Your first caravan/motorhome trip: Lessons learned
I wanted to start a thread discussing our first experiences on the road. Remember when you were new to towing, or just starting out with your motorhome? I bet we all have some stories to tell and lessons learned from those initial trips!
I'd love to hear from all of you about some of the lessons you learned from your first caravan or motorhome trip. Any funny mishaps, unexpected challenges or golden nuggets of wisdom you can share with our community, especially those just starting out?
I'm sure your experiences will provide some invaluable insights for us all, whether we're seasoned travellers or just preparing for our first adventure. Let's learn from each other and continue to make this forum a friendly and helpful place for all caravan and motorhome lovers. Looking forward to your stories!
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The first thing to learn is to remember you're towing something up to 8 metres long, and to forget your normal style of driving.
When we bought our first caravan, I was working in sales and was quite used to nipping in and out of traffic, especially in London.
We collected the caravan, and decided to take a very long route home in order to get used to towing, including going onto the Business Park where my Wife worked to practice reversing (It was a Saturday, and we had permission)
I quickly became confident, which led to being over confident.
As we left, I approached a roundabout, slipped into 'London mode' and went for the gap. The approaching car, who had right of way, slammed the brakes on and took about 2mm off his front tyres in the process, accompanied by a range of mouthed words and hand gestures that can't be repeated here.
Thankfully, he took a different exit and I learned a very important lesson..take your time.
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Gosh it's so long since I started towing a caravan 1970 I think! I only recall one embarrassing incident from those days. My mind was full of info about reversing and the caravan needing a little more space to go around corners etc; but what I had failed to take in was that the caravan was over 2 mtrs high. I remember carefully going around a very tight corner in an old village, luckily very slowly, when I heard this scraping noise! Stopped got out to see that the awning rail had rubbed against an overhanging building!! Luckily no damage to building and I was able to 're open. the awing rail. Lesson learned.
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My lesson wasn't really towing which fortunately I found to be adapted to but my real lesson was ensuring the caravan was safe as a towed unit. First long trip away I forgot to disengage the handbrake and my OH alerted me to when she smelt rubber burning after 4 miles or so. Luckily no harm was suffered. Same trip later on the jockey wheel came down after about 100 miles.
So I double check everything now.
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Ive had that with the jockey wheel...awful.
One thing that I was never told with the first caravan was that the jockey wheel is in two parts. We arrived on site one time and as I wound it down it came apart and I dropped the caravan on its nose.
I was on site last year, and saw someone do exactly the same thing. He was so embarrassed when I went to help, but I assured him that he wasn't the first!
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Maybe 15 years ago, we took the caravan to France. We were first to disembark at Cherbourg so I didn’t want to hang about. When going over the ramp, I heard a loud crack. Once we were able to pull in, I discovered that the jockey wheel was completely wrecked. This caused a few problems, but was able to overcome (mostly) with the help of other friendly campers, by borrowing a jockey wheel. Luckily, the jockey wheel clamp was on the side of the A frame.
During the journey heading north to a campsite, I was behind a transit type van. At a set of traffic lights, there were no signs to suggest I should turn left or right towards our destination. “Ok, just go straight on” I thought to myself. I followed the van over the junction, whereupon after a few yards, he pulled over to the side. It then became apparent that we had entered a shopping precinct, I could have died. I could see that there was a way through, so decided I didn’t have a lot of choice. You can imagine the ‘looks’ from the locals. We still laugh about it now…
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It’s "first experiences" in the plural so I think you’re safe.
I can’t remember our very first trip towing our caravan. Well, it was over 50 years ago! What I do remember from those early days is that towing our tiny but heavy van with a 1950s Ford Zephyr Mkll with a 2.5 litre (I think) but low BHP engine meant replacing its big ends every time we travelled up Haldon Hill past Exeter Racecourse. The solution was to replace the car with a much more modern 1967 Series 2A Land Rover.
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Our first "experience" was leaving the dealership with our newly purchased first caravan and no-one, us or the dealer had noticed the big main roof light was wide open in the vertical position. We joined the M5 and then went into panic mode when we spotted it. Totally new to caravanning we had to manoeuvre off the M5, find a safe spot, sort the van then find our way back onto the motorway, it sounds easy now but we were clueless! The lesson learned was to check everything is battened down before proceeding.
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It was all such an adventure the first few times out with our caravan, a Crown Sceptre, Crown was made by Eldis and it was a very basic caravan by today's standards yet high end by Mrs C's earlier caravan days as a child. It had no blinds just curtains, no blown air heating only a heater in the centre by gas only , and only one electric socket in the kitchen area but everything else was there and we loved it. No mover so it was reverse and then push pulled into place.
We were very careful in the first few years so nothing too untoward happened but as complacency crept in...
