Changing From Caravans To Motorhomes - Adrian's Arena

WET AND MIDSTREAM
What on earth is he talking about we hear our reader cry! He may well ask.
We have been asked to write our views on the everlasting debate on the merits or otherwise on the caravan versus motor caravan question, difficult in the extreme we think. Hence the expression “changing horses in mid stream” there is a possibility of getting wet, luckily we haven’t.

First we must clarify our former position, we were absolutely ardent caravanners and for years we looked at motor caravans with a “them and us” attitude, virtually all the caravanners and motor caravanners we knew had the same way of thinking. This was like oil and water, they just didn’t mix, not that there was any bad feeling, each group just had a different way of doing more or less the same thing.

So where to start, the expression that one hears quite often is “I don’t like towing” or “I don’t know how to tow” or even “towing can be dodgy” We suppose that some folk may feel all of these, we however find that towing and reversing is so easy that it is difficult to see where the problem lies.
We have the advantage that we are able to tow with a press car that we are currently testing, we always make sure that the vehicle is plenty heavy enough so that the 85% rule is always followed bearing this in mind we have only ever had one snake of any proportions, scared or what!.

With car and caravan the arrival on site is a little more protracted than with a motor caravan, in some cases very much more so. There is so much more to do than just driving and parking, we know that some will perhaps disagree with this but we have done it and know.
The huge advantage with a touring caravan is the fact that once on site and settled you are completely mobile without disturbing the caravan.

The motor caravan on the other hand needs a new way of thinking before the trip, if the site has a reasonable shop then this thinking need not be done, if a shop is within a short distance away then the bikes that you have brought along will be pressed into action.

We well remember the first trip to Continental Europe that we undertook with a motor caravan, we were able to travel to more sites than we would have done in a caravan.

It may of course be us but when one is touring with a caravan and you are settled on a site you tend to stay there, yes you can travel around in the tow car but the radius of travel is normally not a great distance from your base.
On our first ever trip to France in a motor caravan (we had been about 30 times by caravan) we found that we were happy to stay just a few days on one site and then up sticks and move to another, in this way we definitely travelled far more than we would have done if we had used a car and caravan.

We have just changed our motor caravan for a better one and on this one we have had a tow bar fitted, the next step is to tow a car.
The caravanners say “if you are going to tow a car you might just as well tow a caravan” We can see their point and we don’t have a sensible answer to that particular retort.
Maybe towing a small car behind is safer than the very many unmatched outfits that you see on the roads at present, especially when undertaking a trip to France where 80mph is a legal towing speed.

The argument (discussion?) on this subject could go on ad infinitum but suffice it to say that both sides have their pros and cons, we enjoyed our many years of caravanning very much but were dismayed at the build quality of many of the caravans that we tested.
Motor caravans on the other hand are generally of a stronger construction both internally and externally and the furniture feels so much more solid.

When you arrive on site in a motor caravan you can have your cup of tea ready in a shorter time than the caravanner, we wait for comments on this!

To be fair we don’t think that there is a definitive answer to this discussion, each side have their good and not so good points, we have settled now in the motor caravan camp and are enjoying it very much.

Adrian H French