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if it had a little wet room shower / box thing it would be perfect for race weekends etc.
Almost all caravans have that*. Your own shower is bloody brilliant at 24hr races.
* Including Swift Basecamp.
Kip shelter is what I would like.
I like the way they've managed to combine the disadvantages of both tents and caravans into one handy package whilst also ignoring the benefits of both.
Base camp is bigger and heavier. Does it sleep 4?
Ah, no. The Knaus looks a bit cosy for four mind 🙂
I’ve just picked up a nice clean Bailey Pageant Sancerre 7 ( rubbish name )
has anybody had experience of an A frame bike rack ( the one that goes on the front )
considering one as I can’t lift bikes on top of the car
I’m from near Leeds but unfortunately live nowhere near now
I like the way they’ve managed to combine the disadvantages of both tents and caravans into one handy package whilst also ignoring the benefits of both.
Like a trailer tent, you mean?
I like the way they’ve managed to combine the disadvantages of both tents and caravans into one handy package whilst also ignoring the benefits of both.
Whereas the Swift Basecamp looks like they have tried to make a small caravan like a big one. Its 250kg heavier than our Abby Adventurer for about the same size.
Are there brands that are less 'old folks home-ish' with their decor than others? Just about every Bailey I've seen for sale looks bloody awful inside.
Some of the newer Swift group vans look a bit less staid. Adria seem to have some vaguely stylish interiors too
Problem is that at 40, I still seem to be younger than many of the people we see on caravan sites so I guess they are just aiming for their target market’s tastes.
Some of the newer Swift group vans look a bit less staid. Adria seem to have some vaguely stylish interiors too
This. I am still looking around and these are the two makes on my list currently but you have to look post 2007-8 ish for the better interiors.
Part of me thinks, who cares what the interior looks like, if it has a kettle a cooker, comfy bed and its warm the rest is just vanity/showing off.
Aye, but I'd rather have somewhere that's a bit more pleasing on the eye, even for the limited time spent inside.
Rattle up some cushion covers and replace the curtains? Bear in mind carpets (or in the Bailey at least) can be lifted out as they are just mats cut to fit.
At 6'2" I'm Prob a bit tall for fixed bed too?
There are a few that are longer. Most are about 6’. A transverse bed or a mid can washroom layout would let your feet hang off the end but that was a bit too much of a compromise for me.
Fixed bed often have shorter lounge seating too so you also lose the ability to stretch out properly for an afternoon snooze, which is an essential part of caravan life!
Aye, fixed bed looks a No!
Are there brands that are less ‘old folks home-ish’ with their decor than others?
No, it's down to age period. Post 2010 things start getting better. 2003-2010 is gopping, looks like 80s teenager's bedroom. TBH I prefer flowery crap to that.
Oh, unless you get a European van - Adria, Knaus, etc etc. They've always been tasteful.
has anybody had experience of an A frame bike rack ( the one that goes on the front )
I think they only work on European vans, as they are designed differently with a much longer A frame, and probably they're designed for it. There's probably not enough room on a UK van for bikes to clear the car, and I think there are warnings not to use them. Your best bet would probaby to put them inside the van if you could protect the interior. Perhaps pop them in a bike bag first.
Unlike cars, European caravans are really quite different to UK ones for some reason. The industries never converged. You see few Euro vans here and few if any UK ones over there. Strange really. Different customer base perhaps.
We moved from a campervan to a small caravan when our daughter came along and have never regretted it. It is far more convenient having the van set up and being able to go off in the car without packing up. Our camper was quite old because they are expensive so we have much less worries about maintenance.
We still tour like we would in the camper, the main summer holiday we will be in five places in the highlands including a week on Orkney The CL we are staying on at Orkney is £100 for the seven nights that we are there.
Kids love it. We do camp in a tent regularly and that is admittedly a bit more fun but only if the weather is kind.
Regarding brands in the typical promote what you own style we have an Adria from new 6 years ago, we will have done 365 nights in it on our next trip and we have only replaced tyres and a gas valve it always flies through services with no issues advised. They have been made from polyester panels for years so damp is unheard of, some of the UK brands have still not caught up in this regard.
