Four campsites sit close enough to London to be used as a base: Abbey Wood in the south-east, eighteen minutes from Liverpool Street on the Elizabeth line; Lee Valley at Edmonton, twenty-four minutes; Lee Valley at Sewardstone near Chingford; and Debden House on the edge of Epping Forest, at the far end of the Central line. Pitches start at about £20 a night for two people, but once you add the daily fare cap a night under canvas can cost more than a bed in a hostel.
That last point is worth getting straight before you buy a tent. The pitch is the small number. Two people travelling in from Zone 4 hit a daily cap of £12.80 each, which is £25.60 a day on top of the pitch, and from Zone 6 it is £16.30 each. On a site that charges per person rather than per pitch, and adds a charge for the car, camping near London stops being the cheap option somewhere around the second adult.
It can still be the right choice: for a caravan or a motorhome, for children who would rather be outside, or for a week in London without a hotel room. This page has the addresses, the seasons, the published prices, the measured journey times and the arithmetic.
The four sites at a glance
- Abbey Wood
- Federation Road, London SE2 0LS. Open all year. 7-minute walk from Abbey Wood station, then 18 minutes to Liverpool Street
- Lee Valley, Edmonton
- Meridian Way, Edmonton N9 0AR. Open all year. 9-minute walk from Meridian Water, then 24 minutes to Liverpool Street
- Lee Valley, Sewardstone
- Sewardstone Road, Chingford E4 7RA. Open March to January, closed February. Bus from Chingford, then 29 minutes to Liverpool Street
- Debden House
- Debden Green, Loughton, Essex. Summer season only, weekends only in 2026. Bus from Loughton, then about 40 minutes on the Central line
- Closed, despite what guidebooks say
- The Crystal Palace club site shut at the end of 2024 when its lease was not renewed
Abbey Wood: the one that works best
The club site on Federation Road in SE2 is the closest thing London has to a practical urban campsite, and the Elizabeth line is the reason. Abbey Wood station is a seven-minute walk from the gate, and the train reaches Liverpool Street in eighteen minutes at a pay-as-you-go fare of £3.60 off-peak and £4.80 at peak. That is a shorter commute than many people have from a hotel in Zone 3.
The site has 136 pitches: 111 touring, 25 for tents and 8 camping pods, of which 100 are hardstanding. The maximum outfit length is 9 metres, the earliest arrival is 13:00, and non-members are welcome. There is a toilet block, a laundry, a motorhome service point, a playground, a dog walk and wi-fi; charcoal, gas and electric barbecues are all allowed, and a supermarket is a five-minute walk away.
Two details matter more than the brochure. The internal gates are locked from 22:00 to 08:00 with pedestrian access only, so a late return means walking in from the road. And the site is inside both the Ultra Low Emission Zone and the Low Emission Zone, which is the largest hidden cost of the whole exercise and is dealt with below.
For walking, the ruins of a twelfth-century abbey are up the hill in Lesnes Abbey Woods and the Thames Path is less than two miles away. The club does not publish nightly prices on the page: the "from" figures update fortnightly and appear only once you enter dates in the booking system.
Lee Valley at Edmonton, and Sewardstone
The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority runs four campsites along the river, two of them usable as a London base. Both open for far more of the year than most English campsites, and both publish their prices plainly.
Lee Valley Camping and Caravan Park, Edmonton is on Meridian Way in N9, beside a lake, a golf course, an athletics centre and a cinema. It is open all year, with reception staffed Monday to Saturday 08:00 to 18:00 and Sunday 08:00 to 16:00. Meridian Water station is a nine-minute walk away and the train reaches Liverpool Street in twenty-four minutes for £3.60 off-peak. The site is inside London's low emission zones.
