Hello all, could someone kindly offer me some advice?
Sometimes on a long drive whilst towing the caravan, it makes sense to stop for a break or maybe even to see a particular town or landmark. This is only a sort of "pit-stop" for an hour or two so you might not be looking to unhitch the caravan. All you need is a place to park for a while while you get some lunch/toilet etc. Does anyone know how you can go about doing this? Most public car-parks seem to have a 'no tailers/caravans' policy. Motorhomes seem to be fine but what can you do if you're towing a caravan?
Kind regards,
Sean
Google Earth might be of use in finding parking place in areas you wish to stop en route. Having had both caravans and motorhomes With a caravan I am inclined to get to a destination and the use the towcar to explore once you have set up. Not advised to leave a caravn unhitched in a parking area because of the security risk.
Thanks David,
Usually if I have a long drive (say 4 hours) and I'm not towing a caravan, I will find a stop half-way. Especially if I have my kids with me, they can't cope with such a long drive without a break. There are no motorway services heading up to Scotland, it looks like the best you can manage is to pause at some town or village on an A-road. Without a caravan, this is no problem but what are the options when you do have a caravan? I wouldn't want to make an additional stop at a caravan site when all I'd be looking for is 1 hour off the road to recharge and get the kids to a toilet.
Have you ever found yourself in this situation?
I used it to look for (don't laugh) KFCs when I was touring Scotland last year.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
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8 years towing my caravan, and decades before that towing a boat, I've come to the conclusion finding anywhere to park up is a choice of a 'rock or a hard place'! Namely Motorway Services or 'A' Road Laybys! VERY few other places either will or can accommodate large car-trailer combos. I've been all over the country, and done research to see if I was missing something, but alas not found anything better. You may of course find the odd car park, but generally best assume these days they will at least have a height restriction barrier to prevent anything the height of a caravan entering (largely done to prevent a certain traveling community setting up illegal camps!).
I do long journeys, usually planned to be no more than 5-6 hours, but the unforeseen/unpredictable (accidents closing lanes/roads etc.) all too often turn those into 9-11 hours! It doesn't kill me, but can't claim it's fun, and it makes finding somewhere to stop even more necessary!
I plan my journeys in advance with 'comfort' breaks taken at the most caravan friendly locations I can find (DKs already mentioned https://motorwayservices.uk/ and Google Streetview are handy for planning). I'm fortunate, no kids, but an aging dog to consider, personally quite 'robust' in the bladder dept, so 3 hours of driving is not too challenging, but aim for 2-2.5 hours by choice.
Motorway services are fairly reliable, although some are FAR more caravan friendly than others, but not unknown to drive in, and just drive out again as no suitable parking spots at busy times! IMHO they are pretty grotty places that you don't want to linger around, especially if directed into HGV parking which is probably the majority of sites, but they serve a purpose.
'A' Road laybys are a TOTAL gamble, often find you cant drive straight into the only remaining smallish gap left, and you CERTAINLY don't want to try reversing in off a live running 60/70mph carriageway, or for that matter be at a crawl driving into a tight space with your caravan rear hanging out in the fast moving traffic! Another aspect of laybys, they seem to love to put them on uphill sections of road, which means when trying to pull out into moving traffic you are disadvantaged by being relatively slower than normal because of pulling away from standstill on the uphill! - you need to wait for a sizable gap in traffic, which is not always that frequent. Driven past countless laybys until I've found one I can get into!
Unless it's one of the few that has an island separating it from the carriageway, it's much like stopping on a motorway hard shoulder - VERY noisy, you're heavily buffeted about by bow waves from passing traffic, and TBH a bit scary, you are only feet from vehicles travelling at high speeds. Not that rare for moving traffic to clip or even fully plough into parked vehicles! They are my last resort really, unless on a quiet road with light traffic. I've not found any current database or map showing their locations, so difficult to plan them into your journey, just a case of hit and miss finding one on the road when driving.
Parking on residential roads is difficult to predict unless you know the road particularly well. Caravans and residential roads are often not a good mix, and having to turn around to go back the way you came can be fun, NOT!
This country is quite poorly served for caravaners on the road.
I don't even consider stopping en route to do 'touristy' things, it's VERY much a case of best/quickest/easiest way to destination with minimal stops. Once on site the tow car gives freedom to go do 'touristy' things.
Out of town big shopping centres/supermarkets would be my next suggestion, however, it is hit and miss during the day. Probably fine early morning or late at night, however, no good if the need to go for a break is in the middle of the day.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
I often tow between 130 and 280 miles in a day. The shorter journey likely pull on a lay-by and use Caravan toilet. Longer trips usually motorway services if motorway on route and often a bite of lunch. My aim is to get the journey done and then at destination do as much as we want. Sometimes I will book a site say half to three quarters of the way for one night,getting on the site early afternoon. Leave caravan on pitch then go off for a look around and fill up motor with fuel if need be. This is they way we have travelled with caravan for over 50 years,
Parking with the caravan on the back is extremely tricky I've found, apart from Motorway services and laybys. However, the latter often don't have room to accommodate an outfit. It's just pure luck if I find one. I've never yet found one with space anywhere near a town, they are usually well away from anywhere. When I do take a break I never leave the caravan. Even at motorway services one of us always stays with the car and caravan. We take it in turns to use the facilities if needed, and we rarely eat there and definitely never buy fuel unless it is a dire emergency. We never do journeys in one go that use more than a tankful, and I always fill up before I set out.
