Reccomend a camper van to tour france in for 4 months over summer

my girlfriend will be driving and shes gonna trade in her 2 year old vw polo

any advice appreciated…on motors,places and all sorts.

Guessing the polo is worth between £4k and £6k private sale.

If you’re not planning on adding any cash to it then you may be limited. high mileage campers on eBay might do but you’d need to have a feel for a lemon.

for four months youd value a proper conversion over a van with a mattress. Things like windows, panel carpeting, floor lining will be much more comfortable for longer stays.

A fantastic way to spend the summer if ever there was one!

Come on Stoner, no good without pics! You know you wanna!!! 😉

Campervans are expensive.

If you want to make a project of it, buy a normal van and budget £2-3k for a self conversion. If you’ve got the time, are good with your hands and can waste away your evenings researching fridges/insulation/windows on http://www.sbmcc.co.uk you can end up with a very nice van tailored to your needs. A half decent conversion will take you 2-3 months though.

I was being coy 🙂

give me a minute…

EDIT: here we are. We spend several months of the year on the continent in this.

hmmm im confused already…
please elabourate….
yeah we defo are looking thru rose tinted glasses…tell me more!!
advice if really appreciater stoner!

aah yes now thats what im talking about
are off the peg campers shit?
im thinking we’ll be doing alot of camping too.

jesus im out of my depth already in this chat…

but please,carry on!

something like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VW-TRANSPORTER-LWB-2-5TDi-CAMPER-DIRT-CHEAP_W0QQitemZ200317966803QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Campers_Caravans_Motorhomes?hash=item200317966803&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A1|39%3A1|240%3A1318

amazing!!!! thats what i want!where can we get one!!!???

jae, I have very similar ambitions (although it would be more of a 4-5 week honeymoon in the summer holidays this year) but am also at a similar level of “well the more I find out the less I know”.
Frustrating isn’t it? But such a good view through those rose tinted specs we both seem to have a pair of 🙂

Buy mine! W reg Iveco conversion (Iveco are the best-selling vans in Europe), sleeps 2, 46,000miles, cooker, standing room, bog, fridge, loads of space.

Price negotiable.

(Selling to get a bigger & better one)

yup me and my girl want to run away…quit the jobs,3 grand each in our tail and go! thinking of leaving early july and come back whenever we want.

im gonna go a crash course in french at college too…rose tinted specs insted of grey edinburgh sky……woohooo.

moses
tell me more…..
show me pics!!!!!!!!

Even with this new website I seem incapable of posting pics or links.
The Van
So if this doesn’t work, email me.

Looking for £6.5 – very good value, I think. Fully serviced, very warm.
One caveat: I don’t recommend it if you’re over 5’10”.

Think about what you actually want – do you need a shower in the van? cooking facilities? I do a lot of car based camping which works for me and you might get more motor for your money. Have a look at http://car.pege.org/camping/car.htm. Something like a Kangoo or Citroen mpv thing with a rooftent http://www.autohomeus.com/rooftop/choose.php might be cheaper to put together and just as comfortable for 2 people. Plus nicer to drive and maybe more mpg and cheaper to insure? If your going for a long time is it worth looking for a LHD version?

db

db,tracker,moses,spooky,surfer,stoner and all and everyone else… im blown away by your input!!!…..seriously appreciated!!!

keep it coming tho…………

Camper vans are ridiculously expensive for what they are. You could get a nice car and a nice caravan with aircon, hot and cold water, a shower, microwave the works for the same price as a crapped out old unsafe unreliable heap of crap. And if you tent camp you’ll get even more for your money and save many hundreds of pounds or even thousands on fuel.

crapped out old unsafe unreliable heap of crap

Not sure where that vitriol came from?

I’ve got to disagree with that, Molgrips.
(Especially since I want to sell my van to fund an upgrade 🙂 )

You can’t either park a caravan or pitch a tent in most of the places we’ve used our van, and towing a caravan is a pain. We tend to park in Forestry / National T|rust carparks or just off side roads – not in paid-for campsites.
A short camper van is ideal, warm, dry, manouverable, self-contained. And at 6.5 k for a vehicle with less than 50k miles, its cheap.

