Blog · · Vincent van Gemert · 6 min read
Pitch numbering guests can actually follow
Numbering grows historically and ends up random. A few street-tested rules make wayfinding obvious - without renumbering everything at once.
How numbering goes wrong
Nobody designs a confusing numbering scheme; it grows. The site starts with pitches 1 to 40, the meadow behind the barn becomes 41 to 55, a row is split and becomes 14a and 14b, and the new glamping corner gets fantasy names. Ten years later, 62 sits next to 17 and every arrival needs an escort.
The result is invisible to you - you know the site by heart - and obvious to every first-time guest. If staff regularly walk guests to their pitch, or arrivals ring reception from somewhere inside the site, the numbering is the suspect.
Rows, then direction
Number along the road guests actually drive, in the direction they drive it. Odd numbers on one side, even on the other, exactly like a street - guests already know this system, so nobody has to learn yours. When a row bends, keep counting; do not restart.
Test it mentally: a guest at the entrance holding the number 34 - can they choose the correct lane at every junction just by watching the numbers rise? If at any point they must guess, the scheme has a gap at that junction.
Zones earn letters
Prefix by area when the site has distinct zones: A12, B3. Letters carry more meaning than a fourth digit and fit on a small sign - and "B" can mean something guests remember, like the birch field. Skip letters that read as digits on a weathered sign (I and O), and keep one convention: if the meadow is A, the whole meadow is A.
Zone prefixes also solve growth. A new row in zone C simply continues C; no other zone notices. That beats both renumbering the whole site and the 14a/14b patch - which is fine for one season, but a scheme, not an exception, once it spreads.
Signs and the map must say the same thing
A number is only findable if it is visible from the driver's seat, in the driving direction, at headlight height, in high contrast. Walk the site once as a guest would drive it - you will find signs that face the wrong way, hide behind a hedge in July, or exist only on the map.
Then check every other place the number lives: the booking platform, the confirmation e-mail, the reception board, the map. One pitch, one written form, everywhere - if the sign says A12, the confirmation must not say "Meadow 12".
Renumber on screen before you order signs
The expensive part of renumbering is not deciding, it is doing it twice. In Campsite Builder you can select a group of pitches and renumber them from any starting number, row by row, based on their position on the map - so you can try two or three schemes on screen, show them to colleagues, and only then order a single sign.
Type, capacity, surface and price can be set for the whole selection at once, so a newly numbered row is also a correctly described row. Do the switch in the off-season, tell your repeat guests their beloved pitch's new number in the spring newsletter, and put the new map on the website the same day the signs go up.
Read next
From aerial photo to finished map in an afternoon
A step-by-step account of mapping a 4 hectare family campsite using nothing but an aerial photo and the editor - including where the time actually goes.
Why every campsite needs a proper map
Guests arrive tired, in the dark, with a caravan behind them. A clear map is the cheapest improvement to their first hour on site - and it starts working before they even book.