“In my experience, the hooting of owls and nocturnal creatures snuffling around is just lovely,” says Rob Ganley, editor of the Camping and Caravanning Club’s monthly magazine and a lifelong camper. “It’s sort of soporific.”
He was surprised, however, that some of those surveyed said they found thunder helped their sleep. “I’ve been camping in a few extreme weather conditions where you’ve had to get up and repitch your tent,” says Ganley.
I also remember a less than restful night I once spent in a tent in 40mph (64km/h) winds. Still, the 41,000 YouTube search results for “thunder sleep sounds” suggest the sounds of stormy weather really work for some.
There are ways to make sleeping outside more comfortable for inexperienced campers and light sleepers like me. Ganley suggests never pitching a tent under a tree, unless you want “big, fat, heavy drops of rain machine-gunning your tent”. And whatever you do, get some “good chunky insulation between your body and the ground,” he says. “Because that ground is never anything but cold when you wake up in the night.”
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