Lee Valley Campsite, Sewardstone is on Sewardstone Road in Chingford, with woodland pitches, pods, lodges and a house to rent. It opens March to January and closes for February. It sits outside the emission zones, though the authority warns that it is very close to them. Without a car it means a bus from Chingford station, about twenty minutes including the walk, then twenty-nine minutes on the Weaver line to Liverpool Street at £3.80 off-peak.
| Lee Valley pitch prices, per night | Amount |
|---|---|
| Grass pitch, no electricity (minimum pitch fee, two adults) | £20.00 to £33.00 |
| Hardstanding or grass pitch with electricity | £27.75 to £40.75 |
| Additional adult | £10.25 to £16.75 |
| Additional child under 18 | £5.75 to £7.75 |
| Backpacker rate, one person with no vehicle | £14.00 to £18.00 |
| Large tent surcharge, eight-person tent or bigger | £15.00 |
| Awning | £5.00 |
| Camping pod for two, with heating, lighting and a kettle | £36.00 to £42.00 |
Those figures were read on the authority's own accommodation pages in September 2026 and apply at both sites. The range is seasonal: the low end is a winter weekday, the high end a weekend in August. The backpacker rate is the number to remember if you arrive by train with a rucksack, because it undercuts every hostel bed in London.
The park is worth a day of anyone's trip, and our guide to the Lee Valley Regional Park covers the towpath, the reserves and the Olympic venues along it. The Walthamstow Wetlands are on the same reservoirs, and Enfield Town is the nearest high street to Edmonton.
No disposable or charcoal barbecues and no fire pits are permitted at any Lee Valley site at present. The authority's notice, current in September 2026, cites continuing dry ground and wildfire risk in line with government restrictions. Abbey Wood does allow charcoal barbecues. Check before you buy one, because the rule changes with the weather and our guide to London in a heatwave explains what a dry summer closes.
Debden House: the cheapest pitch, the shortest season
Debden House is a grade II listed house at Debden Green on the edge of Epping Forest, run by the London Borough of Newham, with more than 300 pitches over fifty acres of forest clearing. It is the most rural of the four and the only one that feels like proper camping.
The season is short and has been getting shorter. In 2026 it ran from 10 July to 13 September, weekends only: open from Friday, closing each Sunday at 10:00, with two of the three fields in use and limited facilities. That season has ended, so anyone reading this is planning for 2027. Booking is online only and there are no walk-ins.
Prices are charged per person per night rather than per pitch, which changes the arithmetic completely. For visitors who are not Newham residents, the 2026 rates were:
| Debden House, 2026, per person or item per night | Amount |
|---|---|
| Adult, 18 and over | £15.50 |
| Child, 3 to 17 | £8.50 |
| Infant under 3 | Free |
| Electric hook-up | £9.50 |
| Car | £6.00 |
| Small van / minibus or long-wheelbase van | £7.00 / £14.00 |
| Dog | £6.00 |
| Fire pit hire, plus a £20 refundable deposit | £10.00 |
| Bag of firewood, which must be bought on site | £10.00 |
Most pitches hold five people. The shower block opens only from 07:00 to 10:00 and from 18:00 to 20:30, which is a real constraint with children. The earliest arrival is 11:00 and nobody is admitted after 20:00. Firewood must be bought on site.
Getting in and out uses the Central line. From Loughton a bus takes seven minutes and then it is a seven-minute walk, about fifteen in all; from Theydon Bois it is a walk of a little over twenty minutes. Debden station to Oxford Circus took 41 to 42 minutes on Transport for London's journey planner, at £4.00 off-peak and £5.90 at peak. Our guide to Epping Forest covers the walking, and the Central line the journey in.
The site that is no longer there
Guidebooks still list a club campsite in Crystal Palace Park, Zone 4, twenty-seven minutes from Victoria. It is not there. The Caravan and Motorhome Club's own page says the site, one of the oldest on its network, closed at the end of 2024 because its lease was not extended, and sends people to Abbey Wood thirteen miles away instead.
Why it is not always cheaper than a hostel
Here is the arithmetic that decides it. Both examples are for two adults, four nights, using published prices where they exist and our own estimate where labelled, in September 2026.
Two adults with a tent at Edmonton, by train. Two backpacker rates at the low end are £28 a night, £112 for four nights. Meridian Water is in Zone 4, so a day of travel is capped at £12.80 each: £25.60 a day, £102.40 over four days. Total £214.40, about £27 per person per night before food.
Two adults with a car and a tent at Debden House. Two adults at £15.50 each is £31, plus £6 for the car, so £37 a night or £148 for four nights. Debden is in Zone 6, so the cap is £16.30 each: £32.60 a day, £130.40 over four days. Add electricity at £9.50 a night and the total is £316.40, or £39.55 per person per night for a tent in a forest.
