The first camping club in the world

(Taken from wikipedia, XLSemanal and other pages throughout Internet)

The founder of modern recreational camping was Thomas Hiram Holding, who wrote the first edition of "The Camper’s Handbook" in 1908. His urge to camp derived from his experiences as a boy: in 1853 he crossed the prairies of the United States in a wagon train, covering some 1,200 miles (1,900 km) with a company of 300. In 1877 he camped with a canoe on a cruise in the Highlands of Scotland, and he made a similar trip the next year. He wrote two books on these ventures.

He was also a founder of the Bicycle Touring Club 1878 (now renamed the Cyclists' Touring Club Thomas Hiram Holding) and later, in 1901, he founded the first camping club in the world, "Camping and Caravanning Club".