Been thinking of getting a caravan for a bit, but wife has now become keen on the idea of a motorhome (decent size one, 4-6 berth, prob about 7m long).

Now i’ve always been used to caravans as a kid, so although theres the hassle of towing it, it seems to me thers more freedom when you get to your destination as if its rubbish weather for a day you can hop in the car and go somewhere.

Obviously theres lots of families who use motorhomes so just wondered what sort of summer hols you do, and what happens if you get a few days of crap weather – you cant really nip out to a museum / theme parc / zoo / aquarium if you have a big motorhome..or can you?!

advantages of motorhome as far as i can see are:
-could keep at home so easier to head off for a weekend rather than a van on a storage site (couldnt keep van at home as i think access for towing a caravan would be too tight but would just be ok in a motorhome.)
-although more expensive, probably less depreciation than a caravan
-less hassle than towing a van

Advantages of a caravan
– more flexibility at destination.

i suppose one option would be having a small hire car at the destination?

Holidays we’d be thinking of would be places like alps, taking bikes, and also the larger eurocamp type sites with lots of pools / beaches on doorstep. Maybe also taking it to ski resorts in winter

we’d hire a motorhome first before taking the plunge but just wondered what motorhome owners do for their family hols (ie a few weeks in summer)

What’s your budget? £20k will get you a brand new caravan but only a second hand camper that could be 10+ years old. Plus if you have to hire a car when you’re there you might as well have a caravan and spend less money.

Basically the advantage of a motorhome is that you don’t need to endure the ignominy of towing/owning a caravan. And potentially that you can fit more stuff in.

But apart from that a caravan makes more sense from almost every perspective.

Having said which, I have a campervan. 🙄

It partly depends where you go, emptying the van every day when you want to drive somewhere in the UK, France, Italy etc is a pain in the arse. Fair enough you can probably leave all your clobber in the van in places like Germany, Switz and Scan, so have a think about where you’ll be predominantly going and how bad the thievery is.

We put up with the hassle of dismantling everything each day. It’s just the downside of being able to take so much stuff inside the van. We just couldn’t fit all that clobber in a car.

To answer your actual question….

Family of four in a 5.4m campervan.

Week in the lake district in Summer. Ended up taking the car as well as the van since the missus came up later. It was great leaving the van on the site all set up and driving around in the car. But driving round the lakes to swap campsites over Honister/ Wrynose etc would have sucked (caravan wins just)

Weekend in ‘bleau/Tignes. Rubbish forecast in Fonatinebleau, so we just continued to Tignes for a couple of days skiing. Driving the van there was fine, but it would have sucked with a caravan (van)

Fortnight in Germany climbing, cycling, canoeing. Could fit all the toys in the van and drive the 900 miles in one long day. Journey would have sucked a bit with a caravan. Little/no theft in Bavaria so no worries about leaving all the stuff in the van on day trips (van wins)

Fortnight in ‘bleau/ Tarnschlucht. Much easier to drive to south of france in the van than with a caravan. However it was a PITA having to dismantle the van each day and transfer valuables into the tent before driving anywhere (draw)

Weekends from Manc to Scotland to ski. For obvious reasons: (Van wins)

Weekends in France. As above, van much easier to drive, but pain to transfer stuff each day.

Kayaking in Norway. Motorhome/van is ideal. No worries about crime. Can stay somewhere different each day. Allemansrat (sp) applies. Hot cuppas whenever you get off the river etc etc. (van wins easily).

I think it depends on:
How far you’re going.
How long for.
How often you move.
How much crap you want to take.
Whether you need to drive to do your chosen activity each day.

For what we do, a caravan would make much more sense. But there’s no way I’m having one 🙂

We have a LWB Transit panel van conversion (5.7m). To be honest when the weather is crap it is a bit of pain to tidy the van up, so that when you do drive to somewhere, stuff doesn’t rattle all the way there and doesn’t land on your head. We bought a Decathlon pop-up tent to throw stuff in whilst away from the site, e.g. BBQ, dirty boots, rucsacs, bikes. Even with all this it is still a 10 mins job to tidy up etc.
We used to have a SWB van with a pop-up roof and the faffing time is double when you need to drive off for the day. You’ve got the added problem that parking a 6-berth motorhome is rarely straight forward.

