Just booked a caravan & motorhome club site at Tewkesbury. It’s approximately £40 per night which made me think I initially took camping up as a cheap holiday with the kids. Might start looking at other sites as the caravan club prices seem to be quite expensive nowadays. Just wondered if other people think the same as me or am I just tight
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Before I comment on the price, please advise when is it for, type of unit, how many people as in how many adults and children, any pets and the type of pitch required.
Regardless of the details of your booking, IMHO, it is still cheaper than a night in a soulless budget hotel IMHO.
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
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£40 a night is certainly way above my budget, but then we are just a couple of pensioners. You don't say how many of you there are. Many sites these days charge per person, whereas when we first started camping as a young couple back in the very early 1970s, most sites charged for a pitch regardless of what you put on it or how many of you there were. It's the main reason we became caravanners when the kids came along.
I don't think you are tight, I think it is getting very expensive, and this policy of charging per person doesn't help. We are after all just renting a bit of ground, and we are providing our own accommodation food, bedding etc. I would expect to pay per person in a hotel, but not on a campsite, but perhaps that's just me.
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 05/5/2022
... but not on a campsite, but perhaps that's just me.
I prefer per person pricing as I camp on my own with my dog, and would want a single person discount if the price is 1 pitch for 2 people to share.
To the OP - I checked the peak prices for the site where I normally go in early September after the critters and ankle biters have gone back to school, and a caravan/MH up to 7m with 2 adults, 2 children, and 2 dogs, on a service pitch with water, EHU and grey water waste, is around 50 GBP per night in early August!
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!
Don't forget to leave a review of the campsites you have visited this year or last!
We find either club’s sites to be more expensive than equally good independent sites, but if the club site is the only site in an area we don’t have the option of going indie.
However, each club’s Certificated Sites CCC / Locations CAMC are excellent VFM; they probably won’t have play areas & Wi-Fi & other things that children might want though.
One of our favourite independent sites is still £25 for 2 adults, EHU & hardstand & free Wi-Fi & all facilities.
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 05/5/2022
... but not on a campsite, but perhaps that's just me.
I prefer per person pricing as I camp on my own with my dog, and would want a single person discount if the price is 1 pitch for 2 people to share.
I fully respect your point of view DK, but in my opinion it makes very little difference how many people are on a pitch. One, two, or four people they are still occupying the same piece of ground. Different people will use more or less water etc than others. Some singles may use more water etc than some couples, simply because they spend more time on the site. We are probably only talking pennies in reality anyway. In my opinion, the only reason sites now charge per person is because they can, and they see it as a way of making extra money. Given that, I'm surprised that sites don't charge singles extra, if they are occupying a pitch that could be let to a family of four. They are businesses after all so letting to a single person when they could be letting the same pitch to a family must be costing them money.
From my own point of view, we always go as a couple these days, and I'm just glad that in our early camping days we were just charged for a pitch, as with 5 of us and 2 dogs we could never have afforded it and probably wouldn't have had holidays at all. It was the fact that all we had to pay for was a pitch that got us into caravanning. If we were parents of a young family today we probably wouldn't be able to afford it. We have never been well off.
In our early camping days I don't remember there being such a massive difference between the seasons either, like there is today. We had to go in school holidays back then, whereas we now avoid them as we couldn't afford "high season" prices. I feel sorry for families today.
There is no doubt in my mind that club sites are no longer priced to accommodate the average person so we tend o avoid using CAMC sites unless absolutely necessary. Many commercial sites offer better and more facilities than a CAMC site and at less cost and I am not talking about disco bars and restaurants as we would avoid those sites anyway.
We use the Tewkesbury site quite often as it is so convenient for a stopover on the way down south or back up north again! The site is only about 5 minutes drive from the motorway junction on the M5 and is really easy to access. £40 sounds roughly what we pay there for the 2 of us. It may be a few pounds less outside peak season but that sounds right for that site. I agree that it is expensive, and a lot more than we used to pay back when we started camping, but we still use Tewkesbury for stopovers because of the convenience.
Prices seem to be going up everywhere. Our favourite site in France has been €18 a night for several years with the few weeks of really peak season increasing to £35. However, this year, the prices have gone up to €18.50 for most of the year which is a small increase but the peak price has gone up to a whopping €50 a night. I guess their view is that they will always be full in peak season as the site is not very large so they might as well charge whatever they like for those few weeks. Thankfully we go before peak season begins, there is no way I would pay the new peak rates.
