If, like me, you’re travelling a long distance to Glastonbury, or taking the coach, or just don’t want to carry a mountain of stuff with you from the carpark to the tent, then you’ll want to pack light.

I live in Berlin, so I was flying to the UK just for Glastonbury. I bought my camping essentials in the UK and donated them at the end of the festival because I didn’t want to take them with me back to Berlin. This pack list was ideal for me, because my pack wasn’t too heavy and I had everything I needed.

Clothes

  • 1 casual dress
  • 2 crop tops
  • 2 pairs of denim shorts
  • 1 pair of jeans
  • 2 vest tops
  • 1 denim jacket
  • 1 rain jacket
  • 1 hoodie
  • 1 light jumper
  • Underwear, bras
  • Big thick socks to go with wellies
  • Cap
  • Sunnies
  • Wellies
  • Trainers
  • A day bag – a small backpack is ideal

Camping gear

  • A 2-man tent from Tesco online
  • A sleeping bag
  • An air mattress or roll mat
  • A handheld torch

Other stuff

  • Bottle of vodka (poured into a plastic bottle)
  • Lemonade
  • 2 bottles of water
  • Sandwich bags
  • A reusable cup or some plastic disposable cups
  • Breakfast bars, Belvita, nuts
  • Loads of wet wipes
  • Loads of small packets of tissues
  • Hand sanitiser
  • Sleep mask
  • Silicon ear plugs
  • 3 portable phone chargers
  • Camera

Notes

Clothes

It didn’t rain much, so for the first few days I just wore trainers. On the Saturday it rained a bit, so I wore wellies into the festival, but didn’t need them. The thing is – if you don’t pack wellies, you’ll definitely need them. I got cheap Dunlop Volley wellies for £9 and they were great.

Most days I wore a crop top and short shorts and my denim jacket over the top. At night I put the thin jumper on underneath the denim jacket. It gets cold at night!

A cap, bucket hat, or any hat is definitely a good idea. My hair got gross fast, so I kept it in braids with a cap on to hide the grease.

Camping Gear

A 2-man tent only fits one person. Don’t be deceived! The £18 2-man tent from Tesco (online with click & collect) fit my air mattress, bag, and me! That’s it. I didn’t take a pillow, just rolled up my jumper to sleep on. And I found I never really needed the torch – there are so many lights in Glasto that throughout the whole night it never really gets dark. Even for a 2am toilet trip it wasn’t so necessary.

Everything else

One bottle of vodka turned out to be too much for me for the 5 days, because I didn’t want to get so drunk every day. Plus, I ended up buying a couple of beers in the festival because it’s nice to drink a cold beer. Compared to other festivals I’ve been to, Glastonbury is amazing in that you’re perfectly allowed to take alcohol with you anywhere, not just the campsite. This means the best way to drink is just carry around a little water bottle full of vodka, and buy cups of lemonade or whatever from the bar, so you get a cold drink for cheap (and you can make it as strong as you like). The prices in the bars varied wildly though – one bar sold a pint of lemonade for £1.50, and the most expensive was £4 for a pint of lemonade in the BBC Introducing bar. Rip off!

I didn’t pack any food except small snacks to eat for breakfast, because I really wanted to take advantage of all the amazing food at Glasto. I ate my weight in falafel,  hummus and halloumi. The best thing I had was a Buddha Bowl with vegan curry and kimchi. There’s also so much amazing vegetarian and vegan food in the Green fields area (even a place that serves up vegan curries and satays on real plates with real cutlery!)

The wet wipes and the tissues – Glastonbury doesn’t provide any toilet paper whatsoever. So I had a packet of tissues with me at all times, and a bottle of hand sanitiser. The wet wipes are your shower. I just “washed” myself morning and night and felt surprisingly fine.

The phone chargers – I calculated how much charge each charger would give me, and then worked out how much percentage of phone battery I could use per day. I limited myself to 50% phone battery a day, so essentially two days between charges. I just kept my phone on airplane mode the whole time because I couldn’t really text anyone anyway (phone reception is shit), and I took photos on an actual camera rather than my phone.

At the end of the festival I donated my tent, sleeping bag and wellies to the donation point which they helpfully set up beside the exit. And I felt so much lighter afterwards!