Took a look at those Knaus vans, those wee 2 person vans are awesome!
Hobby look nice but layout is a bit lacking in terms of kitchen space. Adrias look good too.
Basically, popular UK makes are stuck in the past.
That's a reasonable argument.
Do Euro vans still have showers and all the rest? ISTR my sister's Adria doesn't, but it's old.
Any Adria post 2010/11 will have showers, cooker and grill etc. They are very UK friendly
The Adria Eden looks really good for families
ISTR there was at least one Euro manufacturer who were offering the door on the 'right' side as an option, maybe it was Adria.
Most of the German brands look quite stylish from inside. This is an example from an Eriba part of the Hymer group.
Have owned caravans for 10+ years now and been caravanning since I was a kid. Currently have a Bailey Pegasus Ancona, which has a triple stack of fixed bunks at the back for our two kids (the lower bunk folds away and we use for storage). Tow with an XC60 - about the smallest car that will safely pull it. I used to have a 5-series touring (estate) and that was pretty unstable with this caravan, but the Volvo is very stable at all speeds.
People have mentioned a few bits, but for us the big advantage is that the kids spend their entire holiday outside. We've just come back from the C&CC club site at Keswick and the kids spent a week swimming in the lake, walking dogs, playing with friends and (of course) riding bikes. No other holiday we've been on has them outside being active as much. They are literally outdoors from dawn until dusk.
We don't carry bikes in the caravan (they don't do any favours to the interiors, which are built with weight not robustness in mind) and normally use the 4-bike rack on the roof of the car. That said, this holiday we did take a couple of extra bikes so my son and I had our road bikes for doing some longer road rides while in the lake district. After all, you can't go there an not do at least one pass 🙂
My recommendation for anyone thinking about caravanning that has never done it before is to first work out exactly what you can tow (85% of towcar kerbweight is a good start) and what you want to tow - towing a big 'van is not for the faint hearted. They are long, wide and swing about a fair bit when manouvering. You need to think about what you would do when you drive down a road and find that it's blocked and the only way out is a 1/2 mile reverse between narrow hedges. If this terrifies you then either get yourself trained up, or find a different holiday! I cannot emphasise enough that you need to be safe and confident when towing and manouvering as too many "experienced" caravanners haven't got a sodding clue what they are doing and are, frankly, terrifying.
Once you've got that sorted, you can start worrying about flowery interiors and carpets. One thing to note is that caravans are pretty expensive to buy, but don't depreciate anywhere near as quickly as cars - looked after, they will last a lot longer too, so that large initial investment won't lose 60% the first time you use it. Personally, I find twin-axle vans are a pain. They're much harder to manoeuvre on site (unless you have a motor mover) and a pain to get wheel clamps - you either need to carry two big ones, or use through axle clamps which will need a wheel jack to fit. That said, a twin axle is more stable on the road and nicer to tow.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do! 🙂
You need to think about what you would do when you drive down a road and find that it’s blocked and the only way out is a 1/2 mile reverse between narrow hedges
That's overstating it I reckon. If you get proper stuck on a tiny lane, you can always unhitch and turn around in a field entrance by hand. Never had to do that in the UK, only did it once in France as I turned into what looked like a big goods yard to turn around, only to find it gated.
But I always choose sites after checking the roads aren't too bad on Google earth, and I don't choose ones that look to hard to get to.
Thanks Molgrips
maybe I’ll just put my towbar rack inside and bolt them onto that 😉
I’ll try find a photo of the bikes in ours they go right at the back so the Germans don’t seem to care too much about weight distribution. (Also 2 on drawbar, so tend to put kids bikes inside)
Are the german vans like American caravans with the Axel's relatively further back
Yes. More stable, but possibly harder to manoeuvre down lanes and through gates into fields etc.
It’s so light that our car doesn’t even notice it (apart from MPG)
Not noticed if the wheel is further back,
No shower in ours though, have wondered about adding one
When we were looking at caravans originally a shower was an absolute must & we ‘rejected’ loads of side washroom vans because they only had small wet room style shower/loo arrangements.
