What is glamping, and where does camping end and comfort begin?

On British booking sites, glamping covers a bell tent in a Devon field as well as a heated pod with its own shower, and the French have borrowed the word unchanged. So what is glamping, once the marketing is set aside? At Dihan, in Ploemel, the same word describes a treehouse lit by candles and a spa cabin with its own hot tub, and we have been answering the question from the branches for almost twenty years. Knowing where a stay sits between those two before you book can spare you a cold walk to the toilets at two in the morning.

What does glamping mean?

The word blends glamorous and camping, and the guest who books it is a glamper. Merriam-Webster defines it as outdoor camping with comforts such as “beds, electricity, and access to indoor plumbing”. You arrive to find the shelter already standing, in canvas, wood or glass, the bed made up and nature at the door.

Dictionaries overlook the fact that some of the most sought-after glamping stays deliberately do without electricity and running water, like our “robinson” treehouses (the French name, after Robinson Crusoe), lit by lamps and candles, with a dry toilet by the cabin.

Glamping is a scale of comfort, and its only constant is that someone has set up camp for you, an idea much older than the word.

From royal marquees to a word in the dictionary

Its grandest precedent took place in France, from 7 to 24 June 1520, when Henry VIII and Francis I met at Balinghem, near Calais, for the Field of the Cloth of Gold: some 2,800 tents went up for their courts, around a palace of canvas painted to look like brick, with red wine running from its fountains. Four centuries later, wealthy British and American travellers took folding baths and cases of champagne on African safaris.

The word itself was coined in Britain, where it first appeared in 2005 before entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016; Merriam-Webster followed in 2018.

In France, le glamping sits alongside hébergement insolite, “unusual accommodation”. Bamañ, one of our first treehouses (the name means “to land” in Breton), welcomed its first guests almost twenty years ago, around the time the word first appeared in Britain.

How is glamping different from camping or a hotel?

Glamping takes its setting from camping and its bed from the hotel, and the rest varies from one site to the next.

Between April and September 2025, INSEE, the French statistics office, counted 147.6 million nights in campsites in mainland France: pitches equipped with a mobile home, a cabin or a furnished tent made up 44% of the pitches but took 59% of the nights. Holidaymakers increasingly want to arrive and go straight to bed, and glamping sits at the top of that shift.

At Dihan, a night for two with breakfast costs from €140 in a robinson treehouse to €320 in a luxury spa treehouse (2026 rates). In our experience, the fairest comparison is a characterful B&B: you pay for the setting, the silence and the privacy, while the services stay simple.

The main types of glamping accommodation

Canvas came first, and the other shelters grew out of travelling or working lives:

• Bell tents and safari tents carry on the canvas tradition of the 1920s safari camps.
• Yurts and tipis borrow from the nomadic homes of the Central Asian steppes and the North American Plains.
• Shepherd’s huts, once towed onto the hills for lambing, and their cousins the pods are British favourites.
• Wagons range from aluminium Airstreams to our Gypsy caravan, carved from Carpathian wood in a Romanian workshop.
• Treehouses, 5 to 10 metres up, are the family we know best, from robinson cabins to spa cabins in the canopy.
• Domes open the roof to the sky, like our starry dome, named Ebrenn (one of the Breton words for sky) and set in the meadow in 2023.
• Kotas, cabins and ecolodges on stilts bring the comforts of a small house, as in our ecolodge.

Our page on unusual places to stay in Brittany shows the families gathered at Dihan, each at a different point on the comfort scale.

What does a glamping stay include?

Four details decide whether a first night feels like camping or like a hotel: light, water, warmth and the walk to the toilets. Read the forum threads where British parents prepare their first glamping weekend and you will notice that the bed rarely comes up, while the toilet block in the rain, the solar lantern that fades too soon and the cold in the small hours come back again and again.

Our robinson treehouses sit at the camping end of that scale, with no electricity or running water, a dry toilet by the cabin and showers in the guest lounge, 50 to 350 metres away. A gas stove warms them from October to the end of March at no extra cost, and breakfast arrives around 9 am in a basket you hoist up by pulley.

The luxury spa treehouses sit at the other end, with a bathroom, heating, bathrobes and a private hot tub on the terrace. Wi-Fi and phone charging wait in the guest lounge, open day and night.

A few things make the first night easier:

• A head torch lights the path to the guest lounge after dark.
• Slip-on shoes save lacing up boots at 2 am.
• Pack a warm layer, your wash bag and a towel, since bath linen is an option in the simpler cabins.
• Trousers are required in Nijal and Neh Er Lenn, our two highest cabins, which you climb in a harness.

Is glamping better for nature?

Glamping is often sold as eco-friendly, and it can be, although a site reachable only by car or pools heated all year weigh on the balance.

On our estate, waste water is treated by plants, rainwater is collected, and the meadows are mown late for bees and butterflies, with Ouessant sheep and our horses doing part of the work. The estate is an LPO refuge (France’s bird protection league), and around a dozen more bird species have settled here since the first cabins went up, built so that the century-old trees carrying them can keep growing. Cars stay at the car park and every cabin is reached on foot.

Our advice: ask a site how it treats its waste water, because the answer tells you more than any label.

A pause in the trees, ten minutes from Carnac

Glamping promises that someone has set up camp for you, and the rest depends on the place. Ours is a 25-hectare former family farm in Ploemel, car-free, ten minutes from the beaches and from the Carnac megaliths, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since July 2025. Dihan means pause in Breton, which is what Myriam and Arno set out to offer when they became pioneers of tree houses in France.

Picture the evening: a basket dinner on the terrace, the tawny owl that has nested on the roof of Nijal for years, the candle you blow out high in the branches. If you would rather end the day in warm water under the stars, our treehouse in France with hot tub keeps the canopy and adds the comfort of a suite.

Frequently asked questions about glamping

Is glamping the same as camping?

Glamping is a form of camping in which the shelter is already set up and furnished with a real bed, so you arrive without a tent or sleeping bags. You still sleep close to nature, under canvas, wood or glass, with some of the comforts of a hotel.

Do glamping sites have toilets and showers?

Yes, though not always inside your shelter. Many sites, Dihan included, pair their simpler cabins with a dry toilet close by and showers in a shared building, while the most comfortable units have a private bathroom. Check the distance before booking if you travel with young children.

Do you need to bring bedding when glamping?

Usually not: the bed is made up when you arrive, which is one of the main differences with camping. Towels are sometimes an option, and self-catering units such as ecolodges may charge for bed linen, so read what the rate includes.

Can you go glamping in winter?

Yes, as long as the shelter is heated. At Dihan, the heated spa treehouses and waterside spa chalets stay open at weekends in November and December and throughout the Christmas holidays, private hot tub included.

Is glamping suitable for children?

Yes, and treehouses are often their favourite part of the trip. At Dihan, every cabin welcomes children except the two highest, Nijal and Neh Er Lenn, which are reserved for adults, and the family cabins sleep up to five.