@Richard.Dane, if possible could you please amend the title of the thread, inserting “or Caravan” after “Motorhome”, or if that too long change to: “What Motorhome or Caravan do you have? What’s good or not so good about it?”
Thanks in anticipation!
This is Dora, our Eriba Troll 530. Total length is 579cm and weight is under 1,000kg, and being low they are really easy to tow. They are built on an aluminium frame with really high construction quality, low depreciation and a long life.
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We started off with a campervan to tour Australia, and enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to get one when we got back to Blighty, but after due consideration we decided a caravan would suit us a bit better, as we anticipated going to France and stopping at one place for a week or so before moving on. As it happened, my ex. and her hubby were selling their immaculate van, so we bought it, hitched it up to the Discovery we had at the time, and headed off one dark, snowy night to a Caravan Club site in Derbyshire. We arrived in the dead of night in a snowstorm, and luckily the warden was around and helped us to park up. We had little idea what we were doing, but loved it, and spent the next ten years touring round the UK and France. We met up with some great folks in the process, and only gave it up when we decided to buy a holiday home in the Lake District.
For some reason we had pretty lousy weather during our caravanning days, and being stuck in a caravan on a muddy site, with two boisterous dogs and cream leather upholstery wasn’t much fun. It even rained when we went to the south of France! SWMBO’s idea of camping is a Travelodge, so she’d had enough by then.
Towing is a skill easily mastered, and both the Caravan Club & Camping and Caravanning Club run towing courses. Having a suitably big tug helps, and motor movers are excellent. Besides, there are always lots of helpful folks around at sites who will help all they can once they know you’re a novice.
Knowing what type of 'van to get requires careful thought. We got through four of them, finally settling on a Knauss Starliner with a fixed bed & single axle. you have to be careful not to overload 'vans - when we sold our Knauss & I unloaded, it must have gone up six inches or so…
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We’ve had our motorhome for almost 6 years (since we both retired). It was my wife’s dream, I was a little reluctant, having less than pleasant memories of caravanning holidays as a teenager! I admit now I am a total convert, albeit there are pros and cons which need to be weighed up before taking the plunge.
I do understand the appeal of having the use of a towing vehicle when on site, but that small benefit is pretty much the only advantage we can see of caravanning (other than cost - generally caravans are significantly cheaper, and most people already own their towing vehicle).
Our one and only, thus far, motorhome is a UK built Autocruise Stardream (no longer produced unfortunately). Based on a Peugeot Boxer van, it’s a purpose built 2 person van. We deliberately went for a rear ‘horseshoe’ lounge setup, which gives stunning comfort and views and comfortably accommodates 4 people for eating/drinking/nibbles/games if you’re entertaining on site and weather’s not brilliant. It converts, with ease and within 3 minutes, into the biggest and most comfortable bed imaginable (6’6” x 6’). In the morning my half of the bed gets put away as I make the tea, which my better half enjoys still snuggled under her duvet!
The storage is phenomenal, there’s a bathroom with separate shower cubicle which works really well (can’t stand wet rooms where everything gets soaked when you shower). Most ‘homers and ‘vanners never use their bathrooms except to take a pee at night. We, on the other hand, prefer our own facilities to communal showers - each to their own!
Our motorhome is an absolute delight to drive! King of the Road driving position, powerful, responsive, great handling (bought with low profile Altco suspension). Our SatNav is a specific motorhome version, into which you programme vehicle dimensions - it then warns you if any proposed route includes roads which are too narrow or include low bridges etc.
There’s loads more we could talk about - all I would say is do loads of research, talk to as many motorhomers as possible and consider splashing out on a week’s motorhome hire before deciding. Not cheap, but could save you a bunch of cash!
We’re awaiting the end of lockdown to explore a panel van conversion replacement for our ‘home - not cheap, but everything we want in a package that’s a foot narrower and two feet shorter than our current van. It will make negotiation of many of our Cornish local byways far easier to explore.
Here are a couple of photos of ‘Maddy’, just to give an idea of what I’ve been chunnering on about! Build quality is excellent, with no leaks of any type in her 12 years of life. Depreciation not too bad either. We paid £32k for her in 2014, and have been offered £26k in part-ex 6 years and 30,000 miles later. Oh, mpg not too shabby either - we average 28 to the gallon (engine is 2.2 diesel turbo).
Almost forgot, we invested in electric bikes a couple of years ago (Raleigh Motus) and a Thule towbar carrier. Absolutely wonderful, makes exploring the locale (15-20 mile radius) a piece of cake, and pretty much negates not having a tow car.
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@timmo1341 damn that rig is bad ass! I’m gonna make sure my wife doesn’t see this. Haha, I wonder if they’re available in the US I’m going to have to do some googling. Bravo!
