But, the difference is comfort. However much I enjoy camping, it’s still battling the elements (too hot, too cold, too wet, ground too lumpy) and nature (picking 101 slugs off the inside of the flysheet before packing it up in the morning). Vs a proper mattress, a proper duvet, and a proper breakfast in the morning tat doesn’t taste like titanium camping mug.

bell tent, wood burning stove, inflatable mattress.

proper STW style.

I have a T6 California Beach. I bought the image on the brochures with the surf boards and the whole lifestyle bit.

Love it, bought it on PCP too just to help our economy go down the toilet. No regrets from me beats my old estate car hands down.

Transporter owner. 6k ex AA van owned for 8 years. Self conversion. Was my daily driver/work van now just weekend van. Countless trips round UK/Alps,away 2 weekends a month in it. That’s why I own one.

I aspire to have an aspirational lifestyle vehicle, if i’m honest..

DrP
I’m aspiring to have an aspiration about a car one day, of I’m honest.

Binners lives the cottaging lifestyle.

Ironic, given his distaste for their so called pie

I thought Toad in Hole was the cottaging food of choice?

We saw a family on Barra in a T5 (or similar). 2 adults & 3 kids.

Didn’t even look bearable never mind fun.

I’m confused by that suggestion – looking around my end of the street, nobody even parks a car in their garage. Hence I’m struggling to see why that is an advantage!

(why on earth would you use a relatively secure weatherproof structure on the side of your house as storage for something which is relatively secure and weatherproof?)

(why on earth would you use a relatively secure weatherproof structure on the side of your house as storage for something which is relatively secure and weatherproof?)

that’s a whole different thread right there…

oh and I had a socialist campervan once. It was the ‘Union’ model.

I paid over the odds, it never worked and you couldn’t fire it.

I’m confused by that suggestion – looking around my end of the street, nobody even parks a car in their garage. Hence I’m struggling to see why that is an advantage!

(why on earth would you use a relatively secure weatherproof structure on the side of your house as storage for something which is relatively secure and weatherproof?)

For us one of the advantages of having a campervan, as stated in this thread, is we could head off at the drop of a hat, therefore we had the van fully loaded in the garage with the bike rack on it. IT was plugged in, fridge on, we could chuck bikes on, cold stuff into fridge and be gone. I’m not sure i would have left it loaded like that parked on the street. Perhaps I’m odd but i use my garage for my vehicles.

Oh go on then..
Newest member of the family..
Has cost us about £200 all in so far (not including documentation)
Did around 800 miles last week exploring Wales,
and she’s gonna be my daily drive 🙂

bell tent, wood burning stove, inflatable mattress.
proper STW style.

OTOH, my dad does actually have one of those ‘frontier’ wood burning stoves in the T5!

You are odd. For reasons given above, it seems an odd way to use part of the floor space of a house (when you work out just how expansive that amount of floor space is). If you have to keep a camper van in the garage to get utility from it then that’s another reason not to have one 😉

Peasant. You have no driveway?

I saw a hippy in an old VW van today. At least I thought it was a VW but on second glance it was a Commer! Lifestyle!

Those Transporter Beaches and the like are eye-wateringly expensive but then so are second-hand Ducatos when they’re converted. I guess you are buying them by weight and few people would expect to pay the same for a Polo as a Passat.

I need to keep the driveway clear, as it’s so long, so the staff can get in and out 😉

You are odd. For reasons given above, it seems an odd way to use part of the floor space of a house

My garage isn’t attached to my house, it’s quite separate, when you have so much space you don’t need to worry about that 😉

The other thing is you can get a t5 with a pop roof into the Waitrose car park, that’s the real reason.

The other thing is you can get a t5 with a pop roof into the Waitrose car park, that’s the real reason.

You let the staff drive something that valuable?

I think I left the lights on in my socialist camper.

Moscow and check.

scotroutes – Member

Ever tried booking a hotel room in the Scottish Highlands and Islands in the summer with less than 3 months notice?

Many times with mixed results. Ended up in some pretty poor hotels tho 🙂

Huge difference between a camper you use for good reasons like scotroutes and others and a vehicle you buy to be part of a scene / because you think it makes you look cool / because you want to buy into an imaginary lifestyle.

You can tell which it is by how much you get for your money. For the same as a new posh VW camper you can get a huge hymer custom build or a transit camper with change for a fleet of bikes for all the family. Its not known as a scene tax for nothing

I had a socialist campervan once. Had to sell it cos it pulled to the right.

This reminds me binners, I want you to draw a picture of my lifestyle vehicle

I had a socialist campervan once.

Had to sell it as it didn’t have a toilet.

Not ideal when you have the trotskys.

I tried to buy a socialist camper but the dealer didn’t have any, said he’d had a russian them.

I bought a socialist camper once

Had to sell it as it kept breaking down

Red Flag breakdown wouldn’t cover it.

I had a socialist campervan once.

I had to sell it.

