What’s it like? What are the real costs?
Really fancy one, the idea of being able to take off for a weekend and that. Looking into a towing licence anyway, but I can easily tow a 1500kg with my car under standard licence which is plenty for me
Seen a couple at £3000 from early 00s, although I’ve read anything over 14 years old will suffer from damp to some degree, mainly under those front windows.
Can’t offer any advice other than this 
caravans aren’t as cheap as they sound,
initial costs are for the caravan, tow hitch , decide if you’re going to run off a battery or electrical hookup
you need to have knives forks spoons etc
caravans need servicing pretty much like cars do
also, the caravan club recommend only towing @ 85% the car is able to (it’s not enforceable)
caravans can knock hell out of cars if your not careful & even though your car might be allowed to tow 1500kg some cars are shit at towing & others great
you also need to concider storing the fuking thing
the last caravan i brought was in 1996 & it cost 16k & another 4k on accessories i used to tow it to the vendee region of france every year with a 2.9 ford galaxy
the reason for me having a caravan was becuse i have 3 children and it was alot easyer
once they got old enough i sold it & went on hotel holidays
I think my car was built to tow, she’s a stage 3 saab 9-5 estate 300hp and 450Nm with a fruity exhaust (which probably writes off Germany and Switzerland) in theory rated to tow 1800kg but that’s also because that’s the weight of the car, so as you say around 1500 is where we land
Did you lose much when you sold it? It almost looks as though an 8 grand van sold after 3 years for 8 grand might be the right approach but a private sale is then probably a ballache worthy of its own thread.
I’d preferably like one cheap enough that I only have to bother about overseas insurance and general out and abouting. Not sure I’m interested in the stress of a nickable one
Then I priced up average cost difference between a caravan and car on the eurotunnel - looks like about £115 average on a return, bit more than the 15 odd l paid on my last bike tour 
I quite want to take it skiing as it happens, turns out this is a thing
I sold my van for 6k with everything, something like that anyway.
saabs make good towing cars but you will need to check the allowed nose weight as its a powerful car thats fwd
the weight of the car isnt the legal towing weight the hand book should tell you its towing weight
if you have never towed before you might want to concider an advanced training , its easy to tow in a straight line with no other traffic , it can be an arse clench with traffic & twistys
remember your not allwed to take gas bottles on the eurotunnel
i never used the tunnel always went by ferry to st malo or caen
caraveners can be right snobs & think just because they paid X for it it will still be worth X
Wtf? You want a caravan? Can I suggest a trip to dignitas instead?
I bet there will be some cheap vans going when lockdown comes to an end. the more you spend the more you will get. get on caravan finder to see whats about with the layout you want.
When you are doing the sums consider what it would cost to hire a motorhome for the holidays you are planning. If it is only for a few weeks of the year that might be a better solution. Much easier to drive too. Just like a van.
Caravaners wouldn’t be interested in Dignitas, that’s the quick way!
Haha that tickled me - yes I think I do… keys in the pot anyone?
Got a decent sized trailer for bikes, sheet goods and anything else that fits, 8’7 by 2’5 internally but no nothing on that scale remotely so it’s a good shout on the training will do my bigger licence too
Yeah that’s an idea, I even saw people were hiring caravans for around 400 for the week to see if they liked it. It looks like the caravan is hard to justify from a financial standpoint even if it can look affordable on the surface. I guess the caravan ownership is the perceived convenience of having a bad week and deciding on the way home on Friday that you’ll take off for a few days. Whether that would ever happen due to the relentlessness of committments is something that remains to be seen. For me, it would certainly be more expensive than my usual holiday arrangement as baring motorbike outings which I’ve tied in to other commitments, I’ve not actually been on holiday for at least 10 yrs so not sure how I feel about absorbing the extra recurring expense knowing it’s unlikely I’ll be using it as often as planned. Plus it’s yet another thing to get stolen. Doesn’t stop me getting itchy for one though
harsh!
I’m with Joby on this one. The depreciation, maintenance, storage and extra headache of driving would all be negated by having a motorhome and rather than spend money on something that’ll spend 95% of its life on your driveway, renting a motorhome would be a better idea.
Consider this, it’s the first hot weekend of the year (eg last weekend), you’d like to take the caravan away with the missus! It’s been sat in the cold and damp of the winter and needs a deep clean before you can use it. Maybe the tyres have flat spots from 5 months in 1 place? That’d round off your bad week nicely!
And you’ll have to sit in traffic for days along with all the other caravan owners.
and we’ll all swear at you.
one question would you want to travell about when on holiday, try getting a motorhome down some roads where you want to visit, park in a car park ,use 2 bays pay for 2 bays, theres pros and con for both. I have some friends that use a transit (medium wheelbase) and its a pain in Cornwall. also since having a kid there aint a lot of room in it. if I had to choose it would be a caravan, but I have a transit custom to pull it with, and put the bike in the back! 
I’ve seen some people who extend their caravans or mobile homes with an awning.
If you can’t afford an awning you could just use s gazebo.
This. This I can relate to already
Yeah would be really cool for track weekends - I definitely wouldn’t be interested in owning a motorhome that’s for sure, to rent fine but yet another thing to tax, mot and insure no thanks!
In a moment of boredom I tried to pull the trigger on one or two caravans. Bleeding impossible as every one for sale on ebay seems to be a scam
Wasn’t there one of these going a while back