Turns out that although a proper shower is nice, unless you’re on a fully serviced pitch the water usage/drainage is such that you only get time for a really quick blast so we tend to use the on site facilities (assuming they are there & useable!) the majority of the time.
If we change this van I’ll certainly not be using shower size/layout as a purchase driver.
as Molgrips says, unless you have a fully serviced pitch showers are a joke. You could probably get a bit extra if you emptied the waste water first and used it via the on board water tank but that's a lot if faffing about. I can count in one hand how often we have used our walk in shower, really its just wasted space but it wasn't my decision to make.
All good info folks, buying one is a couple of years away yet, and tbh anything I could tow with my civic would be too small really.
unless you have a fully serviced pitch showers are a joke.
They are compared to a real shower, but they do work and you can get yourself clean fairly easily. This is invaluable at races, which might be the only time I've used ours.
Our first van had a thumb switch on the shower head so you could wet yourself, then turn the water off whilst you soap up, then rinse, using hardly any water. Modern vans don't seem to have this feature, but with a mixer tap it would be easy to do same. I have separate hot and cold knobs so I have to set them temperature each time I turn the water on. But even so, if you're quick you can get clean using up 1/3 or even 1/4 of a 45l water container.
Further to my previous post my wife suggested an interim solution. We buy the caravan and use the vivaro camper to tow it (with the B&E license of course). That way if we decide the caravan isn't for us we can go back to the camper and sell the caravan. Plus we can keep the camper for day trips and biking trips without the kids.
We're planning on downsizing the custom to a Berlingo or similar which can still tow. This way we won't need to sell the camper too and then buy another (second car) for the limited times I need it.
I'd have a camper and a caravan too if I could, for the same reasons as snownrock. Campers are great for nipping quickly and with versatility, but caravans give you so much space for family holidays. Our kids play out a lot, and we are out every day but they still like their down-time playing games and with toys etc. They have their own area at the other end of the van from us, they can go to bed whilst we are still up (not like they sleep though, but there's even a door so we can pretend they are).
And then we still have a lightwright 4 man tent plus tarp for when we fly places or if we want to camp a bit more out of the way. We took the lightweight kit to Scotland last year and whilst we wr had the van we took one night out to "wild" camp in the woods. Had planned to wild camp on Ulva too but that didn't happen.
Should be banned from the roads. Seen news reports of 4 or 5 overturned in Devon/Cornwall this weekend. Same pretty much every weekend through the summer season.
Do people get their towing licence taken away if they manage to flip a caravan on a dead straight road...
Should be banned from the roads. Seen news reports of 4 or 5 overturned in Devon/Cornwall this weekend
That's not intrinsic to caravans, it's carless idiot drivers. The solution to that would be to require big trailer training, test and license for all caravans. I'd welcome that tbh.
Should be banned from the roads.
I agree. Along with anyone else who crashes.
We’re planning on downsizing the custom to a Berlingo or similar which can still tow. This way we won’t need to sell the camper too and then buy another (second car) for the limited times I need it.
I wouldn't. Berlingo is not a tow car for an average caravan. Our 2010 xtr is only rated for a 50kg nose weight on the towbar and our fully laden 1313 kg caravan (1050 empty) is also over its 1300 towing weight limit where as our Mondeo can take 95kg and pull 1800kg .
Sad mind as the bingo would be ideal for us as a family to take on holiday .
Ah, 50kg is very stingy. You'd need a sub 1000kg van with that and load it pretty carefully.
Do people get their towing licence taken away if they manage to flip a caravan on a dead straight road…
That depends on if they required one in the first place. But that aside, you can certainly be prosecuted for road traffic offences and have points/fines awarded as appropriate.
Most of the German brands look quite stylish from inside. This is an example from an Eriba part of the Hymer group.
That looks a lot like the current crop of top of the range UK vans. Elddis Buccaneer:
Getting closer to making the purchase now.
Can anyone tell me what the deal is with insurance. Obviously I will make sure my car insurer cover me for towing, but do I need separate insurance for the van? ie. if I have an accident and then caravan is damaged, will my car insurance cover it, or do I need separate policy for the van?
