Tandara, in northern Sydney's Lane Cove National Park, sits on a sandstone shelf and boasts valley views. FORGET tent pegs, collapsing canvas, sleeping bags with bunged-up zippers and toilet blocks down spidery paths. Plain old camping has been upgraded to trendy glamping (glamour camping) and Australian operators have been quick to get on board. But just as the management of any property with, say, a pool and a palm tree will call it a resort, savvy travellers need to be sure that the glamping term is not being misused to describe any old permanent campsite. The latest glamping compound opened on July 5 on Queensland's Moreton Island. Family-owned Moreton Island Adventures is marketing this latest venture as Glampsite. The tents, which admittedly do not look ultra-luxe, are set amid tall and slender melaleuca trees at the Castaways complex in the township of Bulmer and within cooee of beautiful beaches and bushland on Moreton, the world's third largest sand island. Each tent features an ensuite, veranda and queen-size bed. Two and four-person options are available. Packages include breakfast and dinner packs and 4WD tours. Another glamping option has just opened in NSW within the North Coast Holiday Park at Jimmys Beach near Port Stephens. There are three 50sq m canvas-sided "chalets" with verandas, plasma televisions and plenty of spread-out space, each within steps from the sand and sea. Also due to enter the realms of glamping are 15 luxury tents at the Indigenous Business Australia-owned Wilpena Pound Resort in the Flinders Ranges National Park, about 400km from Adelaide. The safari-style hideaways feature decks and are being sited among red river gums and native pines within an exclusive area with its own canvas lodge and "bush butlers." In the Northern Territory, Wildman Wilderness Lodge, owned by Indigenous Business Australia and managed by Anthology Travel, is another glamping getaway. It's in the Mary River Wetlands region halfway between Darwin and Kakadu National Park. Its 15 spacious African safari-inspired tents, set in soldierly lines, are just one of two accommodation options. Those guests who prefer solid walls and windows can opt for one of Wildman's 10 free-standing "habitat" cabins, which have a pricier tariff but sit lightly in the landscape and have the same views as the tents. Wild Bush Luxury runs a portfolio of next-to-nature encampments that includes Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia and Bamurru Plains in the Northern Territory. The former property features nine ensuite "wilderness tents" (with composting "nature loos") all but hidden in the dunes of Cape Range National Park and metres from the world-famous Ningaloo Reef. The setting may be pristine and satisfyingly remote but it's hardly a matter of roughing it - expect 500-thread-count bed linen, a choice of pillows and all-natural herbal toiletries. Sister property Bamurru Plains features nine canvas safari "suites" raised on timber platforms and with meshed windows looking across the Mary River flood plains near the western boundary of Kakadu. The tented abodes are ranged either side of a main pavilion and pool, and are surrounded by pandanus palms and melaleucas. There are feather-filled pillows, lemongrass-scented soaps and a shower welded to a tree trunk in each suite's tin-and-timber bathroom annexe. The camp uses filtered water from a nearby bore and is 75 per cent solar powered, so creature comforts such as electric lights, ceiling fans and hot water are available and there's no chug-a-chug diesel generator to disturb the solitude. Nature is not a quiet beast, however, so expect the honking calls of magpie geese, the chuckle of blue-winged kookaburras and the prospect of Agile wallabies hopping by and the shadowy bulks of buffaloes. This is grown-up camping without all the fuss and bother, with fine resident chefs, knowledgeable guides and the company of like-minded guests. Sometimes luxury tented accommodation mimics the concept but defies the original idea. Such is the case at Longitude 131 on the red-dirt edge of Ayers Rock Resort in central Australia where 15 structures are capped with soaring white roofs reminiscent of nuns' wimples. The canopied ceilings are more tent-like, but basically these are ultra-posh habitats with extraordinary outlooks - press a bedside button and up slides a blind to reveal an unimpeded view across tussocky spinifex and desert oaks to Uluru, framed like a stage backdrop. If you want to glamp in isolated splendour and look down on the neighbours, the 600ha Lane Cove National Park, 12km north of the Sydney CBD, features Tandara, a self-contained canvas shelter with its own barbecue area and defined garden. Tandara sits on a sandstone shelf and has views across the Lane Cove valley. Despite the name, glamping is not always a pricey option. The Glampsites on Moreton Island, for example, start at an old-fashioned $80 a night for a two-person tent and nights at the North Coast Holiday Park at Jimmys Beach start at $85 for two. Susan Kurosawa is The Australian's travel editor.