Motorhomes v. Caravans: our first family motorhome holiday

Caravans v. Motorhomes: our first family motorhome holiday

Last summer we had our first family motorhome holiday and went all the way to Italy in search of sun, sea and fresh pasta. I grew up with caravan holidays and love caravans, so here’s my thoughts and experiences of the pros and cons of both.

 Much to our surprise, after two weeks and nearly 2,500 miles, we discovered, and liked, lots of advantages of touring with a motorhome.

The perceived disadvantages, such as not having a separate car to use for shopping or sightseeing, didn't really spoil anything for us. In fact, we liked that it made us get out and walk (or cycle if we'd taken our bikes) and be more active. Instead, we used local buses for some days out - with the added benefit that we could enjoy a drink with our lunch as we didn't have to drive afterwards.

We felt that travelling would be quicker with a motorhome, so planned to cover a higher mileage, and knew that we could share the driving more easily, if required. We also felt it was better suited to a road trip with shorter stopovers, rather than just heading to one destination.

I've always enjoyed towing, but driving a motorhome is definitely simpler and quicker. Our two children (6 and 8) had lots more space compared to travelling in the car, so they were happier, which made everyone happier. I was pleased to see that their seatbelts were supported by strong metal frames under the seat boxes. (our motorhome - a Bailey - had been crash-tested).

Finding a parking space at motorway services and lay-bys was much easier, as the motorhome took up less space than the overall length of a car and caravan. Also when we stopped, being able to park and walk straight through to the living area made everything quicker, and in our experience on the continent, dedicated motorhome parking at many places and tourist attractions, was also a real bonus. For example, a pit stop at the famous Neuschwenstein castle in Germany was easy for us thanks to special car parks for motorhomes.

With two young children, we consciously chose a campsite with direct beach access for the central part of our holiday. We knew they would want to go to the beach every day, and it meant we wouldn’t need to use or move the motorhome at all. For food shopping, we used the site’s shop for daily essentials, walked or got the bus to the nearest town, or ate out.

We loved that with a motorhome we could simply drive on to the pitch, stop, put a couple of chocks under the front wheels to level it, if necessary, and be ready much quicker than unhitching, manoeuvring and setting up a caravan.

We found the motorhome service points at each campsite, together with our motorhome’s 100-litre internal tanks for fresh and waste water, very convenient compared to constantly filling and emptying the usual fresh and waste water carriers.

Mind you, it's surprising how quickly a family of four can get through 100 litres of water, and on one site we needed to temporarily secure everything so we could drive to refill the motorhome’s water tank, which was a bit inconvenient, but not the end of the world. After that we preserved it more carefully, and always made sure we emptied and filled both water tanks before arriving at our pitch. I still found it useful to have a 10 litre water carrier for small top ups, or to refill the toilet's flush tank.

There's probably less total storage space in a motorhome compared with having a car and caravan, but that wasn’t a problem (admittedly, we were in a large motorhome – a 7.45m long Bailey Approach Autograph 765). We had plenty of storage for all our clothes and had an external locker which fitted our outside chairs, table and beach gear. A bike rack would be an essential accessory for us.

One advantage we didn’t manage to experience, was the vast networks of free or cheap stopovers exclusively for motorhomes on the continent. I’d taken a copy of the Fattore Amico sites book (www.fattoreamico.com), which is the Italian equivalent to the popular aires in France, but in the end we stuck to the having the security and facilities of a campsite.

One of the most surprising and interesting differences about a motorhome holiday was the image it portrayed to other people. When we said we were taking a motorhome to Italy, people would respond saying, "how exciting", or "I've always fancied doing that”. That's never happened when we've said we're going caravanning.

Somehow, and I still don’t really know why, motorhomes are perceived as cooler and more exciting than caravans. We obviously still need to improve the image of caravans to also make them represent fun and adventure in the same way.

So, are our caravan days behind us? Are we motorhome converts? I must confess that I actually did miss towing, and still think caravans are somehow more elegant, but in so many ways, we felt the motorhome was much more convenient for our road trip and accommodated a family holiday extremely well.