Yes, you'll need a regular "fire, theft and getting a new one back when you flip it on the motorway" policy for the caravan, separate to your car insurance which will typically only cover you for third-party cover for trailers. Expect to answer a lot of questions about security and rapidly become an expert on wheelclamps and hitchlocks as, tbh, most of the value of the insurance is targetting the theft cover. Check your house insurance as the chances are your belongings may well be covered there, so the caravan insurance will only need to cover the caravan itself and any accessories you may have (awnings, aquarolls that sort of thing). I think I pay around £200/yr for mine.
Also, consider breakdown cover too - you need to be sure that if your car packs up, whoever comes to bail you out is capable of handling the caravan. Usually, this will be written in the breakdown smallprint somewhere, but it's well worth checking.
Caravan insurance is a thing, have to google it for the details. Mine's cheap.
Are the german vans like American caravans with the Axel’s relatively further back
Not that I know of. To do so would massively increase the noseweight requirements and european cars generally couldn't tow them
Not unless they simply extended the draw bar - this would put the axle further back behind the pivot point between the car and caravan, but actually reduce the nose weight slightly.
Not unless they simply extended the draw bar – this would put the axle further back behind the pivot point between the car and caravan, but actually reduce the nose weight slightly
That's basically ours described.
The wheel is in the middle of the box but the draw bar is another 1.3m on the end
jam bo: did you see the story about the tourists in Fowey last weekend? :O
Coming round to thinking a static is gonna be my best bet, I'd only end up taking a caravan to the same place all the time tbh...
And I like the idea of a wee bolthole I can piss off to at 2pm every Friday, with minimal faff.
Statics tend to be packed in like some sort of prison camp though with thousands of old people. Never seen a static site and thought ''oh that looks like a lovely place to holiday". If you have though then crack on 🙂
You can rent a permanent site for a tourer though, to provide your bolt-hole, then you could tow it eslewhere if the opportunity arises. I reckon about half the pitches at the Braemar site were permanent, or long term.
We store our van on a farm which has a 5 pitch CL site up on the South Downs. It’s a 1/2 hour drive from home & we love the site & area so in the summer probably 90% of our usage of the van is there. Can finish work & just head up there, 5 min to move the van into position on pitch.
Means short 1-2 night stays are much less faffy.
In the winter we use a seasonal pitch in Wareham forest. My work gives me much more time off over Oct-Feb so we get to use it loads more over winter (even spent last Christmas there) but without having to tow on crappy wet winter roads.
And I like the idea of a wee bolthole I can piss off to at 2pm every Friday, with minimal faff.
It is nice. I can have a weekend away and the only thing I need to "pack" is a single key. Everything else is already there.
Never seen a static site and thought ”oh that looks like a lovely place to holiday”. If you have though then crack on
Crackin' on. 😉
I have now found a caravan and had an offer accepted. I will be picking up this Saturday. Only just found out that my towing electrics aren't perfect (I have single 7 pin). Now I need to find somewhere to put it, and sort out some insurance!
What did you go for trailwagger?
If you need work done on your towbar electrics, might I suggest upgrading to 13 pin if it's available rather than two 7 pin? The 7 pin connectors are crap, and the 13 pin ones much better.
What did you go for trailwagger?
If you need work done on your towbar electrics, might I suggest upgrading to 13 pin if it’s available rather than two 7 pin? The 7 pin connectors are crap, and the 13 pin ones much better.
A 2007 Avondale Dart. Not the most modern looking van, but Its been well looked after and serviced regularly.
How would a 13pin work with my 7 pin bike carrier? I assume there is some sort of adaptor?
Yes, or if you are handy with a screwdriver it's a piece of cake to rewire a single 7 pin. Just unscrew the wires and screw the into the right places on the new plug.
It gets slightly more complicated with the second 7 pin because the wiring is a bit different depending on how old the van is so you have to make some decisions.
What layout did you get?
Standard 6 birth, twin bunks at back...
jam bo: did you see the story about the tourists in Fowey last weekend? :O
bit of a squeeze....
