Caravans vs Folding Campers

Looking at going to switzerland & south of france (possibly Ardeche) this summer with the wife & 3 year old daughter. Wife is expecting a baby so has vetoed taking the usual tent so am looking at either a folding camper or caravan.

Have towed my parents caravan previously in the uk and this has been fairly slow (fine on motorways & cornish lanes but would probably avoid the peak district) plus rubbish fuel economy (around 20 mpg vs 35mpg without). I wondered what peoples experiences of towing a folding camper have been is it much difference to a caravan in terms of ease of towing & economy.

Been on tonnes of caravan holidays before so happy with the set up there but not sure about folding campers – what happens if you need to put it away wet with all the bedding etc….?

Would be looking at a 4 berth swift caravan (or similar) – no ideas about folding campers what to look for & what to avoid

Any advice welcome

we have a large trailer tent (bleedin’ huge) and it’s far easier to tow than our Bailey Ranger ever was.

I drove down to Normandy via the Tunnel and got more than 50mpg for the trip and that was using the higher French limits for towing vehicles. Never got more than 30mpg with a caravan.

There’s obviously compromises drying it out before putting it away is clearly a big issue if you don’t have space to erect it when you get home and let it dry out. We store all beddign in stacking type crates with lids and they fit in the storage area fine and don’t get damp.

[edit] depends what you mean by folding camper too, is it one that’s a caravan with a tent on top (type of thing) or a foldign caravan (ie. hard top).

Ours looks like this, it has ‘proper beds etc and a raised hard floor but is much more tent like than some.

All the bad points of a caravan coupled with all the bad point of a tent.

Id rather tow a van.

Thanks – for the folding campers I was looking at something very similar to the one pictured, base with seating, cooker & fridge with fold out beds and canvas roof & awning.

That’s a big difference on the fuel economy too and one of the things that would certainly sway the decision

this is the one we have

http://www.camperlands.co.uk/trigano-olympe-trailer-tent.html

used it far more than the caravans we had partly because we didn’t have to store it 20 miles from where we live – it fits in the garage.

It is huuuge though.

This does mean the kids can get out of each others hair and have separate sleepign area each (my son has a kind of pup tent thing under one of the main sleeping areas).

We had a Outwell Vermont XL tent before this too but this is just so much easier/better it’s worth the money. They hold value well, too.

We used to have a Conway Crusader which is about as big a folding camper as you will get…..pretty weighty at about 900kg so fuel economy is reduced by a fair amount. Easy to tow though. I wouldn’t buy a folding camper over a caravan for ease of towing though-caravans are easy with the right tow car too.

Packing away wet is a faff but not the end of the world, they come with bed covers. As long as you have a driveway, you can easily partially open it up to dry.

Thanks can you leave FCs out over winter or do they need to be garaged/ dry stored?

In ours you can take all the tentage and soft stuff out fairly easily so I’d probably do that if it were out all winter.

having said that, on hard standing you could take the mattresses out and then just use a tarpaulin tocover it up and it woudl probably be fine as long as it was packed away bone dry.

Ours was left over winter…..you can get covers for them. We used to open it up every 6 weeks or so to air it. Eventually it developed some damp. Ideally I’d garage it and remove what you can.

Really can’t see the appeal of these things. If you want to camp, then bugger off in an estate car or van with all the gear. If you don’t want the faff and like your luxuries then get a caravan.

Caravan all the way for me, but can’t see the point of a halfway house.

We have a camper trailer. It’s great, no difference in fuel economy from standard and house all 6 of us easily.

I guess advantages over a caravan are pack size and weight and for us to get a van big enough it would have to be huge or have a massive awning.

The wet packing is only an issue if you don’t have space to open it up and dry it through.

Ours has spent the last few months outside, using it over Easter and its fine but we will stick it in the garage after the holiday.

Also as mentioned above packing into plastic boxes and filling the trailer section s a diddle and like a cavern!