Against that, our own estimate for a bed in a central London hostel dormitory in September 2026 is £30 to £60 a night, with no fare to add if you are already in Zone 1. That band moves with the school holidays, with any weekend when an arena or a stadium has something on, and with the trade fairs at the exhibition centres. Our guides to London hostels and budget hotels set out what those rooms are like, and university halls in the summer are the third option in the same band.
The fare cap, not the pitch, is the number that decides this. A Zone 4 site costs two people £25.60 a day to travel from and a Zone 6 site £32.60, so choosing the closer site saves more than choosing the cheaper pitch. How the caps work, and why they beat a Travelcard for almost every visitor, is in our guide to contactless fare caps, and the zone system explains where the boundaries fall.
Driving: the charge that catches foreign vehicles
Abbey Wood and the Edmonton site are both inside the Ultra Low Emission Zone and the Low Emission Zone, which cover every London borough. A vehicle that does not meet the emissions standard pays £12.50 a day in the ULEZ, and the charging day runs midnight to midnight, so crossing midnight means two charges. Larger vehicles fall under the separate Low Emission Zone charges.
The trap for visitors is registration. A non-UK vehicle must be registered with Transport for London even if it does meet the standard, because TfL cannot otherwise check it, and the penalty for a missed charge is £180, reduced to £90 within fourteen days. Sewardstone sits outside the zones, which is one practical reason to choose it. Our guides to the Congestion Charge and ULEZ and driving in the UK as a visitor have the rest, including the £18 central Congestion Charge, which none of these four sites requires you to pay.
What to take, and what to buy here
British weather makes the tent the least important decision. Take a groundsheet and a waterproof, assume rain in any month, and expect night temperatures in single figures from October to April; our page on what to pack for London covers the rest.
Gas canisters cannot travel by air, so buy them here. Electric hook-up needs a lead with a British site plug, which Debden House hires out for £25 with a £50 refundable deposit. Supermarkets near all four sites are a short walk or drive away, and our guide to picnic supplies and self-catering covers what to buy where.
Frequently asked questions
Is there anywhere to camp actually inside London?
Yes. The club site at Abbey Wood in SE2 and the Lee Valley park at Edmonton in N9 are both within Greater London and open all year, and the Lee Valley site at Sewardstone is on the edge of it. All three are within nine minutes' walk of a station with a direct train into the centre.
What does a pitch near London cost?
At the Lee Valley sites a grass pitch without electricity costs £20 to £33 a night, covering two adults, and with electricity £27.75 to £40.75. A single person arriving without a vehicle pays a backpacker rate of £14 to £18. Debden House charges per person instead: £15.50 an adult in 2026, plus £6 for a car.
Is camping cheaper than a hostel in London?
For one person on a backpacker rate, yes. For two people with a car at a site charging per person, often not, because the daily fare cap adds £25.60 to £32.60 a day for two and the car and the electricity are charged separately. Work out the pitch, the fares and the extras together before deciding.
Which campsite near London is open in winter?
Abbey Wood and the Lee Valley site at Edmonton are open all year. Sewardstone opens from March to January and closes for February. Debden House is a summer site only, and in 2026 it ran just from 10 July to 13 September, at weekends.
Can I have a campfire or a barbecue?
It depends on the site and on the weather. No disposable or charcoal barbecues and no fire pits were permitted at any Lee Valley site in September 2026 because of wildfire risk. Abbey Wood allowed charcoal, gas and electric barbecues. Debden House hires fire pits and sells the wood, which must be bought on site.
Do I have to be a club member to stay at Abbey Wood?
No. The Caravan and Motorhome Club's page for the site lists it as open to non-members. Members pay less, and the club's published "from" prices appear only inside the booking system once you have entered dates, so compare totals rather than headline figures.
Sources
- Caravan and Motorhome Club - Abbey Wood Club Campsite (checked September 2026)
- Caravan and Motorhome Club - Crystal Palace Club Campsite, closure notice (checked September 2026)
- Lee Valley Regional Park Authority - Touring and camping prices, Edmonton (checked September 2026)
- Lee Valley Regional Park Authority - Lee Valley Campsite, Sewardstone (checked September 2026)
- Debden House Campsite (London Borough of Newham) - Camping in Epping Forest, prices and season (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Ultra Low Emission Zone (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - Pay as you go caps (checked September 2026)