Chen Lu

Hangzhou’s Glamping Scene: Looks Great

杭州的野奢圈:看起来很美

In Hangzhou, “glamping” became a portable aesthetic system: lighting, storage, outfits, and objects reorganize outdoor life into a curated scene.

Glamping scene in Hangzhou
Figure: A glamping setup in Hangzhou — lighting, storage, and object placement as a portable aesthetic.
Publication Originally published in Sanlian Lifeweek (Issue 19, 2021). Read full article (PDF) ↗ WeChat Read ↗

Editor’s note

编辑说明

This is a lifestyle report written through objects and scenes. By following how people build camp “sets”— lights, storage boxes, tripods, coffee, outfits—it tracks how an outdoor hobby turns into an urban aesthetic and a consumer system.

这是一篇从“器物与场景”切入的生活方式报道:跟随灯、收纳箱、三脚架、咖啡与穿搭如何被摆出来, 观察露营怎样从户外活动转化为城市审美与消费系统。

Key questions

核心问题框架

  • When does camping stop being “outdoor” and become a portable aesthetic system?
  • 露营从“户外活动”变成一套可移动的审美系统,是从哪一步开始的?
  • Why are lighting, storage, and object placement treated as rules—and what do they signal socially?
  • 为什么灯光、收纳与摆放会变成“规则”?它们在社交上意味着什么?
  • How did “urban outdoor” culture turn into shops, media, and a new style of consumption?
  • “山系/城市户外”如何进一步长成门店、媒体与新的消费方式?

Selected excerpts

文章节选

Excerpt 1: Looks Great

“They really know how to do it.” After a walk around the Senhai campsite, this was the comment I heard most. In daylight I finally saw the place clearly: a lake separates the lawn from a sales office across the water, and warning lines fence off the perimeter. “The worst thing is waking up and realizing you’re being watched,” Zhang Dapeng explained. He Lei, Yi Zuo, and Wang Jingmin were considered among the people who “do it well.” The three families are friends; with the pandemic keeping them from traveling abroad, they were drawn to this new kind of trip and began camping together frequently last year. This time they came without spouses or kids—“we barely slept the night before, we were too excited.”

How do you tell a beginner from an experienced glamping camper? He Lei pointed to a tent in the distance: “They still have a plastic bag next to the table—definitely new.” In this scene, storage is a serious discipline. Before every trip, he thinks through what to bring and what not to, how each item should be placed, and how it should be packed away. “When you’re new and you can’t decide, a plastic bag shows up at camp. Over time things get tidier. The more complicated, the more of a beginner. We’re at the stage where it’s clean and not too much stuff; the next stage is making every single thing exquisite—small but refined.”

For what they call the Zhejiang glamping circle, aesthetics matter most. “You don’t even need a formal campsite—any flat grass will do. Hangzhou has lots of great places for camping.” He Lei has a yard, and sometimes he simply pitches a tent at home. Once the tent is up, he said it felt like hosting a rotating banquet—guests coming and going in waves.

“玩得好。”在森海营地晃悠一圈后,这是我最常听到的形容。白天里我才看清了这个营地,一片湖泊将营地的草坪和前方的售楼处隔开,草坪外围还拉了一些警戒线。“露营最怕早上起来发现被人围观。”张大鹏解释说。何磊、一佐和王晶敏被认为是“玩得好”的几个人。他们三家是朋友,因为疫情出不了国,被野奢这种新鲜的旅行方式吸引,自去年开始便经常相约一起露营。不过,这是他们第一次不带老婆孩子过来,“头天晚上都没睡好,太激动了”。

如何分辨野奢的新手和老手?何磊指向远处一顶帐篷,“他们桌子边还放着一个塑料袋,肯定是刚刚入门”。在野奢圈,收纳是门深厚的学问。每次出门前,何磊都会仔细考虑带什么、不带什么,带过来的东西又该怎么摆放、如何收纳。“刚入门时因为想不清楚,营地上可能会多出一个塑料袋,但慢慢会越来越整齐。越复杂越是新手,我们属于到了整洁、东西不会太多的阶段,再往后应该是每一样东西都要很精致,达到小而精。”

对于他们所说的浙江野奢圈,美学是最重要的。“其实也不一定要找营地,只要有片草地或者平坦的地方都可以,杭州其实有很多非常适合露营的地方。”何磊家有院子,有时候他会直接在院子里支顶帐篷。帐篷撑起来后,何磊形容自己仿佛像吃流水席一样,接待了一拨又一拨的客人。

Excerpt 2: Mountain Style Blows into the City

When we learned that Wang Jingmin—after “getting into” glamping—had opened a concept store selling camping gear this year, we asked to visit. It wasn’t just curiosity about him. After two days in Hangzhou, I was surprised by things I’d never noticed on previous trips: the city already had so many camping-related scenes. Hangzhou had long since moved camping into the city.

