Daily mileage when touring
Good evening & sorry if this question has been asked before but what is the average mileage people do daily when touring the UK given that time will be spent stopping to take in the views on a scenic drive?
Due to pick up our first motorhome within the next 2 weeks & planning a trip with ideas from 'Take the Slow Road' of England & Wales.
New to the club but do belong to a car club & used to planning trips in the UK & Europe but this is a totally different experience.....
Many thanks in anticipation,
Paul (Kasspa)
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I don't usually tour in the UK, it isn't a big enough country for most of my journeys and we end up stopping and moving on much as a caravan owner might but probably shorter stopovers of 3/4 days. If true touring i.e moving on daily on the continent, where it is much easier to visit attractions we have in the past averaged 60/70 miles a day. The minimum we have travelled in a day has been 6 miles and I like to keep the maximum to round about 200. I guess it all depends on what the attractions are and your interests. That is the advantage for me with a motorhome, its flexibility and the ease of moving on if you so wish.
peedee
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Welcome to CT. That's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string but as a general principle, if you are planning on sightseeing as you travel, You probably wouldn't want to have your overnight stops more than 100 miles apart at most and probably a bit less if intending to visit a castle/NT house/ picturesque lake etc. on the way.
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I'm not sure there would be any point in quoting an average. For us the distances will vary depending where we are on our tour. Getting to the area will involve some reasonable runs, once we are in the area we want to visit they reduce. For our tour of Scotland next May / June they will vary between about 200 miles in a day and 30 / 40. Whilst in France last September one move was only 15 miles.
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Can't talk about MH but both OH and myself tow so we can, and do, travel longer distances than some although we often tour with the caravan and again often stop at POI's with the van hooked up. It makes little difference if we are here or over there
PS my post has no real relevance for the OP but thought I would set the record straight
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I think Steve has pretty much summed it up. We all do things differently and will also vary our own mileages depending on the type of trip so averages are pretty meaningless.
Having used both a caravan and a MH, I have no idea why DD would say a caravan is better suited to UK touring than a MH. A caravan is better suited to staying in one place but a MH is far better suited to touring and moving around.
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That depends on the size of the motor caravan in the UK ,as noted on the many sites we stay on in the UK, it only tends to be the smaller that actually go off sites, it is not often that sites in the UK without local facilities or transport have many MVs on site
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That’s not something I’ve observed, JV, and certainly it’s not just the small MHs that move on daily and clog up the roads on northern Scotland.
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Not that its particularly relevant but our journeys last year varied between 42 and 220 miles. The hops between sites, if for example touring Yorkshire, might be quite small but getting to Yorkshire from where you live might involve an initial longer journey. It all depends on how you plan things and I am sure over time you will evolve a system that suits you. We caravanned for thirty years before changing to a motorhome seven years ago and don't find ourselves at a disadvantage in the UK using a motorhome. There are plenty of sites around the country that have access, either via walking or public transport. This even includes a few CL/CS's . Obviously there is a bit more involved in the planning in finding such sites but there is a lot of help out there. If you have a Facebook account there are numerous groups which are very helpful. Everyone's MO is different. We tend to plan shopping/fuel stops en route which is easy enough to do using Google Earth. Likewise attractions can be visited en route if that is the way you wish to do things. Good luck with your new motorhome.
David
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But then how many doing the 500
are UK registered doing the "must do trip"as has been posted about, the not suitable roads for those that doWe have noticed as here and any site with good transport links and other facilties nearby then there are nearly as many motorized caravans as caravans ,but by far the different scenario where facilities and transport are not close by
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i presume you swapped your large Bessacar for a small PVC for a reason..perhaps many?
