way to Filey takes a couple of hours along the stunning cliffs overlooking the North Sea. Filey is a bit of a hidden gem with beautiful houses overlooking the sea and some great charity shops to have a nose around.
And while you don’t normally associate rural areas like this with great bus connections – we don’t drive and had travelled by train – we found getting about down the coastal routes pretty convenient and easy, especially as the bus stop is right outside the campsite.
It took us just under an hour one day through some quaint old villages to get to Bridlington, with its miles of seafront, classic British resort feel and world-beating fish and chips. Meanwhile, our final day in Scarborough showed just how underrated the town affectionately known as “Scarbados” really is.
It boasts some stunning architecture, a wonderful old-fashioned funicular down the hill and some great boozers, including the popular Scholars bar with its wide range of quirky ciders, including rhubarb and blueberry. Plus being from down south, we couldn’t quite believe our luck every time we paid for a round for under a tenner.
There’s also a growing arts scene in the town, with a visit to the Scarborough Art Gallery (£5 annual pass) well worth your time. It doesn’t take long to see why it has been such a popular destination for folk over the years. With all this galavanting, the campsite offers a peaceful place for weary explorers to rest their heads.
This trip was outside of school holidays so it’s perhaps hard to say definitively, but it felt very calm and tranquil while we were there. Everyone else on site was very friendly, respectful and seemed to hit the hay pretty early as you could barely hear a peep after 9pm.
In previous years we may well have been at Glastonbury this mid summer weekend. But while this is obviously nowhere near as wild as that, these days it’ll do just nicely!
Book the holiday
- Book rail travel from your local station to Scarborough via York at thetrainline.com
- Experience Freedom offers a choice of glamping accommodation, motorhome hire and tent camping at experiencefreedom.co.uk
- Cayton Village Glamping near Scarborough has cabins from £89 a night; pods £49, yurts £49, accessible £69.
- More info at yorkshire.com