When to pack it in
Comments
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Despite being in my mid-70s driving isn't an issue for me. I still do over 15000 miles a year, mainly for pleasure. We took the caravan down to southern Spain twice in one year not so long ago. In between, I still prefer to drive over to the UK (usually without the caravan, though) rather than fly as we're not limited to 20kg of luggage if we take the car. Besides, it saves having to wait in sometimes long queues when checking in at the airport and then having to wait again at a crowded gate. When towing the caravan we can choose a nice quiet break in the journey at any time we please. Nobody tells us that we have to be anywhere at any special time. (We never book ahead).
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I didn't say it was an issue, I can but it is just that I don't like long drives anymore, far more relaxing for me to fly and more fun, always has been.
Well we never wait in long queues as we always get the fast track/first boarding and we would never dream of taking the 20 Kg basic option although we sometimes travel with just cabin bags. Our record fastest time door to door (home here to home in Florence) is just over six hours, although that isn't our usual way as it missed off the executive lounge with all the 'free' drinks
The thing is we're all different and preferences, advantages and disadvantages can be compared all day long but the main thing is having the health and fitness to go away.
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I don't think it has to be one or the other, does it - they're not mutually exclusive? When we were still caravanning we also enjoyed flying off to more distant destinations - in fact one of the reasons we gave up was that, having both retired, we were able to get away further afield and more often. (It helped that we'd invested in a static van down in Cornwall that we could pretty much get to at the drop of a hat.)
I never really did enjoy towing huge distances, 200 miles to Cornwall was always the furthest in one go; otherwise, we'd break the journey at a CL and we've discovered some lovely parts of the country that we would probably never have thought of visiting by doing this.
I actually love being at airports; I love hearing all the different languages being spoken and imagining the hundreds of different destinations folk are flying off to. Never felt that we had to "endure" long waits (apart from one occasion when the flight was delayed several hours.)
But we've never done more than a month away from home at a time - too much going on and too many commitments to be able to do that, even if we'd wanted to!
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I agree with Moulesy
We tapered our caravan life down when we retired and started to mix and match with other sorts of travel. And we too learned to enjoy airports and long haul flights - at first following the footsteps of our back packing children - and then annoying them by telling them of places we had found and they hadn’t - like the Perhentian islands off the east coast of Malaysia.
I think the When to pack it in question must be hard for those whose whole holiday life has never gone beyond caravans and motorhomes - it might come as a sudden shock for those with no alternatives to fall back on.
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For all the advice and suggestions offered here they just record what other people do. No one can really offer a solution to others as their lifestyle is probably totally different. Also what you may have been able to do years ago in terms of capability, mobility and maybe cost is such an individual thing. In all our travels nothing we have done could not be achieved by others using trains, planes and automobiles but we just preferred to do it the way we wanted to do it. I am not keen on flying so prefer either overland (love trains) or by sea as we like cruising but to others those forms of transport is not something they want to do. We are all just lucky that nowadays we have the choice
David
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"For all the advice and suggestions offered here they just record what other people do. No one can really offer a solution to others as their lifestyle is probably totally different."
Spot on, David, but I think the positive theme in all this is to remember that giving up caravanning does not mean giving up travelling, there are so many other options available today. Caravanning/motorhoming is just one means to an end. There's a big world out there and, given the events of 2020 and the following couple of years, it's great to be able to take advantage of our freedoms again, by whatever means.
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"Why all the negative talk about packing it in..."
Surely because that's what the OP was asking about .... simples, really!
(Although I don't accept that the talk has been negative ... folk have just pointed out alternative ways of holidaying.)
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My wife and I are 85 and are still very active caravaners. We've just returned from a trip to Devon and are off to the Isle of Wight shortly. No doubt we shall visit many other places this year. We travelled to the south of France for 2 months well into our 80's that is until the insurance cost more than the trip. You are only as old as you feel. If you are up to it and enjoy it keep going I say.
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