I think that if you are already used to the caravan then you have the best of both worlds whilst on site. You can just drive off for the day and not care. The downside with caravans is towing them to the site but you are already used to that.

EDIT: we really love the campervan but like a caravan it just sits there at home, unused 85% of the time. The things above are the only negative things we have experienced in 3 years.

A 7m van is pretty big & expensive, is it really worth tying up the money (purchase price + running costs) and driveway space ? Unless you’re going away on a very regular basis it seems a bit silly.

I love the idea but I know we’d never use it.

Day. Van / crew cab for everyday use / weekend/ camping trips with a caravan for the big trips?

Would probably cost about the same and you would get more use out of the van overall

From my experience so far, caravan beats campervan for those sort of family holidays. However, motorhome would win if you’re doing a touring hol and moving on to a new destination every day or so.

When it was just the wife and me we had a converted pop-top LWB T5 – best suited our use and needs at the time. Multiple Alps and UK holidays with bikes, etc. Then 2 kids came along. Persevered at first but found it too cramped, not enough storage, always having to move kit around to get to other kit, and we found ourselves moving the campervan more often for days out than we did when it was just us. And in evenings we had no space when (if!) the kids went to bed.

So we bought a caravan. Haven’t regretted it. Wife and I both grew up with caravan holidays so knew what to expect. Took me time to get my head around the idea of one – specifically the towing as we previously took the T5 along some pretty hairy roads. Loads of space, easy to tow, frees up a vehicle for days out on holiday, plus with the layout of ours we’ve got 2/3 of the caravan for ourselves after kids go to bed (they get the fixed full-size singles at one end with a solid door separating them from the rest of the caravan). Kids now nearly-2 and 5 and it’s spot on.

We looked at bigger motorhomes before buying the caravan but sorely disappointed – looked closely at a big overhead-cab 6-berth Rollerteam one. Seemed inefficient with space and storage with not a great gain over our T5, not enjoyable to drive, crap on fuel, expensive to buy, and (like the caravan) it’d sit there a large part of the year not getting used.

I’m quite firmly a caravanner now. Taking it to Les Arcs this summer, can’t wait 🙂

We’ve got a caravan, however, I do fancy a camper, but have the same concerns around being stuck near the site with no transport, there’s no way I’d want to be trying to park a camper up in town centres etc.

We’ve got the touring in the van refined a bit, don’t bother with an awning now, have two rhino tubs with the kids stuff in (balls etc) that go round the back of the van, and from dropping the van to getting the leccy on, waster filled and waste connected isn’t a huge amount of time, not sure it would be any quicker with a camper.

Friends of ours have a timeshare in a campervan. Apparently (although I am dubious of this) they will actually make money over the term as they get a cut on hire sales.

But for a pretty modest investment, they do have access to a campervan for a couple of weeks each year + preferential rates on any further rentals they wish to take out.

It has been a while since I asked them about it but the last I heard, they were happy with how things were going.

Its a big compromise IME.

Went from a LWB renault trafic crewcab+caravan to a L3H2 boxer conversion.

Getting the caravan from storage and filling it up/pulling it around vs getting in the van and going.

Being able to securely store bikes in van easily vs stripping wheels off for motorhome

Loads of space in caravan compared to motorhome

6 passengers to 3 Van-motorhome.

The motorhome is pertty much my sole form of transport. Wife has a small car but she generally in it.

Running costs are reasonable, its great having the facilites when out and bout, but its a big old bus when it comes to nipping to the shops etc.