OH and I had a discussion about this, it's not really a personal issue as most of the long journeys we do in the UK are on motorways.
However, we concluded that garden centres and DIY stores may be suitable places to stop, even with a caravan, as folk must shop there with trailors. And thinking about the ones local to us, several just off the motorway, we would be happy to pit-stop there. Most have toilets, some have cafes or coffee machines. And there's usually something you could buy to make you a 'customer'. Not always the best place to exercise a dog, but often plenty of space.
We used to stop at Dobbies garden centre in Ashford on our way to the Tunnel. Have a lunch and a browse round, sometimes a nap in the 'van before setting off again.
Thinking back, I have seen the odd caravan parked at a supermarket. I assumed they were shopping, but maybe they had gone to see the local attractions.
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 23/2/2026
Thinking back, I have seen the odd caravan parked at a supermarket. I assumed they were shopping, but maybe they had gone to see the local attractions.
All our supermarkets hereabouts have time limits on parking, usually 90 minutes. Enough for a comfort break, maybe not enough time to walk much further afield.
Supermarkets do vary. I know of one local supermarket that has 90 minute parking but most of them around here are either two or three hours. I wouldn't want to try and get in any of them with a caravan though, as they are usually fairly full and fairly tight to negotiate. You might just about get in the one we've just come back from on a good day, Aldi in Hertford, but any of the others, forget it! Aldi in Hoddesdon is the 90 minute one and it is usually rammed. Hard enough to get in there with a car, never mind a caravan.
TBH, I'm struggling to think of any supermarket I've ever been to anywhere in the country where you could actually physically park a largish caravan especially during store open hours! A myriad of reasons why not possible, from height barriers to simply impossible manoeuvring room, even the difficulty of swinging off or onto a road to access the car park. Often find car parks are a squeeze with an ordinary solo car. - car parks planned/constructed years ago were done so around MUCH smaller cars than todays vehicles!
Unless I specifically knew a car park to be compatible, don't think I'd be gambling on an unknown one being able to accommodate my outfit.
How welcome a caravan would be is another matter! Many car park owners are very concerned about Traveller community setting up camp!
I've sometimes considered out of town shopping complexes as a potential stopping off point, but having used a few as a relay rendezvous/handover point when doing my charity dog rescue transport runs (solo car), can't say many look promising.
There's a good reason MSAs punt caravans into specially designated parking areas or the HGV parking, caravans and regular car parking areas are usually quite incompatible, sometimes by design, sometimes simply by lack of space for the size of vehicle.
Quote: Originally posted by spiritburner on 24/2/2026
Never fancied caravanning for multiple reason but these intransit difficulties are something I'd never considered.
It didn't come as too much of a shock to me when I got the caravan, as I'd towed a selection of other trailers for decades before, and much the same situation with them. - TBH the situation has got worse rather than better over time, far more parking restrictions in all sorts of ways now than years ago, and far more people looking for fewer parking spots!
I'm pretty sure that a good many new to towing caravan owners never gave a second thought to en route stops, it'd have been all about sites at destinations and storage when not in use if they had any foresight. But trundling along at 50/60mph max makes for some long driving times, and a break is often needed over relatively short distances.
It's one of the reasons I plan my journeys in advance as much as I can. I tend to do long journeys, and whilst no need to stop every '5 minutes', I do need/want to stop after 2-3 hours, and if you're just winging it, you can find you're pushing into uncomfortable times/distances before somewhere suitable presents itself.
Far from uncommon to pull into a favoured and pre-planed MSA only to find no space available for a caravan (quite often due to caravan designated bays having solo cars/commercials in them!), so just drive on through until next MSA, which equally may not have space! A 'comfort break' becomes a 'desperate need' break at some point!
It pays to take heed of designated areas at MSAs, some employ parking attendants who will ticket you for misuse. Last year pulled into a services, half the caravan bays were full of 'wrong' type of vehicle and no empty bays, I asked the attendant if it was OK to park in the totally vacant Coach bays in the same area as I couldn't get in where I should be, he said NO, he'd just ticketed the cars/trucks in the caravan bays, and he'd have to ticket me if I parked in the coach bays! Told me I'd just have to move on!
It's all part of the fun of caravanning, what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts IMHO. Nothing compares to the space, comfort and full onboard facilities of a caravan, and a tow car that'll get you to just about anywhere you want to visit. Thought long and hard about the Caravan/MH/Camper choice, caravan won, and still happy I made the right choice for what I wanted out of it all.
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Pit-stops
via mobile 19/2/2026 at 6:42pm
