Caravan or Motorhome?
This has probably been done to death before but we are undecided whether to buy a motorhome or a caravan and towcar. Having sold our house, we have a pot of money available but want to make sure we choose the right outfit. We have always had caravans and I am a reasonable tower and the flexibility of a car and caravan is attractive but the OH likes the idea of a self contained vehicle. My concern is that with a motorhome you will be limited to the site and excursions off site will be restricted by the size of the motorhome. We have narrowed our options down to a Subaru Outback/Bailey Unicorn Cadiz or an Autosleeper Bourton.
Advice anyone?
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Why not hire a similar caravan and motorhome for a couple of weeks and try them for size. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to both.
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I think you've identified the main drawbacks, Rapidair. Our MH is the same size as the Bourton (an AS Suffolk) and we've been able to get most places with it. I wouldn't want to go any bigger though. We changed from a cvan to a MH due to lessening physical ability and certainly have found it easier.
However, having a MH has changed the way we tour. We are not walkers or bikers and don't want to use public transport unless absolutely necessary so we no longer spend 3-5 nights on one site but move on after 1-2 nights. We do our sight seeing, shopping or whatever while travelling to the next site. There is nothing better, in my opinion, than detouring off the motorway and meandering around (which you probably couldn't do with a cvan) and then stopping at a beauty spot for lunch with all the comforts of home on board.
It all comes down to personal circumstances and choices. Stay longer and tour with the Outback (good car, by the way), or keep moving on with the pros and cons of having everything with you. Only you can tell which is best for you.
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Never had a MH so can't compare but what does put me off them is that to go anywhere, you have to take everything with you including the proverbial kitchen sink! With the c'van it all stays behind on site. I can park the car virtually anywhere, but a MH?
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As you have a pot of money why not tow a small car, plenty of them around, on a trailer for when you want to stay on sites for a longer period and then use the motorhome for when you want to explore like TW, maybe out of high season such as winter etc.leaving the small car at home. You can then use the small car for running around at home for shopping etc.
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I think Tinwheeler has summed it up nicely; in the end it is down to the way you tour, how mobile, or not, you are with regards to being able to walk or cycle, or whether you'd need the MH to get to places once on site.
We used to have caravans and have now had MHs for the last 17 years. It suits us much better than a caravan, we find the actual travelling better in a MH as well than towing a caravan. We don't spend weeks on a site, but prefer to move on after 4-5 days, sometimes less, and find packing up the MH a lot easier and quicker than car/caravan.
We love walking and cycling, so once on site the MH never moves until we move elsewhere. Some shopping is done en route, but most of it on the bicycles, with panniers, especially in France, where we spend quite a bit of time.
Our MH is the next one up from yours, a Winchcombe, so a bit longer than the Bourton.
In the end the decision has to be yours and yours alone; other people can give you their perspective on both, but it has a lot to with your own style of touring, ie do you prefer to stay put for a week or more, or do you tend to move on regularly?
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Once you have a motor caravan, unless you trade the whole thing in, you are stuck with that size, model, decor, and layout etc. With a trailer caravan and a tow vehicle there is a bit more flexibility to change one or the other as suits your demands. There are a lot of people who change their tow vehicle every year or so but have stuck with the same caravan for ages.
If you don't have a second vehicle, how do you go shopping at home, or pop down to the railway station, or out for fish & chips?
Think also what you expect to be doing in 5, 10, 15 years from now.
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We have both, but would opt to keep the MH if we had to choose. Nothing to do with age or ability to do caravanning chores, for us, the touring is just so much easier, more relaxing and nicer.
The AS Bourton topped our list of UK models should we get round to replacing our current model. Advice is to go with the smallest model you feel comfortable in, both on site and on the road. In terms of MHs, big isn't always best. We have had no problems parking up in towns and cities, and have still managed to get most places we go with car, albeit sometimes by different routes!
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One of the obvious problems with a motorhome in the UK is highlighted by the OP's question on this thread.
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Good points AD, but it is a fact that owning and using a MH does not mean you are restricted to walking or public transport all of the time, hence my point about going with the smallest MH you find most comfortable. If you like to get to a site, get set up, stay for quite a while, tootle around local area, then a caravan is fantastic, and I do appreciate that many folks do tour extensively with a caravan.
But if you fancy doing a few days in an area, having the comforts of your kitchen, lounge, kettle, lounge chairs, canopy all with you by the side of the beach, up on the moors, everywhere you go, then a carefully sized MH is unbeatable, so easy to use. The journey becomes part of the holiday, canny Motorhomers travel as light as they like, taking very little time to set up or depart, and it doesn't matter what time a site wants you to leave, because you just motor on to the next destination, stopping when you want.
