A good tent, good bed, and good sleeping bag. Those are the essentials. If you have the space in your vehicle, get the foam matresses. We go through inflatable beds like crazy. They're rubbish.

Camping can be a lot of fun if you're well-equiped. Look on the various market places like gumtree etc for garage sales or camping shelves and camp kitchens etc.. we've scored a few bargains for almost brand new stuff.

Also, you can never have enough tent pegs.