Yurt world: Glampers at the bottom of the garden Simon Cathcart is on to something. Not only do the British love camping but they also now find it irresistibly trendy, ecologically brilliant and deliciously retro. Why spend your holiday in an ordinary house or hotel when you could spend it under canvas, watching the stars, heating the bathwater with a wood fire, listening to the birdsong in the morning? At home, why build an extension when you could have a pod or a yurt? When Simon returned to his mother's house, The Old Vicarage at St Clether in Cornwall, after doing his degree in London, he fell for the charm and tranquillity of the place and realised it could have the same seductive effect on others. He erected two yurts in the fields where his sister used to keep her horse, and lets them to people on holiday. "I want them to be like smart little apartments in London, but in the middle of nowhere," he says. The yurts sit in an ecological paradise: three acres of wildflower meadow on the edge of Bodmin Moor, edged by woodland and bordered by a swift moorland stream. Each is different. The Curve, shaped like a white, domed railway carriage, has a king-size bed, wardrobe, kitchen sink and units, outdoor table and chairs, bathtub and a wood-burning range cooker. The Geo, Simon says, "echoes the Eden project." It is like a series of white lanterns with a sleeping room, kitchen and bathroom tents. Both cost £380-£385 in low season for a five-day week or three-night weekend, and £440 in high season (ekopod.com). Guests receive locally sourced goodies - eggs, bacon, jams, breads, strawberries and juices - and meals from a local chef can be reheated on the wood-fired cooker. Simon and his two siblings have now inherited The Old Vicarage and would like to sell. The beguiling 17th-century Grade II listed house was the setting for Thomas Hardy's poem "The Face at the Casement"; it has six bedrooms, gardens, wood store, barn, piggery and six acres (including the paddocks, Ekopods and planning permission for three more), and is priced at £695,000 by Knight Frank (01392 423111). "It would be easy for someone to take on the Ekopods with it," says Simon. It is a winning formula. At Priory Bay Hotel, a country house retreat in 70 acres on the Isle of Wight, owner Andrew Palmer has erected three yurts and has plans for two more. They are glamorous tents, 20ft in diameter, with crisp white linen sheets on the beds, candle lanterns, en-suite bathrooms with roll-top cast-iron baths, flushing loos and private terraces. Guests can listen to red squirrels darting about, waves breaking on the beach below and the wind in the trees. "I thought of it in a sort of Glastonbury context, and we wanted extra space in the summer," he says. A man nearby was making yurts, so Andrew ordered bespoke versions. People love them. Boho couples who want all the luxuries of the hotel, but older couples too who want to be close to nature. We have a yurt butler service, a dedicated team which will bring breakfast, cook food on your balcony for you, or bring lobster salads. Or you can eat in the hotel. Huge bean bags are supplied for children. It costs about £200 a night for two (priorybay.co.uk), plus £40 a night extra per child. As an extension, the pod or yurt involves a much lower capital outlay than a conventional building (£20,000 buys something spacious) and is more fun. Charteroak Estates has launched the i-hut, which can be used as a beach hut, forest hideaway, surf shack or fishing lodge, and requires only the same planning consent as for a caravan. As sleek as a city pied-à-terre, it has a double bedroom, wood floors, micro kitchen bristling with mod cons and the option of a mezzanine. It can be plumbed to the mains sewerage and electricity, has a tow bar for easy transport, and costs £98,000 (01803 863108; chartsedge.co.uk). Eight have just been settled into a glade at the Stonerush Lakes holiday retreat in south Cornwall. They will cost £450 a week in low season and £950 in high season. You wake in the morning to the company of woodpeckers and kingfishers.