Any Regrets ?
I just wondered if you had bought a Caravan & wished you had gone for the Motorhome instead ?
or vice versa ? Why ?
Comments
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Nope. I have a caravan and for my requirements the benefit of having the convenience of a car when away far outweighs any perceived disadvantage of towing. As things stand at i made the correct choice.
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if youve only bought caravans or motorhomes, it might be difficult to 'evaluate' fully what you 'might' have missed with the 'other' mode....
however, we couldnt tour in the way we do/wish to with a caravan.
we spend a good deal of our time abroad and i see many threads asking for recommendations for 'convenient' stopping places when travelling from A to B....planning routes, daily distances and stopping sites....
we just don't even have to consider this aspect of our touring, we pull in where and when we want, with no schedule to keep, no distance to acheive, we bumble as far or not as we please, and in whichever direction takes our fancy, staying on if we like the
place or moving on if we dont....pretty much every town/village has an aire, so we don't even consider where we will need to be, until we get there
we have had 3 MHs and the first thing we learnt after spending our first month long holiday in France was that we wanted a decent fixed bed and not to make up the bed each night, so the 2nd van had one.....lovely.
we are also reasonably fit and well, and would rather leave the car at home as we explore by bike, so the next van had a garage to keep them dry and safe. having a car with us would probably cause us to use it when we probably shouldnt, so happy for it to
remain at home.perhaps when we are a little less able, we might have to consider a different way of getting about, but at the moment this is likely to be a small MH (say 6m) over a car and caravan.
i probably couldnt be doing with the water 'performance' and would probably want to retain the 'stop anywhere' characteristic of our touring style...
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A year ago we traded in the last of 5 caravans and changed to a MH.. Autosleeper panel van conversion. We had not been able to store the caravans on our own drive, the nearest storage was 45 mins away, fine if we wanted to go in that direction. The MH will fit on our own drive so much more convenient when going away and coming home. Less storage in the motorhome than the caravan, and you have to be a little more careful when booking sites, but its small enough to fit in a supermarket carpark, and with a bit a prior research you can visit most towns etc. We no longer have to worry about very windy weather, when out for the day in the van you have everything with you, and it isn't getting cold and damp in a storage facility in December and January as we now use it all year round. Would we go back...? No way
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No regrets. Anyone who actually regretted their purchase could not have done their homework beforehand, the type of touring differs immensely with just onsite sleeping being similar.
EDIT: I thought this was about regretting your purchase, not the virtues of what you have and how you tour
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I've caravanned since my late 20's and now I'm 60 and as BB says if you've only done one, you can't compare...but have I any regrets, no, none. Loved every minute of it and don't have an issue at all with towing and do like leaving our temporay home 'behind'
while we go off and explore. I do like the space we have in our van for the two of us. Never felt any stress re. finding somewhere to stop the night - all part of the fun/excitement during the planning/thinking stage.0 -
We have no regrets, and we're caravanners. We've had the same van for sixteen years and love it now just as much as when we bought it.
We're a bit like Bolero Boy, in that we make few plans, don't book sites, and just 'meander' around, staying where we fancy when we fancy stopping, and for as little, or as long as we like. The difference is we store our caravan in France, about two hours from our holiday home there, and so we can literally decide at lunchtime that we want to be off, ring the site who will tow it to a pitch, throw a few clothes in a bag, put the cat in her box, and be off. Then we decide how long to stay on the site, and where we might want to go from there.
Our only difference is that we can't stay on Aires but there are so many campsites in France that we've actually never ever been stuck, or not been able to find one within just a few miles of making a decision to stop. Generally we only have a vague idea - 'let's go back to the Med', or 'let's go to Provence'. Only when we've had enough do we take the caravan back to the site, and stay for a day or two, cleaning it out, and getting it ready to go back into storage.
There are advantages to both motorhomes and caravans, and I'm sure that most people have just what suits them at any particular time. For us, now, we wouldn't be able to afford to change to a motorhome, (or at least not one which offers us so much space, a fixed bed, etc.) so when we get too old for touring then we may think about a seasonal pitch somewhere like the site where we currently store our van.
And as far as the comment 'I thought this was about regretting...............'. Yes, it is, but we could all just put 'Yes' or 'No' without any explanation or elaboration, which would be totally unhelpful to the original poster. At least explaining why people have no regrets give the OP an idea of what the differences are between the two ways of touring.
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No regrets. Anyone who actually regretted their purchase could not have done their homework beforehand, the type of touring differs immensely with just onsite sleeping being similar.
EDIT: I thought this was about regretting your purchase, not the virtues of what you have and how you tour
...nor about suggesting that others may not have 'done their homework' properly....
let me put it differently for you Dave....
i dont regret our purchase, thanks....it supports how we like to live when in the van.
OK?
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No regrets. If it wasn't the right type of LV we wouldn't have bought it.