I am not saying one touring base is better than another, just hoping to dispel the myth that once MHs are on site, you have to walk or use public transport. Motorhoming is/can be linear, caravanning is more a series of there and back car journeys for longer stays in one place.
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All our travelling these days is in mainland Europe where motorhomes are better catered for. Even so, thinking over the last 20 campsites we have been to and liked, 5 would have been suitable with a Motorhome but 15 would have been impossible - too far from shops, places of interest etc., and no public transport. So we would have to change to campsites in very different locations, or use Motorhome Aires, or run a pretty small camper van.
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The overall solution would seem to be to tow a traditional trailer caravan with a "day van" with a toilet and galley in it.
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Thanks everyone, it looks like we will have to re-think what our requirements are. We have always based ourselves on one site and used the car to get around. The idea of 'proper' touring, staying on site for one or two days then moving on is quite appealing. We have always thought in terms of the long stay on one site probably as a result of only owning caravans, touring never crossed our minds!
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If you just want to stay 1 or 2 nights on a site then move on, a motorhome would suite you, but if you are like us staying on a site for a week or twe, then you are better with a caravan, so you have your car to go around and not going down narrow lanes with your motorhome
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I'm pleased to have given you something to think about, Rapidair.
For the record, we find once gave a bigger MH and towed a car on a trailer. For us, it was just too much faffing about so this time we went for a smaller MH and it works.
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We went through the same thought process four years ago and after 30 years of caravanning we decided to change to a motorhome and we don't regret the decision. I went through some of our thought processes here in this blog. The problem is no one can make the decision for you. We started to seriously think about a change when the hassle of caravanning was starting to affect the enjoyment. I was getting fed up with all the checks before setting off. Also never knowing whether there would be room of the road to allow us to hitch up which started to cause a lot of stress. We rarely spend any time in the motorhome on a remote campsite, we alway choose sites near to habitation or a site with good transport links. Personally I rather like public transport but others don't so you have to decide which camp you are in. The idea of hiring a motorhome is often suggested. Unless you are going to hire one for a couple of weeks I think it would be a waste of time. Living in a motorhome is not much different to living in a caravan given similar sizes. The trade off is what it is like in the longer term when you need to go to the shops or visit an attraction. We find packing up is fairly minimal and as you would in a caravan you get into a routine.
David
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If you are going to be "on the road" for long stretches since you have sold the house I would think long and hard about the space you could be cooped up in on a rainy day etc.? With a car one person could go off and leave the other but it's all choices of what suits you. A pros and cons list perhaps?
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Surely having a routine to allow you to set off in your motorhome is just the same as all the checks you'd do before setting off with the caravan
I never known if, when we get home from somewhere when towing, if there'll be enough room on my street to allow me to reverse down my drive ....... it's not something I've ever 'stressed' about though.
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Since retiring almost 10 years back, we have been touring for about 4 months every year, for the last 8 years with a large twin axle, which gives us plenty of space whatever the weather.
We usually do 2-3 months abroad and 1-2 months total in UK, normally we spend 4-5 nights in an area before moving on, some times only a night or two if we need a stop on a longer trip.
As we were planning to change our car, we thought we would take a good look at MHs, as the sightseeing etc en route between sites idea appealed to us.
Having been used to a certain amount of space, and a certain standard of facilites, we made a list of our "must haves" and soon found that this would result in a MH that was too big to keep at home.
We decided on a few compromises, but found that even this did not work for us as any of the MHs we liked were in the £70-£80k price bracket, which we felt in the end was too much.
If the price was not a problem, we would have continued looking.
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we spend 4-5 nights in an area before moving on, some times only a night or two if we need a stop on a longer trip.
Having been used to a certain amount of space, and a certain standard of facilites, we made a list of our "must haves" and soon found that this would result in a MH that was too big to keep at home.
We are much the same really.
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My life as a 'camper' started with Mum and Dad in a Lamont frame tent and at that time I don't recall any yearning to have a Bedford Dormobile. Married with a family we used the tent till, when it was put up in the garden to dry out, following a Cornish summer outing, the cat decided to sharpen its claws on the frame.
This led to a European trip of three weeks with Eurocamp and that, fun as it was, made us realise that we wanted to move 'up market' and buy a caravan.
