My husband and I are in the early stages of planning a year out of the rat race travelling around the UK, Ireland & some of Europe.. We can see countless vlogs, youtubes, insta accounts on van life, but can't see much on people who tour for long periods in a caravan. If you know of any please let me know. We don't want to 'live' in a caravan we want travel in one full time. So my main question is, is it even possible? we are weighing up the pros and cons of a caravan via a camper/Mhome. Appreciate most people do this in a motorhome/camper as you can park up much cheaper / for free but we want a slower pace and the initial outlay of a (small) caravan is a lot less than a MH (plus my OH is reluctant to get rid of / store his beloved volvo!) Any thoughts appreciated! :)
Absolutely no problem touring on the Continent where you can simply turn up at a site, check in and pay when you leave.
British sites often can't seem to cope with that, they normally expect you to book in advance and pay in advance too. That makes uk touring too messy for me.
DaveS1
I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be possible in a caravan. You mention parking up for free or cheaper with a motorhome, but you can't really do that legally in Britain anyway. The only minor snag would be that sites are much more limited over winter as not all of them stay open all year round, but I'm sure you could find somewhere in most areas. The one big advantage with a caravan, apart from initial cost, is that once you have put your caravan on a site you then have the car to travel around in. If you are exploring or simply going shopping, a car is much easier to find somewhere to park. Most Motorhomes don't fit in supermarket parking bays. You also don't have to stow everything away in a caravan just to nip down to the shops, as you would with a motorhome.
If you are seriously thinking of doing it, find a caravan you like and that your car can legally tow, and go for it! Enjoy!
No problem. Use the site search on here, and just go with the flow, stay a week or one night. We’ve found if we turn up just after lunch, we’ve always got in without booking - but there’ll be exceptions to that in popular tourist areas. Some roads are off limits towing - you’re not going over the Pass of the Cattle to Applecross.
Sounds like a grand adventure: go for it!
For many years we would go touring with the caravan to France and Spain for periods of up to 5 months pre Schengen and 90 days thereafter. There are pros and cons in the caravan v motorhome argument
A caravan gives you more living space and (most importantly) luggage space for crates of wine.
Having seperate transport means greater flexibilty in exploring area and often just going shopping.
A motorhome has greater opportunities for stopping overnight, farms, pubs, even laybys. These may be cheaper than campsites, but you are paying to use your own utilities.
Ferry crossings are cheaper because you are a unit, as opposed to the 2 units of car + caravan.
Whichever you decide, just go for it you will not regret it. For long periods, touring the continent is so much cheaper than the UK. The sites are generally far better than the UK and most importantly fare cheaper.
We found that we had covered the ferry and travelling costs differential by the 3rd or 4th week
Should not be an issue, but you may require a permanent address for vehicle registration and driving licence. I would not like to do it in a motorhome as you are fairly restricted i.e. you need milk or loaf of bread and there is no bus nearby. With a caravan you probably will have a lot more room, you already have a car so a saving and having a car allows you to explore more places where motor homes cannot go due to height barriers.
The 'politics' of living a mobile life, such as registered address etc., aside, the practicalities are not an insurmountable barrier.
Pitching/breaking camp almost certainly takes longer with a caravan than it would with a camper/MH, but not an excessive amount of time more, plenty of us caravanners do overnight stops to break long journeys, and that's not so different to short stop touring, and many do just w/e trips away. I've used 'late arrival bays' at a couple of camp sites when arriving past normal closing time, you do minimal setting up (corner steadies down, hitch lock on, gas on for cooking/heating), leave hitched to car, camp 'off grid' with no connections, eat, get your head down for the night, then move to a proper pitch in the morning when site open. You may want to plan your stop locations to be interesting enough to justify a couple of days or more on site, that way the effort of pitching/breaking the caravan would seem less tedious.
As pointed out already, a tow car is a far better vehicle to go visiting places of interest/sights/shops etc. than a huge MH, a campervan fits somewhere between depending on roof height usually, as many places now have height barriers that only low height campers will get under.
As someone who both likes a bargain (free is good! - sometimes!!!) and does long (UK only so far with caravan) journeys where as the solo driver a rest break is necessary, parking a caravan can be tricky, a 'free' overnight stop that is good, unheard of in my experience. MH/campers are at a strong advantage there, both as better accommodated with Brit-Stop type opportunities, and a more compact vehicle in most cases that fit in a lot of places a car-caravan wont.
Both motorway services and laybys are horrible places to spend any more time in than absolutely necessary, so overnighting holds little appeal. Services charge hefty fees (caravans pay HGV rates!) for longer than free 2-3 hour comfort breaks, with no 'camping' facilities either. Dedicated caravan parking areas are very rare, usually punted into HGV parking.