With regard to Caravans I think they are great however pulling one would drive me mad, although I concede they have benefits once you arrive in that you can drive off in your car if you want and they tend to be larger.

However my neighbors have one and they use it about 3 times a year the rest of the time it is in storage. No opportunity for spontaneous weekends away when the sun occasionally shines.

I can’t believe no ones mentioned the Mazda Bongo yet 🙂

crapped out old unsafe unreliable heap of crap
Not sure where that vitriol came from?

It’s not vitriol? Sorry if it came over that way. I’ve looked at campers many times and been amazed at the aging vehicles as above described being advertised at many thousands. And by unsafe I don’t mean that the brakes don’t work or anything, I mean a vehicle designed well before NCAP safety ratings and the like.

Caravans can be spontaneous if you have them on your property.. agreed if they are miles away then not so good. I would probably prefer a camper in reality but the cost is just outrageous, I think. You could effectively get much nicer accommodation, a free decent car and a free top-end bike for the same price as a camper. And that’s just at the lower end of the market. New camper vans are insane. There was one on the caravan channel last night (don’t ask) – normal sort of size, quite nice inside – SIXTY GRAND! I mean seriously, that has to be a pisstake.

Free your minds from the VW blinkers!

Bongos for sale

Bongo’s not really a camper van, is it? Really.. face facts…

I hired a sixty grand camper van – it was lovely. cost around a thousand a week IIRC. Fixed double bed. telly and surround sound, toilet and shower, proper cooker and fridge

I do think its true tho that they are not good value for money on the second hand market. £5000 won’t buy you much of a camper van compared to a car or a van at that price point.

Well, they’re no winnebagos, but they’re more of a campervan than most of those old VW vans littering the side of motorways 🙂

About half the price, and you can use them as a day-to-day vehicle too… Fold the rear seats up and you can fit two+ mtbs securely in the back. No removing wheels or tying them to bike racks necessary.

Plenty of bongo-deniers out there tho, mostly jealous vw owners I think…

Best of both worlds…

…except I’m put off by the fact I drive one of those for BT so it would feel like I’m at work when I’m actually on holiday! (they are not normally demountable, that ones been modified)

but they’re more of a campervan than most of those old VW vans littering the side of motorways

Half the price of a VW camper? There’s N reg vehicles on that link posted above with high miles for SIX GRAND.. are VW campers really £12k a pop? If so then that’s ALSO insane.

Bongos – have a tiny camper van then sleep in a tent on the roof.

Having said that, I like them as vans 🙂

you can get a decent bongo for 4-5k, so 8-10k for a half-decent vw camper i think is pretty comparable…

8-10k for a half-decent vw camper i think is pretty comparable

But totally insane nevertheless….

So £6.5k for a bloody solid Iveco W-reg hi-top conversion with less than 50k on the clock is a bargain! Any takers?

That will be just in time for his trip.

Lol! 🙂

yup me and my girl want to run away…quit the jobs,3 grand each in our tail and go! thinking of leaving early july and come back whenever we want.

im gonna go a crash course in french at college too…rose tinted specs insted of grey edinburgh sky……woohooo.
A week in Scotland costs me about £1k. So I guess £6k may make whenever we want seem rather short.

Toyota Hiace?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TOYOTA-HI-ACE-4-WHEEL-DRIVE-CAMPERVAN-/270752553714?pt=UK_Campers_Caravans_Motorhomes&hash=item3f0a1c1af2#ht_500wt_1156

6k and the seller will only accept paypal.. smells of cod to me

Less than 6 grand, sleeps 4, full size oven, fridge, shower, toilet, heating…….

Not as convenient as a van, but not as inconvenient as you might think.

wanna buy a darg?

orr mebbe a little tarmacin?

How did this get dredged up?! And was it only two years ago?