The way we were
Is it just me? I started with a 7 yrear old 5 berth caravan in 1981. Foot pump and gas mantles and built like the proverbial Brick S. In 1993 we bought a 4 berth and I later installed mains electrics. Decent sized washroom two part porta potti and when on EHU. Lights and water pump powered by an extension from the car socket on the hitch but with additional lighting and power to fridge and sockets on EHU. Heating on EHU was a thermostatic fan heater. Present van Microwave rarely used. Heating Alde which is lovely and heats hot water of course.
The truth is that the fan heater was adequate. Rarely use the spacious shower, was happy to boil a kettle for dishes. wash or strip down wash. Microwave rarely used. WE have a TV aerial that is unused. A radio that we rarely use but the precious battery radio served the same function. One thing that I do like is ATC.
I often yearn for the 1988 van bought in 1993 and given away in around 2003
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I was put off LV’ing for decades due to the basic offerings of my mates(parents) caravan. It was a tent with rigid sides & wheels as it seemed to me. I finally bought new after seeing how they’d moved on but realised I’d also moved on Too so I sold it. I think we all have different needs & expectations. I’m guessing the vast majority would not want to go back to the ‘tent with rigid sides & wheels’ from days of yore ET plus I’m thinking you are driven by nostalgia not reality👍🏻
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Several manufacturers have in the past marketed a "basic" caravans but were not it seems worth the effort as they have not been in their ranges for long
The uk market seems to be all the latest goodies in a caravan that can be towed by the smallest car,?
Even the (in the past) European built c.vans are now starting to cater for the UK all singng all dancing c/van
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I'm one who enjoys the luxuries of modern LVs. Perhaps it's due to having experienced the basicness of our early vans and maybe it's linked to age but I relish the joys of the microwave, oven, fridge, TV, heater, washroom etc etc. No way would I go back to the old ways. For me, present day reality beats nostalgia anytime👍👍
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We never really considered a caravan until 2004. Some if this when the kids were young was the cost but also the fact we really enjoyed tenting. As the kids grew I bought a baggage trailer to accommodate the increasing amount of stuff we had to cart about. Latterly, when we were camping on our own, we electrified. Very easy in France, less so over here where electric tent pitches were hard to come by. The final straw came in 2004 when one cold morning I did my back in getting up off the lilo and could not move for several days. The decision was made that in our advancing years we needed a bit more luxury. Namely beds and a heating system.
We really enjoyed our camping years but now appreciate the luxury touring our LV provides.
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Never have been interested in backward steps or 'the good old days'.
Tenting was too basic and extreme after a warm bed at home so never entertained it, I also started with the basics in our first caravan and enjoyed every advancement as the years went by.
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We did a tiny little camper van first. Convertible bed, great cooker, tiny sink, tiny wardrobe, no bathroom. We were young, lithe and fit, very creative with our food, loved being outdoors. Dozens of great holidays, and thousands of miles. Then it died. Then came the tent years. Loaned SILs basic Monza, footpump, lights on battery, Thetford manual flush loo in a bathroom with a sink. We bought it off her.
1996, had some cash from somewhere🤷♀️, OH found a Cotswold Windrush two berth, for sale. Comfy beds, great cooker, fridge, full bathroom, water/space heating, well insulated, in great condition, considered a luxury van when built. We bought it, and spent three months of every year for 14 years touring in it. We still have it. It costs us nothing. It needs some work at the moment, mainly because we don’t use it enough, and want to change a few things. New water and space heater units are in, we just need to get it home to finish the rest.
Not interested in a new van, we are still happy with our basic van, it’s comfy, warm and will be restored back to how we now want it. No traipsing to dealers, no worrying what’s going to go wrong/fall off/ fail next, no angst about resale value, thieves tend to leave it alone, not valuable enough. Our biggest dilemma is sourcing spare parts, but it won’t cost us much to restore.
We do have little MH as well.
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everyone is different. I can recall staying as a child in mobile caravans used as statics in the 60’s with parafin heaters, gas lighting, foot pump for water if we were lucky. My OH only became interested in caravanning when realised how luxurious they now are. Just back from first holiday in the new Eccles we bought 3 weeks ago, lovely!
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No sentimentality for caravans past I am afraid. When we were younger and before the boys were born we had a small boat and that was basis but we were young and things like that didn't seem to matter. Every caravan we purchased from our initial very basic Ace Airstream has been better equipped. When ever we buy a new caravan, or in recent just motorhomes, we have a list of things we require and search accordingly. If it has more things than we think are essential then we treat that as a bonus. I assume somewhere along the line that manufacturers do some research as to what customers might prefer. Even if they produce a very basic van the first thing that owners then tend to do is upgrade by adding the things that are missing. This is sometimes more expensive than buying a well equipped van in the first place so sometimes a false economy?