The rev counter was stuck on 1917

I was going to buy a newer socialist camper that wouldn’t break down as much.

But I couldn’t raise Das Kapital

Great jokes and puns 😆

They are ridiculously expensive, but due to the 7-8 months waiting time for a new one and VW hiking the price by £2-3K every year they will cost a lot less in depreciation that a passat/mondeo. Well that’s the man maths I used to justify mine.

Edit – You see a lot of 1 year old californias that have never been camped in, mattresses still in the plastic wrappers etc. The reason being is some people have realised if they buy with a good discount, go through a few VW price rises you can sell for a small profit

[/url]DSCN1814 by rick.campbell, on Flickr[/img]
My folks bought a two year old T2 in 1976 and had it until ’89; I even learned to drive in it. Always fancied having one myself. Thing is that although they can be a sole vehicle they don’t work as a chippy’s van (i.e. used for my day job) unless you are really minimalist about fittings/windows etc. Estate cars have always been the do-it-all vehicle for me (plus a tent of course!).
Recently we hired a 6m long motorhome: It was great in the highlands in July as the wind, rain & midges that would have had us running for home cause no grief at all in the monster. Hiring is the way forward. Two thousand miles a year seems to be normal millage for motorhomes which shows how little their owners actually use them!

Their is a big demand for VW Vans because of lots of reasons, they’re good, they’re fashionable, they impress the neighbours where a Transit does the opposite.

I’m pretty damned sure none of my neighbours would give a shit. There’s a bloke over the road with a Civic banger racer, a flatbed truck to haul it around on, another Civic that doesn’t seem to be doing anything much, his missus Peugeot SUV, next door has an old BMW with a roof box, and a very old Micra, and I have an old Skoda and whatever the hell I happen to bring home overnight.
The Maserati Ghibli might have been expected to get the neighbours asking questions, nobody even noticed.
And I’d have a converted Transit Custom over a T5 anytime, much nicer looking vehicle, for starters.
Or even better, a T3 Syncro, if I was going to spend money on something I could take to out-of-the-way places.
Or festivals.
Yes, they’re lifestyle vehicles, vehicles that fit a particular lifestyle; £65-70k is being quoted with raised eyebrows for a new T5 conversion, £70k will get you a Merc C63 AMG, just as much a ‘lifestyle’ vehicle, although a very different one, but just compare the running costs of the bloody thing – £1000/set for tyres, 17 mpg, insane insurance and VED…
Horses, as they say, for courses.
Let’s see your average T5 owner do this:

Or this:

Or this:

This would be my ideal…

Two thousand miles a year seems to be normal millage for motorhomes which shows how little their owners actually use them!

Very. There’s some people round the corner from us who ditched a caravan for a MH about 2 years ago. I go past numerous times every day & have noticed it missing about 4 times!

I have hired them a few times. Best way to go if you ask me.

How many people take a T5 to a remote spot with no toilets and crap in a bucket/portapotti?

Currently parked up in our T5 at 200m above Port de la Boniagua in the Spanish Pyrenees drinking French wine and eating nuts. Drove about 4km along a dirt road to get here from the pass. Only the moon, the stars and the silhouetted mountains and the sound of distant cow bells.
No portaloo… We have a small spade for the poo and a lighter for the paper…. Who wants to drive around with their excrement…?

Have been driving through France for the last 2 weeks and have another three weeks to go…

Our van is totally “on scene”…
T5 LWB, blacked (murdered?) out to the max, 7 grand worth of bikes on the (black!) VW rack, stealth pop top (hilo roof), fancy led ring lights up front….

Can sleep four, although admittedly I don’t like to do more than three nights away with more than just the GF and I.

Self built conversion to an exceptionally high standard (if I don’t mind saying so myself :oops:)
55ltr of water on board with shower that attaches to the tailgate. Fully integrated gas hob and fridge. Underslung gas tank with enough gas to last us a year (had to fill it up in Wales a few months for the first time in two years, cost 6£ to fill). solar panel on the roof feeding the leisure battery that runs the fridge, interior and exterior led lights, radio, and 240v converter thingy.

Have lost count of the numerous long weekends away either on my own, with the GF or with friends in the Bavarian alps, Italy or Austria (naturally with bikes).

So far this year we’ve been to Sicily for 3.5 weeks over new year, Italy for 10 days, Wales for 12 days and are currently two weeks in to a 5 week trip through France.

In all that time we’ve paid for five campsites. The rest of the time we’ve either “wild” or stealth camped. (McDonald’s is a good send when it comes to clean shitters).

I can understand some of the hate for VWs.

Personally I don’t see what is so great about Californias. High outlay. Only available as SWB. Paying more for a silly elastic band around the tent so that it doesn’t get caught in the hinges when closing the roof. Gas struts that obscure the view from the window. Furniture that looks like it belongs in a hospital.

