After so many nights spent under nylon, lulled to sleep by crickets or startled awake by some mysterious rustling in the bushes, I’ve come to realize something: not all campsites are made equal. Some feel like a quick business transaction. Others, like a temporary home or a place you would want to stay another night, at least.

Of course, the same observations I made during our most recent trip through Sweden and Danmark, which motivated us to dream of the “perfect campsite” – built with tired cyclists and dusty hikers in mind. A place that really understands what it means to arrive by muscle and not by motor.

Let me take you there:

You arrive late, just before twilight. The last climb was rough, the wind wasn’t on your side, but the sign at the gate says everything you needed to hear:
“Hikers & Bikers Always Welcome – No One Turned Away.”

Even with trailers and RVs rumbling in, there’s a separate little world carved out just for you and your bike and your tent. No generators, no diesel fumes. No huge trailers right next to your tiny and vulnerable tent. Just trees, open sky, and the soft sound of another chain spinning somewhere close.

And best of all — no lights blaring through the night. The tent stays dark. The stars come out. Your sleep is sacred here.

Then you wander the grounds and find everything you were hoping for while spinning your legs:

A laundry corner, with old-fashioned hand-wash sinks and free detergent-portions — or maybe an offer of €1 eco-packs.

A charging station, maybe a shelf crafted from wood, maybe nestled under a roof of solar panels. USB-C ports, the possibility to mark your name to your shelf-space

Art peeking out from corners: painted stones, metal butterflies welded onto poles, an old tire reborn as a sunburst hanging from a tree.

A give and take corner: People can leave things for others behind

A physical pinboard for reaching out to each other

How about a small shelter for Travellers without a tent? They can just crash in a small wooden shelter – slightly bigger than a big dog-house.

Some signs with non-cheasy but life-affirming wisdom. The kind that makes you think and maybe smile while brushing your teeth. Right next to them? A QR-code to contact the hosts and ask for help. Because help should never be hard to find on the ideal campground.

No bulky cash boxes. Just PayPal QR-codes. Want a chilled beer, a patch kit, a banana, or even a new inner tube? There’s a tiny “store-shed” near the tent meadow. It runs on trust. You scan, you pay, you grab. You smile.

The bathrooms don’t smell like defeat. And the recycling station doesn’t feel like a trash battlefield. Instead, it looks like a well kept place: well-labeled, intuitive, not disgusting. Makes you want to sort your waste. No joke.

A dog-free policy in the tent area means you’re not guessing whether that brown thing near your vestibule is mud or… not.

And a sauna is always a good idea after a long ride – why not having a sauna directly on the campground, like we saw in Danmark twice?

And just as importantly — no full hook-ups. Water, electricity, even waste disposal are centralized. The entire place feels a bit less separated, more communal. Like it wasn’t just built to exist but to co-habitate there with others for a while.

Before you even arrived, the website told you exactly what to expect: the pitch types, the amenities, the prices. You knew someone here cares. You messaged through the site or were able to write a chat-message. They replied fast.

And finally, there’s a bicycle repair station. Goes without saying.

So, we have found some places that offer some of the amenities and details listed above. In Oregons State parks they never turn bikers and hikers away. I also saw the charging-shelf and bicycle-repair-stations there. In Denmark we recently encountered the trust-based attitude, the laundry-sinks and many other mentioned details. But then very recently in Germany we also stayed on a campground with some dog-poop-problems and a total focus on RVs.
So the dream-Campsite wasn`t met entirely yet. But we’ve seen parts of it — especially at US-westcoast and Scandinavia.

Maybe, one day, we have to build it ourselfs?

What do you think a perfect campground should offer?