David
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We are very much untypical caravanners😁 To be honest, it’s part not wanting the worry and hassle of something new, and then there’s the pooch issue to consider.......we are happy with our lot at the moment. We are still campers at heart.......😁
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I think the first caravan I stayed in was owned by a friends parents. Can’t remember the make or model. I believe it was either 1957 or 58 with mod cons like a pumped water, better than carting it from the village pump and of course gas lighting more convenient than lighting oil lamps. At the time we didn’t Really care about mod cons, it was all about the adventure. Everything tasted better sat in the open air etc., and Llangorse lake was a wonderland
60+ years on I think I will stick with my Coachman
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I think it’s the 60 years that might be part of the preference OP😁 We still think about tent camping, but we both creak a bit nowadays, and last time in a tent, we found our limit before complete seizure was a maximum of four nights!😬😂
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I’m thinking you are driven by nostalgia not reality
Not really Rocky. Once I had fitted mains electric into my caravan in 1995 I had all I needed. What more do I have now? I have a large shower that is never used. We use the occasional non-facility site on our travels but are quite happy to forego a shower for 5 nights and we are capable of taking a strip wash in preference to using and cleaning the shower.
We have a microwave that might be used half a dozen times in 120 nights and is something that I never make use of at home. We have hot water that as we don't use the caravan shower might mean boiling the kettle a couple of times a day for dishes and a couple of times for a maximum of 10 days of our typical 120 nights for a wash on non-facility sites.
As for heating the Alde is great. but we are normally away 120 nights. We could cope quite happily for all but December when we would like some heating in the van whilst we are out in the day but a 500 watt oil filled radiator would suffice for those 15 nights whilst where we stop on one site putting a fan heater on when we return.
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ET, you could always relive it all by buying a really old Cvan & tootling around with it if it ticks your boxes, you could call it getting back to basic basics👍🏻😊
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I don't think it is the case that relatively few use the shower. Perhaps most on here might be in that category, but even then some say that their OHs prefer their own facilities. There must be tens of thousands that use their showers as you just need to add up all those that caravan on CLs, CSs, and on rallies, where there are no on site facilities.
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So I was right you’re enjoying the nostalgia👍🏻
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Our first van, back in the early 70s, had no fitted heating or HW, it did have a foot pump, an oven and grill, a 3 way fridge, a porta potti and wash basin, and I fitted it with EHU in the late 70s. This let us use a fan heater for keeping warm on a ski-ing trip in February one year.
Due to illness we sold the van in 1984, then we got caught up in building a house, financing our son through Uni, and in the middle of all that our very precious daughter was born, so it was 1997 before we considered taking regular holidays again.
We realised that caravans were now pretty luxurious and could offer us the self contained facilities we needed, so bought a new van with an excellent rear shower room in 1998.
In 2008 we upgraded to a fixed bed van with Alde heating and an even better shower room, and have not found anything we like better since.
Our shower is well used, even on sites with facilities, and we use a lot of CLs these days now it is mainly just the 2 of us travelling.
A van without the mod cons just would not be for us these days.
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I get nostalgic about my days as a scout leader just a field no toilets, no electric, no gas and of course no phone, the smell of bacon wafting over the camp site in the morning with the occasional walker/angler catching the smell and muttering on about doing a "good deed for the day" I was talked into rejoining alas its not the same so I resigned and just enjoy the caravan with the good lady and dogs and of course the grown up kids who now and then invite themselves to stay to relive their childhood
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On our first caravan that was true. Although not a particularly small van at 6.5 metres, the bathroom was rather poky. The shower in front the toilet, which you screened off (but still got wet) was difficult to clean and dry out. As a result we only used it a few times in 8 years, a couple of times on a CL and once in France, when the normally luke warm showers were cold.😂
However, you live and learn so decided our next van needed a separate shower. This got used a lot, although generally only on service pitches, as I could not be bothered with water collecting on a standard pitch, when there was a perfectly good shower in the block. Although being adequate for showering, it was not that easy to clean due to its design.
When we changed to a MH, the limit we set on length / weight meant we could not find anything suitable with a separate shower, so went again for the combined. Unlike the first caravan, this is very well designed. The screen shuts off the basin and the toilet and magnetically seals against the door frame, everything the other side stays dry. You are left with a large shower compartment, which drains well and the plastics used seem to shed water easily. In fact I prefer it to the separate shower in our last van. We have used it a fair bit in normal times and will be using it extensively when we visit CAMC sites in September.😀
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In the ten years i've been caravaning i can count on one hand the times i've used the site showers, and thats only because the vans shower was in use and we were in a hurry.
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That’s how we were when we first got our caravan back in the 90’s. We used to go away with friends and they occasionally popped in for a shower, as their van at the time didn’t have one!😂 They have a brand new all singing all dancing job now.
Doesn't matter what you choose, so long as it is comfy and suits what you want.
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Nice locations. We wouldn’t have needed a shower there either......quick swim and then a bucket of fresh to wash the salt off!😁
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