Our first, ex hire and pretty battered, van was followed by new ones and as I neared retirement, and a pot of money, it dawned on us that those envious glances at motor homes seemingly flying by us on the Autoroutes could now be replaced by the smiles of ownership.
So we started to look for a MH and that was when we realised that we actually new little of what the pros and cons were having, till that point just this notion that it would be better-I mean for the money that we were going to spend it had to be..........didn't it? That's when we started to realise the disadvantages that many have mentioned but struggled to find many advantages.
The thing that did for a MH in the end was Grandchildren, or rather the lack of space in any MH that we were considering, to have a travel cot. Decision made we got a new van, another since and the next is on order.
However we have found a sort of compromise, that addresses many of the concerns others have mentioned above, and that is that we take our main holidays with friends who are MH users.
This means that enroute we get to use their 'on tap' facilities-burger van jokes welcome as I am running out-and when on site we share the fuel costs of using my car for our trips out. One set of friends with an Autotrail Scout use a trailer for their scooter when on their own so it is quite a saving for them not having to take it.
We have great holidays together and there is always a good level of mickey taking on both sides but very rarely, outside of the joking, any discussion or comparison of the van/MH question. However, the one thing that we are all agreed in is that, if money was not an issue, we would all have a caravan and a MH.
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David, your blog has given us a lot to think about! The OH is not happy with towing a caravan so we are probably going for a new Autosleeper Bourton. My only concern at the moment is the running costs as you can bet that the Government will introduce some form of taxation, either on fuel or VED, to discourage us dirty diesel drivers. I have been assured by various dealers that the new VED rates being rolled out on April 1st will not apply to new motorhomes. We shall see!
The Autosleeper coachbuilts seem very well put together and with a Mercedes base vehicle we get a proper automatic gearbox. We did look at the Baileys but were not impressed with the build quality although we have owned their caravans both new and used and have been generally pleased with them. We also looked at Hymer, nice vehicles but the cost at £71000 was too much and virtually no kitchen. I think the next step will be a test drive and a long chat with Motor Plus in Derby.
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We bought a new AS Broadway a year ago and haven't looked back after 30 years with a caravan. The Bourton is Mercedes based and probably a better vehicle but compared with the Broadway has reduced fresh water capacity and a truncated offside interior locker. That, with the £4K or so price difference persuaded us to buy the Peugeot version.
We were never keen on excursions to towns with the car so are quite happy to live with the restrictions of a MH when touring Europe. Generally we opt for sites within walking distance of towns or villages. One site we visit most years in France has the benefit that the owner lends us her car to visit town!
It is so good to turn up somewhere, switch off the engine and know that nothing else is needed - the fridge switches to the onboard gas tank, the water is "on tap" and eventually we plug in the EHU if available. That's it; nothing else.
We don't use Aires and generally stay several days at sites but everybody has their own way of touring.
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Rapidair65
My understanding is that the new VED rates won't apply to motorhomes built on a commercial chassis, they will still be classed as light goods vehicles. However if you were thinking of a camper van based on a Volkswagen that would be the same as a car but as you are thinking of something bigger that won't be a problem. Interestingly in terms of costs I don't think my overall costs have risen much since changing to a motorhome. My VED for both car and motorhome are still less than my previous towcar. The cost of motorhome insurance is about the same as I was paying for my caravan and the habitation service is also about the same. Obviously I have a extra vehicle service to pay for each year. As a couple we have never had the need for a second car so owning a motorhome is the first time we have owned two vehicles. Another plus is that the motorhome is marginally more economic in terms of fuel compared to my towcar.
David
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Since selling our last van, a Bailey Seville, and downsizing to a campervan (Mazda Bongo) we are accustomed to serious fuel consumption (24 mpg on the 2.5 V6) so fuel isn't an issue. We do like the versatility of the bongo but not the lack of space and the constant struggle with awnings. We have to tow a trailer to maintain all the home comforts we had with the caravan. The bongo is great fun and easy to drive but is too small for two and three dogs! We will be keeping it though as a day van for trips out locally as we can't bear to part with it.
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A MH and a caravan? I have both, sort of. I have a 7m coachbuilt MH and a Fiat 500. When I tow the car on an A-frame I am in caravan mode. When I leave the car at home I am in MH mode. Sometimes I just take bikes and sometimes I take both. Abroad I never take the car so am always in MH mode.
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As you already have towed and no the advantage and disadvantage with car and caravan, I must agree with a previous reply regarding the hire of a motorhome for a least a couple of weeks, it may be expensive to hire but far better than spending a fortune and having regrets.
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