On the weekend, the botanical garden by West Lake hosted a large-scale tent market. The crowd was dense, and everyone took their outfits seriously. Ritual may be the most important part of urban camping. “Glamping,” also called “style camping,” promotes an individual style—from clothing to the way a tent is set up.

Wang Jingmin used to be an interior designer. His “Urban C-lab Studio” café-shop sits in a high-rise in Binjiang with a view of the Qiantang River. The moment I walked in, I saw what Hangzhou campers treat as a bible: the Japanese outdoor magazine Go Out.

在得知王晶敏因为“入坑”野奢,今年开了家售卖露营装备的集合店后,我们要求登门拜访。事实上,这也并非是单纯对他本人的好奇,而是因为在杭州晃荡了两天后,我诧异地发现了一些此前来杭州从来没注意过的事情,原来这座城市已经有了这么多与露营主题相关的事情,杭州人早就把露营搬到了城市里。

周末,位于西湖边的植物园里有一场声势浩大的帐篷集市活动,现场人潮汹涌,并且每个人都非常认真地在穿搭。仪式感可能是城市露营中最重要的部分。“野奢”又被称为“风格露营”,从衣着到帐篷的搭建方式,都倡导人们拥有自己独特的风格。

王晶敏曾是一名室内设计师,他的“Urban C-lab Studio 器物集咖啡店”位于滨江一个高楼里,窗外就是钱塘江江景。刚进门我就发现这里也摆放着杭州露营爱好者的“圣经”——日本户外杂志《Go Out》。

Excerpt 3: Tent Hotels

So for beginners without any gear, is there still a way to experience this kind of camping? Even after days of observing Hangzhou’s camping culture, we never got to truly try it ourselves. Tent hotels seemed to offer a solution for people like us—those who don’t want to burn cash on a full set of equipment immediately, and don’t have veteran friends to tag along with.

Nomancamp is a Hangzhou-based provider of “tent hotel” services. Before 2017, the company mainly ran homestays; later it began trial tent camping on lawns near Tonglu homestays. Feedback was good, but the market was still small compared with homestays, and many people still saw camping as “enduring hardship.”

From the Zhoushan pier, a boat ride of nearly 20 minutes takes you to Nomancamp’s Cishan Island site. Walk across a stretch of tidal flats and you reach a flatter part of the island, where several tents—with latex mattresses already inside—are set up in advance, ideal for “check-in-with-a-bag” beginners.

所以,对于没有装备的新手,究竟还有没有办法体验这种露营方式?尽管连续好几天沉浸在观摩杭州的露营文化当中,我们却一直没有机会去真正体验。帐篷酒店似乎给我们这种既不想立刻烧钱买上一批装备,又没有资深露营玩家朋友可以蹭的人群提供了解决方案。

诺漫营是杭州本地提供帐篷酒店服务的一家机构。2017 年前,这家公司还主要提供民宿服务,后来才开始在桐庐民宿周边的草地上试运行帐篷露营。虽然反馈不错,但当时市场相对民宿还太小,很多人仍然将露营视为“吃苦”。

从舟山码头出发,行船近 20 分钟后,便可抵达诺漫营的刺山岛营地。步行穿过一片滩涂,在岛上一处较为平坦的地方,几顶放着乳胶床垫的帐篷早就已经准备好了,非常适合懒惰新手“拎包入住”。

What this demonstrates

它能证明什么

  • Lifestyle reporting through objects: using gear, storage, lighting, and set-building to explain taste, identity, and scene-making.
  • 从“器物”写生活方式:用装备、收纳、灯光与搭景来解释品味、身份与场景生产。
  • Consumer-culture observation: tracing how an outdoor activity becomes a style economy—magazines, shops, and spending logic.
  • 消费文化观察:追踪户外活动如何变成“风格经济”——杂志、门店与花钱逻辑。
  • Scene-driven narrative: turning a trend into concrete, reportable moments—people, spaces, and the rules of the game.
  • 场景化写作:把一个潮流写成可被报道的具体时刻——人物、空间与“玩法规则”。