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Hi Gill

If you keep going out in the van you will get use to it, its a bit daunting at first, but I made myself drive home from each trip instead of my husband and took it out local just to get use to driving it, we have a Lunar Champ H591 its 21 ft long, now im not bothered, even drove in france in the summer.

We use to have a trailer tent before the van and I went on a caravan manouvering course so id be able to reverse, l learnt how to do it but was never comfortable towing and that was with a TT, I find the van much easier.

So dont give up, take it out locally when its not to busy and drive about, as your cofidence gets a bit better try busier roads, if you dont go far from home you only have to put up with the stress for short periods instead of  hours , also I worried about holding the traffic up as i plod along but got into the habit of pulling over on quiet roads into laybys to let the traffic pass, and this seems to work great.

Good luck with your van

Hi Fiona, thanks so  much for your reply.  Ive  decided to pull over and let traffic past - that stops mes feelling stressed that I have a convoy!  We will keep trying - Im such a wimp - OH is ok with the height but Im worse being a passenger!  We were  so looking forward to it but its scary now! 

We would really welcome other thoughts as we are thinking we should give in and try a caravan!!!

Gillx

Hi Gill

 I could have struggled getting my small caravan in and out of the driveway and hitching and un hitching and all the other things associated with a caravan. Towing it would have been no bother. Or I could have chose to stay at home after my hubby died in March this year and given up our/my outdoor life but I bought a Compass Afdvantgard and not looked back. Driving it is a dream and I have been down some narrow country lanes curtisy of my SAT nav,  I have pulled over to let convoys get passed and I give the M/H wave. What I am saying is go for it, carry on motorhoming. It's the best!!!!

Hi Gill we have just changed from a caravan to MH (something I never thought we would do) I have to say that my Husband is far more comfortable with driving the MH than he ever was towing the caravan, ours is only 23 foot and we love it.

We had a few scary incidents with the caravan and that is why we changed, esp the time the Reiki motor mover caught the kerb it moved four inches and burst a tyre and we were stuck with a twin axle caravan on the back on a really bad junction.

My own thoughts on all this now having been on both sides of the fence so to speak..........I used to think that we would miss having the car when the caravan was sited, in fact I found on our trip around Norfolk a couple of weeks ago this wasn't the case it was so easy to unhook the leccy and go where we wanted whereas with the caravan we took it to a site and once there that was it for the duration of the trip, with the MH we stayed in a different place every night we were away.

We parked up on the seafront and hubby cooked breakfast whilst I walked the dogs another day we had fish and chips with a cuppa overlooking the Broads, then I went shopping whilst Hubby watched a DVD whilst he sat in the motorhome in a car park then simply moved on to the next place.

On arrival at one site we paid for one night and Hubby said 'is this site OK for you' but it didn't matter because if we didn't like it well it didn't really matter that much as we just moved on the next day, on the same site a caravan owner got chatting to me he had the exact same caravan as we had just sold, he was talking about motorhomes and how you were stuck without a car, I told him we hadn't found it a problem but I could see that that was his view so didn't bother saying too much else..........I had to have a little smile to myself though when he said he didn't like the site much but had booked for the week as in fact he was more stuck than we were.

We have bought a couple of power bikes as we intend to travel to Spain or Portugal and thought they would be handy to nip off on when we wanted to look around little villages etc also we thought they would add to the fun.

I think basically it just a different way of doing things and the old arguments will always rage on with the caravan it never took us an age to set up as others sometimes refer to, and again with the motorhome there isn't lots of packing up to do again as some refer to, you simply unhook and go really.

Yes having changed I have to say we love the motorhome.

Hello everyone - thanks so much for all your replies. Apart from being scaredy cats about driving the MH (which I think you are right will get better with practice) I think part of our problem is that we havent got to grips with the whole motorhome thing - so many talk about staying one night in places and then moving on and wild camping - we dont know 'the rules' - of where its ok to park overnight and what happens if we go somewhere with a barrier - Im sure these are all the sorts of things that you 'proper' motorhomers have got to grips with!  So, we will keep practicing and if you have any advice on the 'rules' or where to find them, please do let us know - and if you pass us and we dont wave its not cos we are unfriendly - its cos we are just getting to grips driving it and darent wave!!!  LOL, thanks again,

Gill

Very interesting read this article makes.

I have to agree with the writer of the article on one point, I can not see the point of towing a car behind a  MH either. There is no benifit.

We take our MH with us into town, only takes max of 5 mins to be ready to go and the same for setting up. (Ignition off, turn the seat round, open bottle of wine, pour wine)

Much quicker than setting up a tent also, and more comfortable, just becasue I am camping does not mean I do not want some luxuary.

We have stayed upto 7 days on a site in Spain, but we did drive round quite a bit whilst there, very convienient when going shopping as you can get your ice cream and put it straight into the freezer, can not do that with a tent!! Usually we stay upto 3-4 days, then when the fridge/freezer runs low, time to move on. If I wanted to site in the same place all the time I would get a package deal soemwhere  (not for me - thank you very much)

At the end of the day it is each to their own, the world would be a very borring place if we all thought and did the same thing