Standard 6 birth, twin bunks at back…
It's not standard but it's a pretty good layout, I'd go for that. Loads of kitchen worktop too.
It’s not standard but it’s a pretty good layout, I’d go for that. Loads of kitchen worktop too.
When I say standard, what I really mean is common.
That's part of the reason for the compromise of getting an Avondale (other than the prices seem good due to them going out of business). The sink size and worktop space is much bigger than the likes of a Swift or an Elddis. I also like the way position the gas bottle in the middle of the van and not in the awkward to get to front cupboard thingy.
Is there space for two bottles?
Putting two bottles in our van really buggers up the nose weight.
Just one I believe...
Nobeer & Perchy - having learned from the experience of others statics are a bloody minefield. Expensive to buy (even second hand) and you may have to renew if it's a certain age. As in, get rid of the old one and buy a whole new unit. Then there are site fees (including council tax) that they know fine and well you are going to pay because a low loader move isn't cheap.
Tourers can be pitched seasonally and just moved whenever you like, sites tend to be less arsey and know you can just bugger off if you don't like it.
Not saying this is the norm but once bitten twice shy.
Statics tend to be packed in like some sort of prison camp though with thousands of old people. Never seen a static site and thought ”oh that looks like a lovely place to holiday”. If you have though then crack on
Two nice sites to choose from. We dont all suffer from living in the overpopulated south...
Squirrelking, IIRC Perchy has a static already, and I'm fairly sorted with all the costs. I'll get my money's worth.
Oh, we get our moneys worth all right. 😉
We occasionally get weegie riff-raff like iainc trapping up on the site with tents and such like but it’s a small price to pay. 😉
Trailwagger, Nice.
Also a happy, but recent, Avondale Dart owner, the 5 birth in our case. All good so far, our is a bit older (2000)
But was dirt cheap!
Two nice sites to choose from. We dont all suffer from living in the overpopulated south…
Me neither. You live in Glasgow, don't you? We stayed at a static site in an actual suburb of the city when we were up in May visiting friends. Why on Earth would you go to the suburbs for a holiday?
Where are you planning on staying then?
Not so much moneys worth as making sure the site owners aren't dickbags. As I said YMMV.
We stayed at a static site in an actual suburb of the city when we were up in May visiting friends. Why on Earth would you go to the suburbs for a holiday?
You weren't staying with show folk in Dalmarnock were you?
Me neither. You live in Glasgow
Wash your mouth out! 😂
Whoa, missed that one. Shots fired!
So after viewing a van at the weekend it has become very apparent that sat navs (both my car and phone ones) will always take the most direct route and there doesn't seem to be any settings to force them to stick to major roads as much as possible.
Whats the solution? I don't want to be the guy who gets stuck in the middle of a sleepy village on a tight bend.
Whats the solution? I don’t want to be the guy who gets stuck in the middle of a sleepy village on a tight bend.
These and some prior planning work well.
Agreed, but not so easy when you are travelling solo.... there is a reason why sat navs are so popular these days 😉
So after viewing a van at the weekend it has become very apparent that sat navs (both my car and phone ones) will always take the most direct route and there doesn’t seem to be any settings to force them to stick to major roads as much as possible.
I pick sites carefully based on how far they are from decent roads. I look on Streetview to see how decent they are. You can usually get a pretty good idea. And they tend not to put caravan sites in in accessible places, for obvious reasons.
When you ring to book you can ask the owners what the best way to get there is - they'll know. Also, on the Caravan Club site if there are any access issues it says on the listing, e.g. 'Do NOT come down the road from X, you'll get stuck, instead go to Y first' etc. Then when you know the route, you can force your satnav to take you there.
Not had a problem so far - the only issue I've had was on the entrances to actual sites, where I didn't swing wide enough. That's CLs though which are just gates into fields.
Agreed, but not so easy when you are travelling solo…. there is a reason why sat navs are so popular these days
Plan at home before you leave, then program the satnav with the route you've decided...
how long is this van that it cant handle a corner ?
it articulates in the middle where it connects to the car surely ?