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Good question Posse, we had friends with a big slide out type, mega money, American Motorhome, loved it, wanted one,(couldnt afford £80.000) which is what our friends motorhome cost !!!!! bought a 7.4 (old) Chevrolet Winnibago !!!!!,,,,,blinking thing was nothing but trouble, we even broke down on the motorway the day after paying for a full service !!!. kids didnt like the fact we didnt have any transport once we got to a site,,,,,,resulting in selling the American and cutting a long story short,,,,,,, buying our first caravan. Have never looked back since,,,,,,,,our friends remain motorhome owners !! 

HI

For me I don't like flying.....  As a family with 2 young lads we tended to go to Butlins which I actually liked and places like that.  My wife is cleaning mad and she would spend the first hour upon arival cleaning the accomidation before we unpacked.

We went to a Pontins place in Southport and it was supposed to be for 5 nights... this turned out to be 5 hours and we went home.  The place was minging.  We had a choice of 4 rooms and they were all the same

When we came home we went straight out and bought a trailer tent but as the wife had never been camping before it turned out to be a disaster and after we sold it (only used 1 night) we left it at that.

We went to our local caravan dealer as it was the closest place that sold gas for my BBQ and saw the van we now have on the forecourt.  the rest is history.

So thank you Pontins for being so bad that we decided that where ever we go we will take out accomidation with us.  Even been abroad in it this year.

Cheers

We bought a 1992 swift challenger off ebay to see if we liked it and in the next three months went away virtually every other weekend. We were hooked completely and so did our kids .It didn't cost the earth and when we traded  it in for a new van got what we paid for it. Its the best way to completely relax and unwind .

Cleaned the van last weekend and it looked  ready for next trip.

Whatever your van, the enjoyment is universal !!!

Happy Caravanning

offerred a van by a friend   take it and see if you like it and give us an offer    did it and have been doing it since '81    mind you when I look back   so ignorant of the facts  85%??     thought insurance was covered by the car insurance    no spare wheel  friend said you don't need one      couldn't reverse     never even thought about a service     had it six years   it took us to wales   scotland  and europe twice

how things have changed  everything is checked and double checked these days   love it

What finally pushed us to get a caravan was planning a holiday abroad. I detest flying, we both wanted to be able to travel about rather than be confined to a radius with one area. Best bet for us was buy an older caravan, cost us no more all in all for the holiday that way, and meant we could use afterwards too if we liked it - and we do  

 With a biggish tent just too much hassle to stop only 1 or 2 nights. It's great to be able to try a new site knowing if it's not for us we can move on much more quickly and easily. I admit we do actually prefer `living' in the tent really, but hate all the hassle of erecting it / taking it down / drying it out when the weather is nasty. We still have our tent & intend using it again but the caravan has a lot of plusses over the tent for us nowadays.

We also used to be campers but to be honest the thing that put me off the most was having to share the campsite facilities with other campers. I got frustrated at going to (nice) campsites with good facilities only to have them ruined by other inconsiderate campers who would leave them in a less than desirable state, but I just had to live with it and choose sites carefully.

We then went on holiday, us in our tent our friends in their caravan, had never even considered a caravan before. Wow, it was so civilised and they had their own shower, toilet and basin etc and was very jealous. I thought we would never get a caravan as my husband hated them but somehow just over a year ago we went to a caravan dealer, just to look, and ended up buying our first caravan. Had that for a year but realised that the layout wasn't quite right for us so last month picked up our brand new van, the new layout is fab and we have been away for two weekends already.

I like the freedom of camping/caravanning but do like the fact that with the caravan we can go all year round if we like and if the weather is bad it doesn't really matter that much. 

I often work away (steam rallies and simular sort of events) weekends friday till sunday. we all had little 1-2 man style throw away once wet tent. they were pretty much useless. anyway purchased a 10 man tent for around £25.again the min we pulled on site it pi**ed it down meaning we were drenched.

i had noticed a caravan parked on a nearby drive way that hadnt moved for some 12 mnths at least so i got a freind (who new him) to ask if he was selling it i had got around £1000.so when he came back and told me he had knocked them down to £250 i was over the moon,but also worried that i had commited myself to buying a wet damp shed.after some thought i decided that no matter how bad the condition of it was it must be better than a tent so when i collected it (still hadnt looked at it) i was amazed that it was like a palace inside (other than a scabby carpet) the rest was imaculatly clean.

it had a cooker fully working -- a shower fully working-- hot and cold running water fully working-- a fridge fully working-- electrick 12v and 240v lights fully working.

I suddenly had turned into a snob at work i bought a porta loo and stocked it up with sheets bedding pots pans cups tea coffee food etc.

it even had a brand new awning under one of the seats

the only thing i ever had to do was at first repair the delam in floor (was given a bottle of oneshot from a UKC member) and then i fitted lamitate flooring instead of carpet.later on i had to replace the burner (thanks to gary at arcsystems it cost next to nothing)

i had this van for a few years and as was only a 2 berth it was only used for work.

this year i bought a 5berth and all of my family have enjoyed weeks of holidays already (last one was last week) we had to buy an awning but that only cost me £100 and he threw 2 inner tents in for my 2 older kids to sleep in.

now the wife has got the bug and is searching for something newer and better (im happy with mine that stands me for less that £1500 all in)

and carnt wait to go away again

As a child we spent all our holidays and many weekends on my parents narrow boat so the outdoors was always kind of in my blood.  However, a canal boat isn't the sort  of investment one can make without serious planning so went on the usual package holidays, me petrified of flying and us both hating the fact that it would be another 12mths before we get another decent holiday.

My best friend had been chipping away at me for some time about tent camping, we really thought we wouldn't enjoy it but I absolutely loved it even though it rained heavily on our first trip.  After 12mths of camping OH declared that he doesn't work 14 hour days so that his holidays are an endurance test of packing and unpacking for hours at the beginning and end of each break and that the only way forward for him would be a caravan. 

We went to the NEC and spent the day in and out of dozens of caravans slowly narrowing our list down to our perfect layout.  We then spent the next year saving, OH reading every available piece of info about all aspects of caravanning and me slowly warming & getting excited about the idea,then in July this year our Lunar came up for sale close to where we live and here we are - definitely a good decision!!