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I expect we are in a similar position to lots of people who have been caravanning for a long time and now own a motorhome. We reached that decision after many years of thinking about it. We even purchased a new caravan three years before we got the motorhome
because we couldn't make up our minds. We are more than happy with our decision to change from a caravan to a motorhome. However I expect there is a lot more room for doubt if such a decision is made in haste?David
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We changed from a caravan after 16 years to a MH this year. No regrets so far and we even think we got the van right first time as well within the constraints of our needs (layout) and budget.
When we changed we also changed mindset as to the way we would tour. With the caravan it was very much a case of setting up on site in an area we wanted to visit then going out each day to see womething, very often covering the same road each day. With the MH we visit the same attractions but instead of going back to the original site each evening we do a "ciruclar tour" staying different places along the way.
Setting up/moving on overall is faster with the MH but would not say that much by time you have dumped grey water, filled with fresh, empty the loo etc. Only difference is you dont ahve all the barrels to store and clean away.
Having the Solar Panel and Gaslow has allowed us to not worry about EHU (though 95% of sites have ahd it) but when out for the day the fridge switches to gas so the beer is always ready when we stop.
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Caravanners with no regrets here.
When we decided to stop tenting we did briefly consider a motorhome but decided that a caravan suited family touring better. Now we are touring as a couple quite often but still don't have any regrets. If we reach the point where caravanning becomes a challenge
we'll probably stop touring0 -
We are only on our third caravan in about 30 years.
We had one back for 10 years back in the 70s/80s, then a long break till we got one again in 1998. OH really wanted a MH at that time but we could not afford one then.
Having got used to a caravan, after 10 years we bought a new one and have not regretted it.
Now, another 8 years on, we have been considering a MH for a while, but have not yet found one that ticks all our boxes ......and is within budget!
Having said that, there are also no new caravans that we like either......and the prices are going up and up.
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No, we have no regrets.
We had tents for about 15 years and then bought a caravan and it felt like sheer luxury! (Even though a fairly basic model).
We had that for 10 years then changed it for a slightly more luxurious model - mainly because they had started to fit fixed beds.
We've had this one about 10 years.
Next move will be to another fixed bed (not sure which way round) and a large bathroom with a proper, usable shower. Mrs H also wants one of those tall fridges. A full cooker and a microwave are essential, because they get used a lot. No idea when this will be though.
We see people who change after a year or two, because they bought something that didn't suit them. Must cost them a fortune and I tend to agree with the comments above, that they can't have done enough research and rushed into buying.
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Good point David. We wre caravanners for 16 years before moving to a MH so from the various layouts we had we knew what worked for us and what didnt.. a novice buying thier first MH or indeed Caravan would not have any idea or very little.
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Lucky enough to have both! Tend to use MH much more at moment, ease of use, great for small tours, get further afield a lot quicker. Hoping to refurbish our van and then leave it somewhere for longer stays in our favourite places. Unable to take long breaks
at moment, so MH touring is easier.0 -
Good point David. We wre caravanners for 16 years before moving to a MH so from the various layouts we had we knew what worked for us and what didnt.. a novice buying thier first MH or indeed Caravan would not have any idea or very little.
Yes you have a good point. Ours was bought on impulse,no real research but saw one we liked a lot. Were with old friends who'd camped and had a very small camper within loo. (Weve never camped or caravanned prior to purchade)) We were undecided between two
layouts and four heads gave lots oif pointers. We !made our decision and purchased collection about a week later. We had a gut feeling. We have never regretted our choice. If we'd had spent more time on research we may have gone for a bigger engine size, but
we get to our destination regardless. I'm not keen on speed so with a bigger engine I dfont think we'd go faster were we lucky or just good a gut feeling????0 -
We were tenters for the best part of 30 years before we acquired our first van, a tiny Eldiss Wisp passed onto us by Mrs M's parents when they gave up vanning. I was a bit reluctant about towing to start with but have to say we've never once regretted making
the move. We've had 2 vans since and our present one is perfect for us, easily towed and light enough to be manhandled when necessary. We've looked at newer/bigger models but not found anything which takes our fancy.Now we're lucky enough to have a static van down in Cornwall, but decided to keep the tourer so we can get out and about to other places as well.
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When we bought our first caravan, we wanted a two berth. The typical layout at that time was the front settees / beds, side toilet room and end kitchen.
And that's what we were all set to buy.
Then we saw one with an end bathroom and, although a bit longer, we realised how much more practical that would be. That proved to be the case and we were so glad that we changed direction.
It's not a case of being 'clever after the event' but more a case of having researched and looked at different layouts. In our case, possibly over several years, while we dreamed of being able to afford one and pondered on how we could store it at home.
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We've caravanned for nearly 40 yrs and have not regretted it one bit. We love the layout of our present van, which is the same as our previous one. Can't see us changing either for a different van, or a M/H in the near future, although that may be the case
when I get to about 95 and possibly won't be able to handle the waste & aquaroll any more!!
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We caravanned for 33 years, in that time we had 7 differant vans, never the same make twice. We have now been motorhomers for the last 4 years do we regret changing, no, would we go back to a caravan, yes, if it was right for us to do so.
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