It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

cfw1994

westv said:

Camping, caravans and Ryanair sound like like my holiday horrors to me.   

🤣
I know what you mean.  I don’t fancy towing my home behind me, & hate the Ryanair ethos: Michael O’Leary always comes across as a hideous human who would happily charge you to use the toilet on his flights if he could.

I would chose a campervan but for the fact we feel too busy to make the most of it.  Maybe one day…but the ones I like are rather expensive.

Each to their own 🤷‍♂️

We love the occasional festival - IOW (we don’t have to camp there) then Latitude coming up soon.  Good times 🏕️😎👍

swindiff

We visited North Wales and made our way across to Liverpool in March, we were away for 8 nights.  I did look at hiring a VW Transporter.  That was going to be around £1000, plus pitch costs, total around £1250 for the 8 nights.  We ended up booking Premier Inn's in Porthmadog, Holyhead, Llandudno and Liverpool, total was £450 for the 8 nights.  The comfort of a proper bed and bathroom for 1/3 of the price, so was a no brainer for us.  I think the idea of a camper/motor home is probably more appealing than the actual reality of it, when you are shi**&ng in a bucket at 2am    
BTW I would highly recommend the Premier Inn at Porthmadog, its a lovely location and within walking distance of Portmerrion, which is a place I have always wanted to visit ever since watching reruns of The Prisoner when I was a kid.

Pat38493

Ibrahim5 said:

I was sat in my caravan the other day watching new arrivals coming onto the campsite. Mainly motorhomes towing small cars. It's utterly bonkers! It just doesn't make sense. What a waste of money. We bought our caravan partially to save money and it's been moneysaving all the way. I read recently someone saying that they lived in a small house because they had spent all their money on a motorhome instead! Our diesel 4x4 is more economical than our small petrol hatchback. It's a great family car. A caravan has a chassis which is cheap and easy to maintain. Just keep it watertight and it'll last for years. Our friends say their motorhome costs £3k a year to keep it on the road after they spent 8x the cost of our caravan on the motorhome. A caravan has no 'running costs'.

This kind of sums up why we are thinking of going for a caravan (with a fixed bed) rather than a motorhome - we went to the show and spent the day looking around and came to the conclusion that a caravan plus towcar (which can also serve as your main car) is much better value than a motorhome.  Also, because I we will both be retired soon we will be more likely to spend multiple nights in the same place.  Also we hired motorhomes a few times and realised that they limit you in where you can go and park (and higher parking costs).  I also don't fancy towing a tiny little Fiat or whatever behind a motorhome.

Nebulous2 said:

We currently have a fairly large caravan with a fixed bed. 

There are three motorhomes in our wider family and the advantage they have is 'wild camping.' With decent solar panels, an inverter, and uprated leisure batteries they can spend a night just about anywhere and be self-sufficient. So the difference in costs is not as big if you factor that in. 

Yes that's what we are looking for really - the smallest caravan available but definitely with a fixed bed which means you are looking at 1400-1500Kg from what we found out so far.

One debate is whether to get an EV but we are mainly looking at PHEVs at the moment.  Some EVs would make good towcars but you either have to limit your movement each day to less than 150 miles, or you have to unhitch the caravan to recharge as there are hardly any chargers in the UK where you can charge up while towing.  The upside though is that some EV have V2L capability meaning you can provide full mains power to the caravan from the car.

Ibrahim5

swindiff said:

We visited North Wales and made our way across to Liverpool in March, we were away for 8 nights.  I did look at hiring a VW Transporter.  That was going to be around £1000, plus pitch costs, total around £1250 for the 8 nights.  We ended up booking Premier Inn's in Porthmadog, Holyhead, Llandudno and Liverpool, total was £450 for the 8 nights.  The comfort of a proper bed and bathroom for 1/3 of the price, so was a no brainer for us.  I think the idea of a camper/motor home is probably more appealing than the actual reality of it, when you are shi**&ng in a bucket at 2am    
BTW I would highly recommend the Premier Inn at Porthmadog, its a lovely location and within walking distance of Portmerrion, which is a place I have always wanted to visit ever since watching reruns of The Prisoner when I was a kid.

You sleep better in your own caravan because it's your space and it's always the same just moved to different places. Your bed is adjusted to exactly how you want it. You know how to set the heating and ventilation so it's always perfect. You have a bathroom and kitchen too.

Ibrahim5

Sea Shell will be along soon to put her thread back on track and stop all this caravan talk on her thread.

swindiff

I sleep very well in the Premier Inn beds, in fact we even bought some of their pillows for home.  The great thing about staying in a Premier inn is the rooms are all pretty much the same, so you know exactly what you are getting at a reasonable price.  I have done many caravan holiday when the kids were younger, my father-in-law had a caravan permanently pitched at a campsite in Cornwall which we used to go to each year.  We had a great time, but there is no way I would compare the comfort of a hotel room with that of a caravan, unless you are talking about spending a serious amount of money on some sort of behemoth.

Ibrahim5

westv said:

Camping, caravans and Ryanair sound like like my holiday horrors to me.   

Ryanair have always been good for us. They always have newish planes (but they are Boeings). They have a good safety record and they always seem to be punctual. You just need to follow their rules. I was reading recently about the horrors of flying with BA.

Ibrahim5

swindiff said:

I sleep very well in the Premier Inn beds, in fact we even bought some of their pillows for home.  The great thing about staying in a Premier inn is the rooms are all pretty much the same, so you know exactly what you are getting at a reasonable price.  I have done many caravan holiday when the kids were younger, my father-in-law had a caravan permanently pitched at a campsite in Cornwall which we used to go to each year.  We had a great time, but there is no way I would compare the comfort of a hotel room with that of a caravan, unless you are talking about spending a serious amount of money on some sort of behemoth.

The point is that you sleep well in YOUR caravan because it's YOURS. You put your own pillows and bedding in. You adjust it until you are happy and then it's always the same. Wherever you go, it's just how you want it to be. Going to someone else's caravan isn't the same.

westv

Ibrahim5 said:

westv said:

Camping, caravans and Ryanair sound like like my holiday horrors to me.   

Ryanair have always been good for us. They always have newish planes (but they are Boeings). They have a good safety record and they always seem to be punctual. You just need to follow their rules. I was reading recently about the horrors of flying with BA.

I think the issue seems to be when things go wrong. All airlines can be a pain then but RA seem to have form for being as awkward as possible.

westv

Ibrahim5 said:

swindiff said:

I sleep very well in the Premier Inn beds, in fact we even bought some of their pillows for home.  The great thing about staying in a Premier inn is the rooms are all pretty much the same, so you know exactly what you are getting at a reasonable price.  I have done many caravan holiday when the kids were younger, my father-in-law had a caravan permanently pitched at a campsite in Cornwall which we used to go to each year.  We had a great time, but there is no way I would compare the comfort of a hotel room with that of a caravan, unless you are talking about spending a serious amount of money on some sort of behemoth.

The point is that you sleep well in YOUR caravan because it's YOURS. You put your own pillows and bedding in. You adjust it until you are happy and then it's always the same. Wherever you go, it's just how you want it to be. Going to someone else's caravan isn't the same.

I'm more of a 4 star hotel user myself for holidays.