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Much as we love Maddy, this is the slightly smaller version of the same concept we’re leaning towards. Much will depend upon a factory visit once lockdown lifting allows, primarily to see if we can reach a compromise on wash room design (separate shower rather than wet room). It will be a wrench to downsize, but as we live outside 90% of the time in France should be able to cope. Upside is we’ll spend far more time going to the less accessible places we love in the UK.
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I noticed that some here have named their Motorhomes or Caravans, for us our first had the name, “Hattie” after Hattie Jacques the actress, our second machine has no name, we flirted with a couple but none stuck! Despite being a much better match for us, perhaps there is a lack of affection?
Am late coming to this thread, saw it a few weeks back but was busy home schooling and chipping away at lockdown job list……am now back at work for a rest and time to reply! lol
Our van story started on our Honeymoon (two nights in Auckland then 16 nights in a converted Transit, a good test of any marriage) we did a meandering route through the North Island (Hobbiton at Mata Mata, Rotorua geothermal heart being the highlights) then looped round the South Island (whale/dolphin watching at Kaikoura, Queenstown for bungee/skydive and amazing Milford Sound fly/cruise/fly, back up to Christchurch and final few days in Akaroa old French Quarter). An amazing place, stunning countryside, friendly people and a cool road trip – still married 15 years later so must have done something right!
I had the bug for touring from a previous trip down under back in the late 90’s when I had a week in Sydney then toured in a tiny van with auld mates from Primary School – 8,600 miles in three weeks – out to the Blue Mountains (woke one morning with frost on the inside of the van!) down through Canberra (weird layout of a capital and all) hit the coast then along to Melbourne (drove on the F1 track at Albert Park, in a van lol) Great Ocean Road past the Apostles and up to Adelaide, then the long route up to Uluru and the resort (I know it’s sacred and now banned, but we climbed it, one of us in a Kilt) then back down the road but turned left at Port Augusta and the top loop back to Sydney….four of us in a tiny van and lots of driving – appreciated the compact scenery in New Zealand that’s for sure!
When we came to buy our first motorhome we looked at the second hand market and had a few things in mind – mainly the size, layout and sleeping arrangement.
Having to make and put away the bed each night/day in NZ was a necessity due to space, but sleeping on the buttoned cushions was not the best so we wanted a proper mattress – which ruled out the caravanette style of van - which, to be honest, neither of us were really into – I get it, they are cool and if I had one I would want to chuck mountain bikes or snowboard and my camera bag in the back and go on an adventure, but to live and sleep in one (esp with kids in tow) has to come with sacrifices (space, comfort, luxury) but each to their own.
We didn’t want to get anything too big and had 7m as a rough limit, layout is another conundrum as there is just such a huge choice out there but we are in the NE Scotland so limited to what we could view (Perthshire Caravans have a horrendous reputation for service, but handy shop and huge showroom so good to check out different layouts and sizes) in the end we were lucky - there were two vans at Dyce Caravans that were close if not perfect, a Mercedes conversion (that I cannot for the life of me remember the name / manufacturer) it had a rear kitchen and shower room and double bed that dropped down from the ceiling just behind the cab above the “lounge” area - novel we thought being relative newbies as we had not seen that before……
The other van was the one we went for – a ’56 plate Fiat Ducato low profile conversion (so a C Class) made by Home-Car, P-59 model (a Belgium manufacturer, relatively unknown in this country, but we saw a few when we were touring in France). It was 6.28 m long, 2.27 m wide and 2.75 m high – had fixed seats up front (something we wished we could change and kept in mind for future) a dinette / seating area and side entry door behind the cab seats, then rear corner bed with toilet/shower in the other corner. Perfect layout for a young couple with no kids, the seating area could be made down into (tight double) and we squeezed four adults in the van for a hill walking trip, once lol. We never used the shower (as always staying on sites so used their facilities) I capped off the shower hose and fitted shelves for extra storage (clothes and munchies etc, light things). We had a great time and had made the right choice in van - touring mainly the Scottish West Coast and it had no trouble on the single track roads or even the rotating deck ferry across to Skye at Glenelg.
Life moved on, two years later we had our first addition, she slept in the seating area and we had to black out the van and stay quiet until she was asleep before we could move about and get drinks / nibbles and put a movie on……which made us think this wasn’t the perfect layout after all….plus with those fixed seats up front it was a bit ‘modular’ - you were either driving, sitting / eating or sleeping.
Always nice checking out other vans on site when touring though, to get ideas, got chatting to a friendly couple in a Rapido and that’s where we saw the drop-down bed again, interesting we thought, now not such newbies…….
After a few more years of touring, including a France Belgium Holland road trip and return trips to Longleat in Englandshire we had another addition to the family and realised that our van life had to change.
