Cars with Jan Coomans. Going glamping with the Infiniti QX80

I imagine that the main reason one would consider buying the QX80 is, rather obviously, that it’s got lots of space. This being a glamping trip, I had half expected that we’d be putting the rear seats down, chucking in a mattress and sleeping in the back of the QX80. Which, in retrospect, could have worked out at least as well as staying in a large tent on a very cold night. As a result of being positively gigantic, the driving experience is not particularly fascinating but it is very comfortable indeed. Which is a good thing as a slight error on behalf of my co-driver had us drive two hours in the wrong direction at first. So we ended up with plenty of time at the wheel – and on the passenger seat.

Even so, when we finally stepped out of the car at Vili Uley, I felt fresh as a daisy. It was a rather cold day in the Tver region, with daytime temperatures about 6 degrees below freezing and at night well under 10. This meant that our large personal tents would be heated by a wood fired stove. Very natural, and rather cozy as well. The only slight downside became apparent at night, as the wood would only burn for a good two hours at a time after which the fire would go out and the stinging cold would quickly start to penetrate the thin walls of the tent. This meant that one pretty much had to treat the heating system as one would a newborn baby: feed it regularly and abandon all hope of a few solid hours of sleep.

Probably because I’ve never been a parent, I failed rather quickly at keeping the fire alive and woke up around 4 AM from feeling bloody cold. Attempts to revive the fire were only mildly successful, creating some heat but the flames remained as small as my toes remained cold. All memories of being nearly cooked alive in my tent earlier that night (there’s no real way to turn down the heat once the fire gets going properly) were quickly forgotten. That having been said, I can see how glamping here could be awesome at the right time of year. The location is gorgeous, as Vili Uley sits on a small peninsula in the Volga river and inside a pine tree forest. It’s totally quiet, and the air is crisp. The tents really are rather luxurious, and the meals we had at the large main tent were delicious.

You can forget about showing up there in a sportscar however. The road into the place is hugely bumpy, in fact it seems more like it’s been peppered by rocks from outer space creating a field of craters to drive through. Apparently, this is somewhat by design as the people who live along that road would rather keep out unnecessary visitors. I reckon they’ve done a good job assuring precisely that.