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We have also had the same debate in our house, and my husband didn't fancy the idea of towing at all!!

So, we bought an older caravan (1994) and keep it on one of our favourite sites. Storage is only about £200 a year, insurance is cheap cos it's an older van, and we only pay site fees as and when we use the van.  We also have our tents and equipement for when we want to visit other parts of the country.

Best of both worlds

We've found that no matter what the weather, we manage to get away nearly every weekend.

Lesley

For the budget you have, I think I would stay clear of caravans. You'll be buying a very old van with damp and maybe bad flooring, that will almost certainly require a fair bit of financial upkeep per year (floors, sinks, pumps, door handles, insurance, service, tyres, etc).

Against that you could have fairly top of the range (in family terms anyway) tenting stuff easily for your budget. Toilet tent, comfort airbeds, good sleeping bags, that sort of thing.

We have had all 3 types over the last 15 years - small Sunncamp dome tent, then a Conway Cruiser Folding Camper, then a Swift Rapide caravan and now back to tenting with a Wild Country Homestead. Hand on heart, the one I enjoyed the most was the folding camper, but again you need to be spending £3000 or so to get one that you can have confidence in (that said, I'm sure there are loads of people happily using much cheaper ones). To me, it's not a bad compromise, but all the best bits of both tenting and caravanning - easy to tow, store and set up, but you can extend your season as long as a caravan with electric heaters.