Quote: Originally posted by Mrs. Bonce on 06/5/2022
There is a CL near Tewkesbury...I would never pay £40.
Nor me, £25 all in is our absolute maximum, and I won't pay that if I can avoid it. I would have to have a very specific reason to stay on a specific site at a specific time before I'll go up to £25 a night. For £40 I'd want a hotel room with room service.
------------- Best Regards,
Colin
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Being life-long childless by choice, one feature I would gladly pay more for, especially during school holidays, is for the privilege to stay at an adult-only site so as to avoid the critters and ankle bites not of the furry kind!
I did ask for a single person discount for the adult-only sites I shall be staying over the double BH weekend in June and in August 2022, however, they are not available, hey ho!
DK
Edited to add the adult-only site for June is 27.40 GBP per night, and the one in August is 22 GBP per night.
Post last edited on 06/05/2022 10:48:40
------------- 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!
Clearly it must be different areas to the ones I go/look at where private sites are cheaper than CAMC sites! Some of the private sites I've looked at are eye wateringly expensive, sometimes 3x the cost of nearest CAMC site, and don't recall any that were cheaper, or I'll had likely gone there.
I'm not interested in all the 'facilities' on these private sites, not going to use them, and not willing to pay for them!
I do tend to plan my trips to be out of most popular times and BH's etc. where CAMC prices tend to be lowered and vary almost day by day, whereas private sites often have months of 'seasonal' prices at a fixed rate. My preferred choice is a CL with just water and waste, that's all I need, and pay per person works for me as a usually solo 'vanner, and not keen on sites that charge cumulatively as additional fees for dog and awning etc. inevitably tend to make pitch relatively expensive. As a solo (with dog) 'vanner, looking at max £20 for a CL, and max £25 for a bigger site, often pay a lot less than that.
My CAMC membership has always paid for itself with access to their reasonably priced sites and CL's that I've used, and their mid-week half price policy on some sites actually makes them very cheap indeed, my booking for full CAMC site in Nov. averages out at about £17.50/night, really can't find fault with that, nearest private site wants ave. £37.50/night! .... I can find a lot of fault with that, AND only 10A EHU to add insult to injury!!!!!
With kids op presumably means peak rate school hol time ? Big difference from pensioners going off peak for cheap rates. We are away for May & first off from Essex to Ashe Farm Taunton(review done) for 5nts at 18pn which got us over the early May bh.
We are now at almost empty Beachside hol park at Hayle with a view over St Ives bay from our pitch for 3wks at 17pn using ACSI card. We will then get home just before the start of end of May bh. Then we are at home for 2wks. Both sites were just booked by phone a couple of days before arrival.
Then we are going to Holland & France via Harwich Hook of Holland for the allowed 90 days. Return car/caravan 181quid booked through C&CC including 20quid non member fee because we are not members of any club.
None of this is cheap of course. Certainly not with the price of diesel but a bit of research has made it as cheap as possible. Better weather in southern France of course & generally cheaper sites than UK in Jul Aug peak.
We can do all this because we are pensioners but for younger folk with families obviously a very different situation.
It does vary enormously Monty. In 2019 we looked at the nearest C&CC site to Weston Super Mare, where we wanted to go and for the first two weeks in July they were too expensive despite the fact that we are members and qualify for age discount. They were fully booked anyway.
We ended up going to an independent site that had fully serviced pitches as more or less standard, metered electricity that for us worked out at 20p per night, and they were considerably cheaper overall anyway. Lovely site too.
One of the problems for us is that the C&CC have 3 seasons, low, mid, and peak. Mid season is often not that much cheaper than peak, and low season is only at times when we would never consider going anywhere. Most private sites only have low and high seasons, and the one we stayed on in 2019 had low season right up to the middle of July, which was why it was considerably cheaper than C&CC.
We are now at almost empty Beachside hol park at Hayle with a view over St Ives bay from our pitch for 3wks at 17pn using ACSI card. We will then get home just before the start of end of May bh. Then we are at home for 2wks. Both sites were just booked by phone a couple of days before arrival.
Post last edited on 06/05/2022 11:38:35
Interesting that you are at Hayle, Billy, as that's where we are going soon. However, we will be going down by train (free for us as retired train driver) and we will be staying with the wife's sister who lives there.
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: Camping costs
via mobile 05/5/2022 at 9:28pm