Leaving the handbrake on, leaving the mover on, leaving the drain valve open till someone shouted that we had, leaving the handbrake off while we unhitched.
I suppose the worse one was not following the club's instructions for Warwick and used our then brand new satnav then took us into the adjacent Sainbury's car park which wasn't really all that big. Still it gave the shoppers something to look at for half an hour.
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More than 25 years but not sure how many, we bought our first caravan from Dyce caravans aberdeen, Elddis, no idea what model, as part of deal we were given 1 hrs familiarization course, only in the yard no towing practise, and told that if we had any problems when using give them a call and they would help out.
Getting back to our bungalow was a little bit nerve racking, we lived in an area North of Aberdeen, Greeness, and to get to our place we had to navigate lots of very narrow country lanes and we lived off road nearly 1/2 mile up a very narrow farm track with a 6ft drop into the stream on one side, fortunately we had a Discovery so this was not too bad and we achieved this without too much drama.
Our first outing was to the isle of Skye, we camped in a field Electricity was provided by a cable stretching from the barn , guy that owned the site gave us some valuable tips as to how to set the van up etc, however, he did not have much knowledge re putting up an awning and ours was proving to be very difficult, I know phone Dyce caravans on our mobile, not a chance no signal, eventually after what seemed an age, we worked out that we were trying to thread it thru inside out.
Great, awning up nicely settled in, knock on door, owner, gales tomorrow best take your awning down, down came the awning, much easier than putting it up, never-the-less we had an enjoyable stay in a field gale force 8 on the Isle of Skye in October and no other campers to be found.
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My first embarrassing moment was refuelling at a Carrefour in the Dordogne in September 2021. We were newbie caravaners having purchased our caravan a couple of months before (Coachman Laser 575 Excel). I could see a large Carrefour filling station beyond the supermarket and followed what I thought was the perimeter access road to the pumps running parallel to the car park. This turned out to be the access for the Carrefour delivery vans and a dead end at a loading bay. Fortunately I was able to reverse up 50m and turn into the car park. Quite pleased with my skills at manoeuvring a 12.5m x 2.5m outfit round the busy car park and back onto the access road to the pumps. No issues from the locals just a few Gallic shrugs!
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Learn to read OS maps. They give you most if not all of the information you will need to get safely and incident free from A to B. Even if towing. Google Earth will show you lots of extras nowadays as well,
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We learned that even with one like this - no electric light, no fridge, no toilet, no water pump, no battery, no stabiliser, no heating - and despite the wild extravagance of spending three months wages to buy it new -that it was better than the ex army tent we had before. And even with a 12 month old baby it seemed dead easy. No club membership, no towing lessons, no insurance - we simply towed 200 miles home from the dealer without any problem at all. Somewhere along the line caravanning has become very complicated since then - and very expensive.
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A fun post for a Saturday night.
Our first caravan trip was in 2013, a close to home shakedown trip long weekend at Stamford in our new swift Elegance.
On the way the external locker door under the fixed bed, despite being locked, fell open, luckily nothing lost!. I learned to give up being careful and slam the doors shut.
Same trip as above discovered that the Dorema awning came as a bag(s) of bits, I naively thought it would be more ready to use. I soon understood the term divorce in a bag and learned to check new awnings before leaving home. That was very nearly our first and last ever caravan trip!!
Same trip could not get power on the hook up cable, I had used hundreds of 240 (blue) sockets in my career and had never come across one that needed rotating to connect the power. Learned to be annoyed at Caravan club power connectors.
Same trip, discovered that awnings never fit back into the bag they are supplied in. I learned to get my own awning bag(s).
I learned that the Friday night visiting fish & chip van did quite passable and very welcome fishy grub.
I learned that motor movers are wonderful things.
Despite all the above we have had some lovely holidays in our caravans and don't intend giving up just yet.
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Late in the 1970s, an early trip saw us in Cornwall driving up a very narrow lane having taken a wrong turning. We stopped the car, unhitched and manhandled the van into a field entrance with just enough space in front of a five bar gate. Then drove on followed by a multi point turn in the next field entrance. Back down the road followed by further manhandling to turn the caravan and re hitch. We couldn’t have done the same with today’s longer, heavier caravan.
Decades on, with a road closure in Bergerac preventing pursuit of signs to the municipale campsite, we switched to SatNav directions which led us to the locked site exit. A sharp right turn followed by a blind guess to turn right again found us in a narrow street faced with a T junction with another narrow road and parked cars opposite. Escape was blocked by a van which followed us. Once again, we unhitched, then managed a turn with the essential help of our motor over. The manoeuvre was achieved with about 2” (5cm as this was France) clearance in front of bemused onlookers.
I’m getting a bit too old for such stress these days, but accumulated experience helps.
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