Probably out of budget but[/url]

Having had both, I much prefer the folding camper, it’s easier to tow & store, the beds are always made up & it takes 10 minutes to set up for an overnight stop, 1/2 hour if staying longer & you want to use the awning, the only real downsides for me are a shorter camping season (we used to use the caravan all year round) & having to air it out when we get home if it’s been put away wet, but even that’s no big problem. We get around 42 mpg towing vs 46 ish without, but saying that you tend to travel slower when towing so that may add to the mpg 🙂

Our is kept outside all year & it’s never been an issue, some people bring in the cushions, mattresses etc, but we’ve never bothered, we are thinking of using some kind of gazeebo to put it under this year though.

we have one of these & love it.

interesting vehicle avdave2, much more of a folding caravan style than trailer tent though – then I saw this on their news pages from MArch last year;

It was with much regret that we had to decide to stop the production of the innovative Opera camper trailer.

I’ve had both and its a caravan all the way for me.
Theres no insulation in a trailer tent so its impossible to keep it warm in cold weather.The fold out part is easy but putting the awning up took all of 2 hours and could easily have led to divorce.
You can stop of enroute with the caravan and make something to eat,have a sleep, and use the toilet.And you can potentially use the ‘van all year round.

and could easily have led to divorce.

It’s not camping if you don’t achieve that! 🙂

Mrs STR leaves me well alone when I’m putting the caravan awning up. It’s easier that way.

Convince the inlaws to go halves on another campervan then lend that to your good looking BIL ( no not Tim)

one word. rapido.

putting the awning up took all of 2 hours and could easily have led to divorce.

We have a rule that any insults traded during awning erection stay in the awning.

Deff. go for the caravan. But make sure it’s not so big it won’t fit on your drive or outside your house. Holydays apart, they make a fantastic bolthole to get away from the kids, wife etc. Your only yards away but if they don’t know your in there, you could be anywhere, brilliant. 😀

taxi25 – no offence but your life sounds a bit grim. Why would you want to hide in a caravan and get away from the wife and kids….

That’s what the pub is for 😉

no it’s what my camper van is for ( same principle ). You have a three year old and a baby nearly. Wait untill their teenagers ! you’ll know all about grim then !!!

I have a teenager – well in 4 months I do. Theoretically she got there 2 years ago!

Caravan by a country mile. I watched a trailer tent thing get blown down three times last year on our “summer holiday”.

That was from the comfort of a motorhome. Our next door neighbour was watching from his equally comfortable, dry, warm caravan.

YMMV of course if you “enjoy” camping.

have a look at http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/Camping/Online-Store/Camping-Magazine/Camping-Magazines/Camping-Magazine-May-2013-_sc70_pd3776

this months comes with a pull out of ‘best of’ in various classes of trailer tent, folding campers and folding caravans.

Folding camper for me; I’ve owned a Conway Crusader for the last 5 yrs and have towed it from Keswick to Biarritz.
The beauty of a FC over a caravan is once you have the awning up, unzip and roll up the side of the camper and it gives you a huge space for gatherings.
Campers are much more sociable than caravans, caravaners just seem to sit in their white plastic vans watching telly and everyone else socialising.
If you like camping but want a little bit more luxury then get a FC. If you want to stay indoors but with different surroundings then consider a caravan.

Always seemed to be the worst of both worlds to me. If the weather’s going to be crappy you would be better off in a caravan, if it’s not you could take a small tent and a tarp and some chairs. My tent set up is just that.

caravaners just seem to sit in their white plastic vans watching telly and everyone else socialising.

That’s just weirdo old caravanners, of which there are many 🙂 We used to live in our awning with the front unzipped, looking at the view, when the weather was warm. The advantage is that when it wasn’t, we had somewhere cosy to sit. With other people too, caravans seat four or six. Caravan awnings are also huge, just as big as folding camper ones.

What ^^^ mol said.

My awning must be around 7 mtrs x 2.5 mtrs. Using the van whilst I’m working away, I’ll have the awning up all summer with tables and chairs in there, full sized dustbin, bbq when it’s not being used, somewhere to get changed and hang wet clothes.