But I can also see the attraction. Go to dealer/man selling it and buy it. No faffing with electrics. No hours of scribing bits of board to make furniture that perfectly fits the interior.

Last week we saw a UK California with two adults and two kids. It took the husband five hours to pack everything back into the van – they had so much stuff!

I couldn’t imagine going away with anymore than either myself or the GF for more than a long weekend.

However, VW vans do drive better than most other vans (through my work I have had to drive many different vans all over Germany and Europe). Even the LWB fits into most spaces (never really had a problem in car obsessed Munich) and height restricted carparks.

Naja… I don’t understand why mothers need a BMW X6 to drop the kids off at school or the weekly shop. Why middle managers or IT nerds need an Audi S-line to get about.

At the end of the day each to their own…. but people are always going to look down upon or at the very least question those who do things differently….

At the end of the day each to their own…. but people are always going to look down upon or at the very least question those who do things differently….

Indeed and they absolutely need to judge others by their own standards of reverse snobbery. Like the OP.

Not cows, but horses…! Horses with bells at 2300m…!

Hahaha!

At the end of the day each to their own…. but people are always going to look down upon or at the very least question those who do things differently….

I think you are missing the point of this thread…most people are now claiming to want to do the same as everyone else, so not different.

I think campers are a great idea, would love one but it wouldn’t get used often enough and I’d soon see it as a money pit. Vw stuff is extortionately overpriced but people are happy to pay way over the odds…and Vw is happy to take their money. Same as Orange and Santa Cruz.

If they have the money, they can spend it on what they like, for me though, it is just a seriously large amount of money that could be spent ‘better’.

While as a young kid I aspired to own an early bay. I drove one and was soon put off as it was such a poor thing to drive…..and I was used to land rovers prior to that even S2.

I borrowed a t4 . Hated that as the rear was so compromised .do set up the bed you had to put away the kitchen and couldn’t get into the fridge. + Bikes had to live outside.

Hired a 6 berth coach built camper. Hated that as it was a good foot wider on each side than the transit it was based on which made it a pain in tits on narrow Scottish roads.

Bought a 4 berth iveco daily race van with a proper pro conversion – not a caravan chucked in the back. Many bikes go in back. We can live in the front nicely.

It is low milage and many many many sheckles cheaper than any t5 I have seen with similar living capacity.

It’s already done 3000miles and we only had it since february…we have not even left the UK in it yet.

Find me a hotel room…

…where you’d feel perfectly happy turning up from a ride and walking through reception covered in mud, and then storing your bike under the bed.
…where you can turn up without booking, pay by the night, and move on if its rubbish/you fancy a change, and where you don’t need to book weeks (or months) in advance.
…where you can guarantee a big sliding door to the park/beach and have a BBQ outside, and go to sleep with a view of the stars through a wide open roof vent.
…that pops up randomly when your 500 mile drive gets a bit tiring but you can’t justify paying £60 for a travelodge, or turns up in field when you want to stay at an event (whether that be twentyfour12 or a horse trials weekend).

Hotels/B&Bs have their place; in deepest darkest winter when you want a riding weekend with mates with evenings of pie and chips followed by beers, for the odd beach holiday in Greece, but to have to use one for a UK summer holiday would be so depressing, I’d go as far to say I think I’d rather stay at home and just wander about locally!

Last summer I didn’t have a camper as I’d sold the old one and was converting the new one…really missed the freedom and couldn’t bring ourselves to pay all that cash for a cottage/hotel when we have a perfectly good bedroom at home or with relatives.

Thankfully we had a big family holiday in france with my brothers/girlfriends/parents in a chalet but that only ‘costed in’ as there was 10 of us (and had the familiar big sliding doors, BBQ’s outside, no concerns about wandering in covered in mud/blood or bringing our bikes inside, and a big view/garden to lounge in) A chalet for two isn’t really affordable.

My wife has a car but the van is my only vehicle, if I didn’t have it I’d still need a big thirsty 4×4. Big enough to include a permanent bed and toilet, small enough to take to Sainsburys, strong enough to tow big horseboxes.

Edit: and yes, being woken up by wild ponies/cows is a good start to the day 🙂 Fridges under fixed beds is a good use of space.

Just been woken by a herd of baby cows.

Kettle is on and we’re watching the sun come up over the mountains.

When I’m thinking tired of the T5 I’ll probably look at something Sprinter sized, but you can’t get a Sprinter through many towns or into carparks.
Agree about the fridge/bed comprise, hence why I built our interior myself.

Sprinter through many towns or into carparks

DHL have managed for years.

Seems to be an imaginary situation conjured up by those that can’t drive. Was genuinely surprised how easy my 23ft iveco is to maneuver in town and carparks. Heights the only barrier I find a pain and even then that only really stops me going to the beach and since I hate sand that’s no loss

My drive way seems to be the most difficult place I have to park it as it’s a regular single car gate that you access off a single track road which is only just wide enough to let me arc in. Makes for good spacial awareness when driving in normal circumstances