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Hi Everyone,

We are currently looking at making the jump into buying our first caravan or folding camper this year following the arrival of our first child last year! We have spent the weekend going around dealers with a budget of around £13k (ish) in mind and ideally looking to purchase new with the intention of keeping it for a long time.

We have looked at the Pennine range of folding campers and compared the Crusader & Quartz 6 as they offered the best range of faciites for a camper. Today we went and looked at the Bailey Orion to get a feel for caravan layouts etc.

We liked the 440-4 layout but were a bit concerned how comfy the middle double bed would be when made up of all the various cushions. Unfortunatly we are limited on caravan size as we only have a 56 plate 1.9CDTI Vectra so working on the 85% rule need to find something around the 1300kg weight. By far our favorite layout was the pegasus Milan as this offered a good double at the front and two singles (we don't need two doubles just the singles for our little boy and in case of a 2nd one!!). Unfortunatly the Milan is too heavy for our car but the dealer did mention that Bailey will be bringing out a new range (Olympus 2 I think he said) for the NEC this year and thought these might be similar in layout to the Milan and also be much lighter!

In terms of our aims we are looking (if we go for a caravan) of something with a bathroom at the end due to the size it offers (i.e a full seperate shower), something with lots of storage (bit lacking in the Orion) but also something we could take abroad to France / Spain etc as well as use in this country for weekends and summer holidays, etc

The advantage a folding camper gives us is that we could store it at home and its easier to tow. If we went for a caravan we do have the issue of paying for local storage so...........

1) Has anyone had a similar choice between a FC and caravan and what did you opt for?

2) Can anyone comment on the Orion as a choice?

3) Are there any other models / makes we should consider within our budget / weight / layout (we would consider a 1 or 2 yr old one)

4) Has anyone heard of what the new bailey models will be like (as mentioned to us today!).

Our dealer hires out Lunar Quasar 524's on a weekly basis so we intend to try one of these in September to give us a try at caravaning!

Any advice / comments gratefully received!

Darren

I think that if you can wait for the olympus 2 then it might be worth it. The gap between the orion and the pegasus is too great and the new olympus should fill this space both interms of price and equipment/layout choice. Ranger replacement maybe ??

If you cant wait then it might be worth hunting around  see if there are any dealers with old stock. You might pick up a bargain.

Quote: Originally posted by Baileybear on 10/7/2011

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I think that if you can wait for the olympus 2 then it might be worth it. The gap between the orion and the pegasus is too great and the new olympus should fill this space both interms of price and equipment/layout choice. Ranger replacement maybe ??

If you cant wait then it might be worth hunting around  see if there are any dealers with old stock. You might pick up a bargain.

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I have to say having got both A pennine pullman and  a caravan the caravan is just a bit easier for us,

we like to go all year round as we paid a lot for the caravan to having it sit there for 6 months of the year would be a waste,

 And with little ones we like being able to stop to change nappies/ 3 year old go to the toilet etc without having to find services. And also if you stop overnight and its late you can just pop the kids straight into bed.

However saying that the folding camper has the beds made up all the time which is good  but if it rains you have to unfold it all to get it dry again when you get home, also you have to put more stuff in the car as there isn't as much storage,

We are lucky as both are stored at home, however the folding camper is just a little bit more of a faff than the caravan, but is easier to tow and I hate towing the caravan (its OH's job), but am ok with the folding camper as I can see over it with the MPV.

Oh forgot to say the folding camper is easier to manoevre but we have a motor mover on the caravan which makes things easier.

I love both but the caravan is definitely the easier choice (as long as OH tows it)