Laybys are technically illegal to camp in anyway under traffic laws, but that is usually overlooked for an overnighter, TBH, most are pretty squalid with fly tipping and the 'waste' (careful where you walk!) the truckers leave! But what concerns me most is the danger, few have a safety island to isolate them from the fast moving traffic on the carriageway, and it's not as uncommon as it should be for parked vehicles to be hit by moving vehicles, a caravan would turn to matchwood if clipped by even a car, let alone a truck, so not somewhere I'd sleep soundly! - and talking of sound, the endless traffic roar only feet away is grim. Quite common for there not to be enough space to drive a caravan into a gap either, and you DONT want to be reversing a caravan off a live high speed lane into a just adequate parking space, so no assurance you can actually stop when you need/want to (no list or database of laybys that I've ever come across, and I've searched hard, that allows you to plan a stop in advance either)!!!!
Car parks generally don't lend themselves well to caravans, from height restrictions, to bans, to difficulty manoeuvring such a large combo in compact spaces around 'islands', posts and other 'street furniture', you often find there is just not enough 'swing' space to get past all sorts of obstacles - watch out for low trees and light fittings etc!
Most regulated street parking makes NO allowances for caravans, so risk of ticketing.
Pretty much guaranteed you will need to find a proper camp site to do a pleasant overnight or longer stop with a caravan. And even that brings complications, the days of just rolling up to a camp site and booking a pitch on the spot seem to be passing - most want prior booking at least, and some payment as well! That's perhaps a combination of camp sites now being VERY commercial enterprises, and a legacy of 'travellers' abusing sites by turning up unannounced and then refusing to leave whilst also not paying! Guess that applies no matter what form your camping vehicle takes!
I'd say touring with a caravan is possible, but maybe not in a totally freewheeling 'lets see where life takes us kind of way, it needs a certain degree of advanced planning and booking, perhaps more so in UK than on continent, TBH, UK is not the most caravan friendly place whilst on the road, where provision is made, such as motorway services, it's often a compromise afterthought, but in most cases practically no provision at all!
Thankyou all for the wonderful replies!! So much to think about, we are off to a Caravan show at the weekend to look at vans, as I say we are early stages, we have had a caravan long time ago & totally agree the ability to park it up and go off in the car is soooo much easier than a van. Appreciate we will need to be very orgnaised and book places in advance but we're good with that, I'm not one for turning up on a whim I like to be organised! Would be good to make it work with a caravan. I really appreicate all the advice, and words of encouragement! :)
Quote: Originally posted by navver on 23/4/2025
Advance booking well in advance may be necessary during school holidays as many sites are fully booked well in advance.
Often sites that are "fully booked" for a Friday or Saturday start are half-empty on a Monday. That is why we always avoid trying to book in on Fridays and Saturdays.
I've not tried just turning up at any British sites for decades, but I'm sure few sites would actually turn away a customer if they had a pitch available.
These days we tend to book for a week or two at a time, but many years ago we used to tour much more. No internet back then but we used to ring around from the site we were on and then head off to the one we had booked. These days it should be much easier to contact sites online, and to pay in advance if necessary.
Quote: Originally posted by navver on 23/4/2025
Advance booking well in advance may be necessary during school holidays as many sites are fully booked well in advance.
Not sure about that anymore as over Easter weekend apparently there were vacancies on popular CAMC sites? Probably due to cost per night of over £50 for a couple.
We were on a commercial site over Easter and Friday, Saturday and Sunday were full but there was a mass exodus on Monday and it was over half empty. We moved on Tuesday to a CAMC site and when we arrived we were really surprised as the site was probably only about 20% full and from what I understand, this is one of the more popular sites on the CAMC network. We are here until Sunday so it will be interesting to see if it fills up again for the weekend.
If you are planning to tour the UK, then I would say that booking well in advance for weekends and school holidays would be essential but not so important midweek during term time.
One thing that I would consider an advantage of a caravan over a motorhome is the ability to pitch up for a longer period of time and explore the area in your car. For example, the site we are on now is in the Cotswolds. Using our car, we can explore a wide area and go to loads of different places. We are only here for 5 nights but could easily stay here and use it as a base for exploring the Cotswolds for 2 weeks at least. However, speaking to people in motorhomes, they tend to move on every few days as unless they want to keep taking the motorhome out for the day, they are limited to what they can do in an area to where they can access on foot or by public transport. Public transport is often not great in some areas (the only place we have ever found a really good bus service is in the Lake District) and even though the village we are in now is served by local busses, they are few and far between and speaking to a couple yesterday, they said that they had exhausted all the places they could go on the direct bus route in a couple of days. So, if you want to settle in one place for a week or more at a time, and explore the area in your car, then I would go for a caravan, but if you want to keep moving on every few days, then a motorhome would suit you.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: UK Tour Is it possible in a Caravan?
via mobile 22/4/2025 at 1:55pm