I’d like a bigger one…

To not answer the question, have you seen a modern caravan with motorised caravan mover gubbins in action? Mate of mine has had one for years, drive to within a hundred yards of where you want the van, jockey wheel down, engage the mover and walk along beside the moving van with a joystick. Might be the solution to the access issues. Of course if the wife has decided…

Not sure where you are lakesrider (I can guess…) but there’s 2 big caravan & motorhome shows coming up next month: 21-16 Feb at the NEC, and I’m going to the one at SECC Glasgow 2-5 Feb. You’ll get frustrated at the shuffling pace of the average caravan owner at the show, but you could check out caravan vs motorhome. It was visiting the Glasgow show for a poke around motorhomes which made us rule out a big motorhome.

And:

For what we do, a caravan would make much more sense. But there’s no way I’m having one

That was me until I bought one and overcame my phobia 🙂

Had a campervan , holidays with a 3 year old, in Scotland were a trial in wet weather – too little room etc etc etc. We ended up selling it and are considering a caravan but not doing anything about it yet. So far we’ve done a couple of cottage hols and that worked well, for 2 nights we will tent it and have a lot less hassle (and cost).
We tried everything to get our California to work, we had a driveaway awning and then ended up having an extra car on the last holiday but the issues were less so but it seems nuts to have a 50k van sitting on the drive and then take my car. A 15k caravan would be equally as bad ! YMMV.

I can’t help but think that this really is one of those times when renting is cheaper than buying unless you want to use it an awful lot?

I know (because my Camper owning friends continually tell me) that you can go on Holiday whenever you want (I can too, but they don’t believe me). But in reality, do you? A guy in work spent £35k on one, can go on Holiday whenever he likes (he tells me, every **** day) but it gets used maybe twice a year for a week or two.

I’ve looked into hire costs because we’re talking about a 3 week European tour next year, they don’t seem otherworldly to hire, especially given they seem to cost so much.

^ that’s where we got to. We can hire one locally for not a lot of hassle and reasonable cost. In the meantime we have a car we can actually use.

They’re all compromises, you just have to chose the compromise that works for you. We’ve had a caravan, a T5 camper and are now on a 5 berth 6m motorhome.

The MH is big but I’d say it’s easier to manouvre than the caravan unit. Ours has permanent beds so is really quick to pitch/move on (couple of minutes). There’s similar space to the caravan, way more than the T5, we have a garage so good bikes stored internally and alarmed. We use hybrids to get about once we’re parked up.

It’s less hassle trying to do weekends away in the MH.

We bought a 7.5m one 18 months ago. Done 15000 miles in that time. As far north as Kinochleven in the UK. Been to Ireland, France and Italy a couple of times and Verbier twice. Don’t miss having a car when we have been away in it. Fits four bikes in the garage with the wheels still on and has everything we need.
Should have bought one years ago when the girls were younger.

Find site. Park van. Don’t drive it again until you leave the site. Use bikes to get about on local cycle paths and relax. Want to go further? Public transport is great in Europe, cheap too (free bus passes for campers in Interlaaken).

Spend money on hotels or b&b nice breakfast cooked for you and no washing up. You can do this lots with 35k.

wool – Member

Spend money on hotels or b&b nice breakfast cooked for you and no washing up. You can do this lots with 35k

Shhh, I’ll have to whisper in case my Caravanist colleagues hear me type this…

I agree with you, I showed a quick example to them (because it started as an argument in the pub at Xmas) that for the price of depreciation, maintenance, extra fuel, ‘cost of money’ etc you could have lovely holiday twice a year, staying in a nice hotel and not have to shit in a bucket.

They said I didn’t get it, it seems it only makes sense if you have a lot of friends who also like Caravans to share the experience with, I may have mentioned Centre Parcs at this point, I’d had a few more drinks by then and a fight almost broke out.

We did many years of family holidays in a motorhome (a 6.5m one with bunk beds for the kids). Not having a car was rarely an issue as we mostly used bikes and public transport to get around. It’s also much easier to find parking places for motorhomes in continental cities than it is in the UK. Even in the UK we tended to be up in the far north and west of Scotland and could take the motorhome pretty much anywhere.

rent one for a holiday first