...but ill guess one was that touring the UK in large MH takes much more thought/planning/care than the sort of impromptu stuff one can do in a 6m panel van, especially where road size dwindles...
like you, we have a fairly small van and i dont find it difficult to park, visit NT properties and pitch easily on site bit our pals have a near 8m coachbuilt thats also wider than our 'slim' van and the differences in driving (a bit of a beast), parking (no chance) and putting easily on the pitch (needs to be a big enough pitch) are quite marked.
but as DD says, MH parking provision is a different think in Europe and many manage comfortably in vans i wouldnt dream of trying to use here.
as ive said before, if I was confined to the UK, Id probably tour in a car/caravan or a PVC type unit....because its easier (IMHO
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Not a motorhomer myself but I think, as David says, the first couple of hops might be longer to get into an area. It also depends how much time is available and how long you really want to be behind the wheel. When I was working if I went up into Scotland it would usually be for 3 weeks and I would often make a first hop of 300 to 350 miles. Now that we are retired when we go into Scotland it is more likely to be for 6 or 7 weeks and the longest journey 150 miles.
With a motorhome it would seem pointless to me, once in your area of interest to have large hops between sites. In England I find that there is plenty of interest within 30 miles of anywhere.
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agree with Steve, if you're able to call in to places on a whim, distances might be very short...
coming back from a 'destination site' in the Algarve we had plenty of time to explore and called in to half a dozen places in a 170 ml stretch from Lagos to El Rocío, sometimes only 20 ml or so..
so, our 'average' there would be very small....
yet, after we crossed the channel to Cherbourg we covered 1500 km to our resort with 2 stops....
horses for courses...
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BB, the large Bessacarr with which we towed a car on a trailer was swapped many years ago. Not because of size as we had the car to get around in but because both the hab unit and the base vehicle (and the trailer) were total c**p.
Our later AS was only 6.4m so not huge but we downsized to a PVC to gain a more robust and narrower body.
I think it’s mindset rather than the LV which dictates how any of us tour. In the UK, those who choose to stay longer in one place, like JV, are better off with a caravan, or stonking great MH, while those of us who want to move around will select an appropriate LV for the way we want to tour.
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In my case as a caravanner the opposite is true, in the UK we have a destination whereas mainland Europe we tour taking in different countries and areas of interest, stopping on sites no longer than 4/5 days unless we come across somewhere exceptional.
Last year we took in 17 sites and 5 countries in our 11 weeks.
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Paul, what sort of van are you getting?
there have been a few different views on this thread, mostly related to ease (or not) of touring in MH in the UK.
There may some tips forthcoming from owners of like/similar sized/styled vans perhaps also related to 'useful kit' etc...
good luck.
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Same here, Steve. As we move on frequently, alternative transport isn’t a requirement.
Are you using the Dunnet Bay site on your way to/from the NW? Last year we found MHs to account for approx 80% of the units on that site. Many were big but only a few were foreign registered vans.
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Have a good time. You’ll have no trouble with the roads up in that corner. The road to Gills Bay ferry terminal and J o’G goes past the turning to the castle.
Cheapest fuel is at Tesco in Wick and their car park is very easy to use. The B road from Castletown to Wick is a dream - no problems there.
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???🤔
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We've had both MH and car caravan outfits and don't do anything really different.
We tour both UK and abroad, some days 200 miles others 50 or less. If we see somewhere that looks interesting we find a parking spot and have a look.
Sometimes we stay 1 night sometimes 14, it all depends on time of year, what's in the area, what the weather's like etc. The norm is 3 to 6 nights, makes no difference if caravan or MH.
I don't find that MH is better than caravan abroad, I do agree though that caravan in the UK is better.
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Of course I have but you don’t seem to have read my response.
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It's because you weren't clear, JV.
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OP, you sound like you want to tour like we do, using a lot of non motorway routes. In which case, might I suggest you look at a particular area you want to visit, what places you would like to see there, and then consider your overnight stops? This will make the most of your time, give you decent routes to make up a tour. Depending on the area you choose, it might mean an initial long journey, but then the mileage between places of interest and your next overnight stop might be not much at all. What you won’t have to do, if you plan carefully, is retrace your miles back and forth to one site. (Unless of course you choose to do this.)
We have both a caravan and a MH. Neither are overly large, we tour exclusively in this country. The caravan is for longer stays in one or two places each holiday. The MH is perfect for touring around in. We have toured with the van, we have stopped on one site with the MH. There’s no right or wrong, only choice and what suits. Never had a problem parking our MH anywhere when on tour in this country.
Best wishes for your new touring life!😁
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