After lots of discussion and web searching we thought we had found the perfect layout for our next van and now family of four – two single beds up the back (that could be turned into a transverse double if req) one for each of the kids, bathroom and kitchen opposite each other in the middle, seating area up front with ‘pilot’ chairs in the cab that rotated round into same seating area inc table, made a nice open space and above all that, was a drop down bed for us – revelation.
At that time the Burstner 55 anniversary models were kicking about and that layout was experienced first-hand at Perthshire Caravans, thought this is it - the Perfect van! Put the kids to bed at night then we chill in the seated area up front and drop the bed down when its time…But……the conversion models (so still a C Class on a Fiat Ducato chassis with conventional van cab up front) were 7.4 m long and the extra size was noticeable.
Back to the drawing board and in the meantime, we managed to sell our old van, where we found the other pleasant thing about ownership – value retention!
Our Home-Car was a ’56 plate (2006), bought in early 2008, had a few thousand miles on it for an asking price of 28K, we paid 25K as starting out fresh and no trade in – sold six years & several thousand miles later and got 20K……cash……in a Tesco carrier bag! lol - bit alarming, but they came with me to the bank and all was accepted no worries, phew.
Now, we own our van for life.
Bold statement and it was a huge decision for us, financially (but that’s another more personal story) and (apart from some teething issues, like water leaks and a recall, all resolved under warranty) we have not regretted it.
Ours is a 2016 Burstner Viseo i690G (A Class) Motorhome, still based on a Fiat Ducato chassis but being A Class the cab area up front is designed as part of the habitation making the most of the space (as has been described earlier in the thread). Length 6.96m Width 2.2m Height 2.85m. So, just under 7 m and we have had no issues touring single track roads, apart from alarming on-coming traffic lol – the elevated driving position and HUGE windscreen make it such a dream to dive!
Ours was spec’d from new, hence the huge financial decision – but this gave us the opportunity to get things we would struggle to find on the second-hand market! Mainly – no oven!! What is it with British vans all coming with an oven??? Think we used ours once in the Home-Car, only to burn the garlic bread, such a waste of gas and space!
We put in its place a taller Fridge and Separate Freezer – awesome! Also, above that, a Microwave (an essential with two young kids for zapping baked beans etc). We also spec’d the larger 3.0 ltr engine, automatic gearbox, extended range fuel tank, up-rated chassis, solar panels, two leisure batteries, external water and gas points, reversing camera, cab air con, underfloor heating (our bathroom at home doesn’t even have underfloor heating!!) and silver paint……easier to keep looking clean than the traditional white, plus looks cool……
Once the kids are grown up and don’t want to come on hols with us we can make up the transverse double at the back…….or keep the single bed arrangement if she wants lol
The storage under the raised rear beds is HUGE, and at the moment takes the two lafuma loungers, two big tubs (one with cadac bbq stuff, the other drive away awning stuff) still leaves room for kids bikes and scooters, cleaning stuff, leveling ramps and toolbox etc. At a push we could fit adult bikes but we are not at that stage just yet.
And that’s our van life, apologies for a monster reply but thought I’d tell our story and our reasons for choosing the vans we did. I hope you enjoy your search and good luck in choosing the right van!
Pics to follow….
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We bought our 2008 Coachman Pastiche 4 berth fixed bed 8 years ago and it’s still going well. I had no idea about caravans so went into it with a completely open mind but very quickly realised that it had to have a fixed bed which cut down the choices significantly back then. We also found that the build quality of a lot of the more popular makes left a bit to be desired. After a lot of looking we decided that the best in our price range was Coachman, even though it meant buying something a year or two older. Luckily, a caravan dealer less than 2 miles from where we live took a model we were after in part exchange and the deal was done.
Coachmans are heavy for their size but we’ve only ever towed it with X5’s so that isn’t an issue.
We did consider a motorhome at the time and again when we changed the X5 a couple of years ago but decided against one. We will keep hold of the Coachman until we retire in 18 months and will re-asses our options then.
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What is it Dunc? Details if you can, yours? Layout, pics?
It’s a la Voyager, just under 8 meters long.
Our second motorhome and a very nice place to stay in, while we tour round Spain and france etc
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That looks very plush indeed - similar layout to ours too, assuming that’s a drop down bed above the cab area? Do you use your shower much? If you don’t mind me asking…
Always felt separate shower cubicle was a wasted space, esp on a more compact van where space optimisation is key, as opposed to a grand tourer like yours Dunc.
The design in our Burstner caught our eye and ticked the box - sink (inc cabinet below and mirror) swings over the loo leaving a “compact” shower, which, to be fair, we have never used but great space saving design…
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