It's a fair point that one must take into account of cost of caravan while working out overall cost. Example. New caravan+10yrs service costs=£20k. After 10yrs caravan worth £5k. Say 50nights away pa=£30pn for 10yrs of hols on top of of all other daily costs so not really excessive compared with other types of hol.
Do the same calculation with much cheaper secondhand caravan & costs are much lower. For my old shed used for 90nts away pa it actually works out at £1.70 pn for the last 5yrs since I bought it so a very cheap way of stopping down in southern France for the summer, because cost is hardly more than pitch fees, ferry & fuel down there. Food I'm buying anyway home or away & I rarely eat out.
Likewise, Opensauce. My £500 caravan earned its keep in its first year, every year now is a bonus. Even if I include the new tyres I had fitted, and the modifications I made, I am still onto a winner. If I had to scrap it tomorrow, I would have lost nothing, when compared to the cost of any other type of holiday. Obviously, the same doesn't apply to someone who has spent thousands of pounds on a new van.
In reality though £500 caravans are normally only seen in the worker's 'villages' beside motorway building projects.
'Normal' caravan owners will have to face costs that can easily amount to over £3,000 per year before they have even taken it out of the storage compound.
Additionally there are not many, if any, proper camp sites that only charge £20 per night for 6 people.
Camping and caravanning is great but it is not a cheap alternative for other types of holiday. £100 per night just for the caravan is the more likely cost for those folk with newer 'vans. Then add in realistic camp site fees of about £20 per 2 person pitch and extra £5-£8 per person and you'll have a more realistic cost.
------------- Ollie
2016
Monplaisir - Provence
Camping Les Gorges du Loup
I'm not sure how a simple question about why one likes caravanning descended into a debate about cost (ings). For some it is a cheap way to holiday for others it won't be. I caravan because I like it. Regardless of cost I prefer a caravan holiday to a hotel holiday. And it's nothing to do with money. I can afford other types of holiday. Although for me it is cheap because I prefer non-frills campsites and don't need an up to date state of the art caravan.
Quite, Feeblecat. Money is never the be all and end all of everything. It was certainly a major consideration for us at our time of life as we are retired, but mainly it was about lifestyle. We have always enjoyed the outdoor life, having had tents, caravans, and boats before. We decided we no longer wanted to cruise up and down the same river anymore, and would return to caravanning for the variety it gave us. We didn't want to go down the finance route, and from what we had heard and read it seemed that spending more didn't eliminate problems anyway. Plenty of 10, 5, and 2 year old caravans with serious problems, and even new ones were no guarantee. We therefore decided that we would find one we could afford to lose if it came to it. We are perfectly happy with our golden oldie, it gives us just as much pleasure as a new one would. We are more concerned about practicality rather than flash looks.
As the above, it is absolutely nothing to do with finance, it is about lifestyle not what we can afford.
My wife and I have traveled the world, around 23 countries in the last 15 years clocking up well over 110 flights, but we love our van. OK, it is mainly France, but that is because we love it.....And I did travel the length and breadth of this country when I was working, so there is not a great appeal anymore. Sorry.
We quite frankly hate hotels, we tried a gite in May, it was OK but not as nice as our van. Our van is ours! It is our hobby, it is our lifestyle, it is freedom and it is so flexible. For what it is worth, I reckon it cost us around £45 a night this year, not that I am bothered what it cost tbh.
Fun never comes that cheap, but the simple things are nearly always the best.
Oh, and waiting to board a flight to some Costa surrounded by foul mouthed 18-30s, who's only intention is to drink themselves into a stupor, eat KFC and get laid whilst being herded around like sheep, is absolute hell to us. But I guess I did that, about 4 times, in the 70s, in fact we invented it!
Sorry, forgot to say, we have a 2002 Bailey Pageant Monarch we bought for £4500 five years ago and have had 22 trips away totalling some 170 nights. In that time we have also been to Australia, Bahamas, USA, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, Tanzania, and as fantastic as they have all been, we still love France in our caravan just as much.
The debate is not what it costs, it about what we love about it.
Right, where is that year planner for next year.........! France...Spain...Portugal, in the van of course, six weeks should do it. Oh rats, we have to go to South Africa in March for a wedding, life is tough. But I have earned it.
Obviously the debate for you is not about what it costs because from what you write, you don't have to worry about the cost. For those of us that do have to consider cost we love it because we never cease amaze ourselves how cheap it can be if we duck & dive a bit.
Please don't get me wrong Opensauce, I kept down a career and a business to do what me and my disabled wife have done. I don't go to the pub or smoke because I cannot afford it and know what it is like to duck and dive. I always worry about the cost tbh, but I have lived more than what is left, so we live life for today. But I certainly know where you are coming from my friend. Perhaps not very eloquently, but I was trying to get across the message that it is a lifestyle not just a cheap holiday.
For us its not about cost. It started as a way to go on holiday to France and take our dogs. In 9 years we've had 3 caravans and one campervan. (trying to find the 'ideal' which I think we finally have - hopefully!) We've spent 000's on pet passports and vets bills, 0000's on diesel and a small fortune on ferries to get from Ireland to France. No doubt we could have gone on a cruise or to the bahamas for a month every year for less. But we wouldn't have had our furry guys with us and thats the difference for us. We've been to some gorgeous places; and now three of our original dogs are now gone, but the memories we have of holidays with them in the caravan are priceless.
An aquaintance turned her nose up at caravanning once and said she could never 'slum it' in a caravan and would rather book a nice gite or hotel. My husband replied that we knew that only we had slept on our mattress and used our pillows, duvet etc. and asked her did she ever wonder how many people had slept on the pillows and mattresses in her gites/hotels? I have to say he elaborated a bit more than that and she looked a little bit sick by the end of the conversation.
------------- Sometimes You're the windscreen; sometimes the fly
We caravan at the moment because we enjoy it! We have also enjoyed hotel holidays, holiday cottages, city breaks, driving around the USA and Canada and a time share in Malta! It doesn't have to be any particular reason. Let's all just enjoy caravanning for our own reasons and agree that it can cost as much or as little as we like, which to me is one of the great things about it.
We bought our first caravan last year. We have had tenting holidays to France and Spain past 3yrs so thought we'd upgrade so we could have breaks around the uk. At an age of 42yrs I find brilliant and with a 5yr it is the best way to take holidays. We can go away more, my son can meet new friends, we can eat when we want not like in hotels where you are set to times. We also still have one holiday abroad via the tunnel and drive to sth of France because I love it down there. I was nervous though taking the caravan down to France.
Caravaning for me is the way forward. Just been looking at a new one at the nec
------------- keep on caravanning, life is too short
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Topic: Why do we Caravan?
