Awning advice for Fiat Autotrail Tribute T680s
Hi everyone, I am after some advice on awnings and whether I should purchase side and front panels for a sun shade for my van; the awning is a Thule.
Or to buy a drive away inflatable awning.
Concerned about strong winds catching the awning resulting a steal girder flying around.
Any advice or wisdom is appreciated.
Kind regards
Nigel
Comments
-
Personally I think awnings are for caravans. If you use one on a motorhome you lose the advantage of quick set up plus there’s something else wet & muddy to stow in your limited space. Thule do some very nice (but expensive) front & side panels, but lightweight versions made of mesh are much cheaper, easier to stow and quite effective in keeping the wind and sun out. Don’t worry about strong winds catching the awning, just get some decent pegs x4 for the legs and storm straps. If it’s really bad, just wind it in.
3 -
Larry this is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?"question.It all depends upon where you intend travelling to,how long you intend staying in one place and whether you intend to use the MH or bikes etcetera for transport.Let me develop this for you from our own experience.We have an AS PVC and for touring holidays with a maximum 3 nights stay we wind out the Thule and slide in a sun/ windblocker to the front section,We have some Isabella windblockers which we pop up for wind protection and extra privacy.This is compact and readily portable.For transport we generally use our bikes but the MH can be moved easily if required.This is ideal for us on Continental trips.
In the Winter and "shoulders"if we are staying on one site for a week or so we take our Vango Kela 4 high model.This affords us extra space and better weather shelter in less clement conditions.We can and do drive the MH away if needed but again we mostly use the bikes or walk/bus passes to get around.The driveaway is a bulky item to travel around with so we do not tour with it in a PVC.
There are pros and cons with both set ups really.
We have acquired kit over 33 years of this pastime so we have repurposed our gear rather than buying it all at once.I would start with something like our option one and see if it suits you rather than buying a driveway first.You can always buy one later if required and shop around for a last year's model to save on cost.
1 -
As we got older we downsized to a smaller caravan and gave up awnings altogether - too much trouble, to much effort and too much wet canvas. We valued rapid arrivals and rapid departures and found awnings hampered us.But I wish you well.
0 -
We use a Dometic camp room, which more than doubles our living space, as mentioned prior, heavy, though relatively easy to put up, does takes up valuable storage space. Ours spends half it's time stored at home, personally we like the flexible use it gives and have used multiple times. I like the idea of a driveaway awning, my mate has one, weigh about the same, roughly same time to put up, but more flexible. Not sure any help but would not be without ours.
0
