Hi all. I have just registered to seek advice. I have been a tent camper for 20 years. Now considering buying a towing caravan. My main idea is, we will be able to go caravaning cost free forever😊 or not exactly?🤣🤣? This is why i am seeking advice. Also, this is a single mum speaking, so all driving and manouvering will be done solely by me. I have few questions, if someone could please spare minute or two to write an advice....
I imagine with a caravan, i will become ‘bulky’ and not so much free to move around....does it feel like a caravan is causing trouble in sense of u cant really drive into city centres because u might be stuck somewhere? Do i always have to leave a caravan at a camping site? Also, maybe i am being naive, but can i camp for free on a side of the road, lets say, small village road, not really camp but just stay for the night? Would i have a chance to stay like this traveling around Wales, Peak district or any seaside? Is this tolerated /and safe/ to do in Europe? Also- having never owned a caravan, excuse me if this sounds silly- to be able use any electricity, do we have to stay at campsite and be connected to mains? Or do caravans operate on some kind of generators🙃? And water- does it have any water storage for shower and other running water? And this is really silly- how on earth do these indoor caravan toilets operate? I mean how will i dispose of it? Do i have to physically dispose of it😳? Does it use any chemicals? Gas bottles for cooking seem pretty straighforward...
My questions cut short- can i caravan for free plus diesel for my car, electricity question, water question, feeling ‘bulky’ with caravan?
Hi there and welcome. I can’t answer all your questions but I will have a go at some.
First of all, in our experience, caravaning is quite an expensive hobby! First, you have to buy a caravan. This can be as cheap or as expensive as you like but finding a good, dry cheap caravan is not easy. Once you have got one, you then need to consider insuring it. Again, depending on the value of the caravan, this varies and I know some people don’t insure at all if the caravan is old.
Then, you need to store it somewhere! You might be lucky to have space at home to store it but if not, you are looking at a good few hundred pounds a year for a storage site.
As far as I know (someone will correct me if I’m wrong) you cannot just pitch up a touring caravan by the side of a road or in a car park. You can do this in some places in a motorhome, but not in a touring caravan, you really need to pitch a touring caravan on a campsite. This can, again, be as cheap or as expensive as you like. If you join one of the clubs (Caravan and Motorhome Club or Camping and Caravaning Club) they have larger Club sites with lots of facilities which cost from about £20-30+ a night depending on time of year, but they also have small sites called Certified Locations (CLs) or Certified Sites (CSs) which cost a lot less, usually about £10 a night or thereabouts. There are also a lot of commercial sites all over the country which range in price from cheap to very expensive depending on location and facilities.
Cheaper sites tend to not have any facilities so you need to use your own, on board facilities. If you are on a site with facilities, you can book an electric hook up pitch which allows you to connect your caravan to the mains electric and this will power your lights, fridge, heater etc. If you are on a site with no facilities, then most caravans have a leisure battery which will power your lights for a good few days before it needs to be recharged depending on the size. You can also get caravans with solar panels on the roof or you can buy a portable solar panel which will help keep your battery topped up if you are on a site with no electric. The rest of your appliances would need to be powered by gas and most caravans have fridges and heaters and ovens and stoves which run on gas.
As far as water goes, all sites must provide you with water. On posh full service expensive sites, this might be via a tap on your pitch which you can connect directly to the caravan by a special hose. On cheaper sites, this will be by a standpipe somewhere where you can take a large container and fill it up. Most people use something called an aquaroll which you can roll along behind you and it can hold 40 litres of water which you then place beside your caravan, and lower the caravan water pump into it. This will allow you to use the caravan sinks and shower etc. Some caravans also have on board water tanks which you can fill up.
As far as the toilet goes, caravans have chemical toilets. There is usually an upper toilet that you sit on with a slider that you open on the bottom and this allows your ‘waste’ to drain down into a lower holding tank. This lower holding tank is usually filled with some sort of toilet chemical, of which there are many brands, which helps to break down any solid waste and stop nasty smells from coming up into the caravan. This holding tank needs to be emptied every few days into the designated chemical toilet emptying point which all sites must have. This is not the most pleasant of jobs but the chemical stops it from being too unpleasant. I have noticed this year that a few fancy sites now have an automatic toilet emptying machine which, for a fee, will empty, sanitize and recharge your toilet tank, ready for reuse.
I hope this answers some of your questions but I’m sure others will be along soon with more advice.
You might find the Camping and Caravanning Club's New to Caravans pages useful, and if you can get to the NEC between 16th and 21st October you might be able to try a towing experience (see here) but apply early as places will naturally be limited.
Join the C&CC and use the weekend, 3/5 day meets and Temporary Holiday Sites from around £4.60 to £10.00 a night. Purchase a solar panel to keep the caravan battery charged up (off grid), free from the sun, for the caravan 12v systems, lights, water pump, TV, etc and just use gas for the fridge, hot water / heating and cooking. Cheap caravanning, more outings and longer stays in good locations. Water tap and toilet empty point provided.
The link will give you an idea of meets and locations if you also like walking and cycling in the North:
we mostly go north and often park up for the night in country type lay-byes.. so yes you can..
we just did 2000 miles around scotland.. six nights on basic campsites sango sands..altnaharra and fire more.. the rest wherever it was convenient to stop overnight to sleep.. take your pick..
avoid big cities.. avoid supermarket carparks buy you grub at village spar shops..
but yes.. depending where you go fuel can be your main expense.. we treat our caravan just like a mobile home that comes apart in the middle..
carrying enough water can be problematic in a caravan.. mobile homes are much better in this respect.. we carry two 27 litre containers in the back of the truck and one in the van..
Thank you for your reply. We usually spend about 2k on summer holiday, so my logic goes like this- if i spend 5k on a caravan plus £500 a year storage, then after initial investment, i will be having holidays for free, well more or less, just fuel and food. Ups also ferry crossing, which is twice as expensive as crossing with just a car. But on the other hand, we will be able to tour any weekend with a caravan, so more holidays
If you plan to go to France you will find the majority of sites a lot cheaper than in the UK and also, some of the ferry operators do a ‘caravans go free’ on some of their less busy crossings so you end up just paying for the car and passengers anyway.
I also worked on the logic that with a caravan we would have cheaper holidays, since with the kids being limited to school holidays it costs about £3k for an all inc for 4 of us x2 weeks.
This year we have been to a festival £400 tickets, plus food and drink, Devon 5 days approx £300, Cornwall 13 days £1200, plus 3 or 4 weekends approx £100 each.
But remember each trip includes food and drink, plus being on holidays in the UK you have trips out whereas on holiday abroad you might not move far from the pool. For holidays I choose sites with pools and bars, for weekends we go basic with toilets and showers.
Then add on petrol, insurance, RAC, annual service (and that's not counting this year we need some damp repairs) So, I would say it costs more than a holiday each year, but we get away more often.
If you wanted to tour more and sleep in laybys, I'd be tempted by a bigger campervan / small motorhome, depending on budget and age of kids.
i have looked at a few recently but have decided to stick with my caravan and truck even though i do treat it like a motor home that comes apart in the middle if i want it to.. mostly both halves stay hooked up..
setting up for us usually means putting the back legs down just to steady the cooking saucepans.. we have a rear kitchen.. :)
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: Newbie to caravaning
