How long to stay
Comments
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In this country we like traveling on a Sunday. Therefore usually stay a week, occasionally 2. In France, Sunday often isn't such a good day to travel, or perhaps I should say arrive. However, we still generally stop for about a week. We only have a roll out awning, so wind conditions rather than time control if it is deployed.
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when on tour for many weeks (or months) time has a different perspective....
a four week 'tour of Lincolnshire/Norfolk area saw us take in half a dozen sites with average stays of 5 days ish.....we were keen to 'complete the agenda', rather than our usual 'follow our noses'...
a 3 month tour of France saw us arrive at a recommended site which we took to immediately....it have everything....location on the med, close to 'exotic' towns, great cycling, fantastic amenities etc, etc...
we had mentioned to 'madame' that we might stay a week....at the end of this time, i mentioned we might stay on another week.....this cyclic process kept us there (living in heaven) for nine weeks.....
we dont have a full awning so that part isnt affected by the length of stay.
during our tour to Spain late January, some sites/locations didnt 'click' and we moved on well before a week.
with time pressures removed, its more about the appeal of 'the next stop' and, as there is no prior commitment (bookings etc) stays become longer or shorter based on things like enjoyment/interest rather than a date in a diary.
with respect to others' 'habits'....i couldnt 'plan' to be at a series of sites for x days each (where x is the same for each site) as i dont know how much im going to enjoy the place until i get there.
if its great, we'll perhaps stay longer, if its not to our liking, we wont hang about (spending a week of our lives in a place that doesnt do it for us seems daft......we will move on.....).
i guess this 'style' might affect awning users, who might not consider pitching it until they know they are going to stay for a bit.
if the awning is sited day one as part of the arrival process, it may be that the 'awning hassle factor' influences length of stay, rather than the other way round?
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AD, a good solution....
yes, its where to keep 'stuff' that can influence storage requirements/solutions....
as we dont have a car with a large boot, our 'solution' to our storage requirements (bikes, chairs, tables, etc, etc) is a MH with a large garage.
a bit like inside the van, there is a place for everything.....and almost always, stuff is returned to that place after use (other than chairs) so 'packing up' (including wind out canopy) takes little time, certainly no influencer over length of stay.....nor is (proposed) length of stay an influence over what kit we unpack.....unless its an overnighter during the journey.
We just count ourselves very fortunate to be able (within reason) decide our staying/going program as the trip unfolds...
like the awning sides, may be looking at some (one) soon....
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If in the U.K. we tend to use CAMC sites, or affiliated and have not yet found one where we would want to move on because we disliked it so much. As to the area, it might be different if you have to use the motor van for getting about, rather than a car, but we find it takes a week to check out a new area and its environs. We might decide we don't want to come back, however I would not like to dismiss a circle of country with perhaps a 20 mile radius based on a couple of nights.
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We invested in a static when I required because we wanted a base in Cornwall which we visit frequently. It suits our life style because the dogs have far more opportunity to roam than they do at home, we love walking the coastal paths down here and over the years of visiting we have made many friends in the area. It also means Mrs M can keep her hand in at surfing! Having said that, we rarely stay for more than a couple of weeks at a time. We kept our tourer so that we could visit other areas of the UK and we also go abroad twice a year - it's those that we think of as "proper holidays" and they involve flights and hotels!
We have many commitments at home, family and social, so I couldn't imagine the sorts of extended tour that some of you do though.
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We try to go somewhere 'new' each time we go out with the 'van although we are now having to return to some areas. We like to really explore the area, wherever we are, but find that after a week we need to move on otherwise we are driving further and further each day and along the same roads. Very occasionally we have stayed for up to two weeks but always regretted not moving.
As for our (full) awning we can have it completely up in about one hour, without rushing, and taken down in about three-quarters but only put it up if the stay is at least 5 days and favourable weather forecast.
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Last year we stayed at four sites over a 22 day period. We've recently returned from a 14 day stop on a single site and yet it seemed that we were packing up a mere few days after we arrived. Duration is affected by the pace one lives whilst there and the degree of interest that the location and surroundings hold. It's difficult to say what is optimum either in terms of location or an individual's personal preference which could vary, as I have demonstrated by my example above.
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At risk of stating (in my opinion) the obvious, caravanners tend to stay longer on one site than motorhomers, which is probably why I have a m/h and only use a wind-out 'sunblind'.
I never intend to stay more than one or two nights (when abroad where one can wander at will and always find a site 'on spec' and without booking ahead) but I have very occasionally stayed for 3 or 4 when especially attracted to an area. Which is why I have just had a rude awakening and abandoned my plans for making a spontaneous ad hoc 'high season' tour in the U.K. for the first time in my 10 yrs of CAMC membership. Lesson learned for the future.
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The fact that we started to stay on sites for shorter and shorter periods was on the of the reasons we changed to a motorhome. A week is the longest we have stayed anywhere in the last few years. I would probably get bored staying somewhere longer than a fortnight. I think if I actually found somewhere that we liked so much that it was worth a 4/6 week stay I think we would seriously look at the static option as the family could also use it and hopefully share in the cost.
David
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We've recently sold our apartment in Spain after 14 years. The problem with a static, like any fixed location, is that eventually you run out of "things to do" in the surrounding locality. That's OK if all you want to do is chill out but boredom can set in. That was one of the factors in our decision to sell the apartment.
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the perception of 'time' on a particular site can be different, relative to the time on tour...
with a three week tour, someone wanting to get about a bit, might choose 5/6 stops at 3/4 nights at each....
someone with a three month (or longer) tour may well do things a bit differently......
we have had stops of one night, two nights, a week, nine weeks, etc....
like AD, we dont have holidays when in the van, we are living in a different place from home, and like to get amongst the locals.
this can take time and some places are ideal for this.
a static holds no appeal whatsoever, even in a place we might find delightful circumstances (long and short, even the weather, lol) might change and we are currently well equipped to 'go elsewhere' and change those things...
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After having toured France extensively for 20 years by car and by motorbike I ummmed and ahhhed for several years with the notion of buying a 'holiday home' in France but eventually abandoned the idea and bought a m/h instead for those very same reasons.
One other factor was that it would have to be far enough South to enjoy generally better weather but that would be rather impracticable for the family to use it for long weekends. Some minor airlines only operate in summer to the smaller airports, plus an airline could discontinue that routeing altogether leaving us and other family weekenders without easy access.
With the m/h I have a cottage in every town, village, hamlet.............but then you have all discovered that already
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On our recent 8 week trip to France we stayed on 11 sites, 1 of them twice. Stops were anything from 1 night to 7 nights. The longest we've stayed anywhere in the last 25 years is 11 nights. The usual stop is 4 or 5 nights, we are sometimes tempted to stay longer. The sure thing that will see us move is a prolonged period of wet weather.
A static van has been discussed on many occasion, however it would have to be somewhere on the coast, within 3 hours of home with much better weather. Sadly that place doesn't exist, so we will keep on the move for as long as we can.
We still have our timeshare in Lanzarote that we go to for 3 weeks each year and we usually fly off to somewhere new at least once a year. This year we have the added bonus that our son has moved to Malta so visits there are also planned.
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