The Contemporary Caravan Carousel

by

Lucy Kent

I heard someone on the radio recently decrying caravans as cheat camping . He described caravaning as driving in your little home from home trailer only to park up and sit and watch your favourite TV soap. That may well be how some people (the hilariously funny and irrepressible Royle Family come to mind immediately) use their caravans, but certainly not the majority.For most seasoned caravaners their chosen mode of holiday accommodation combines the complete freedom to move around the country at will with more comfort and much less hassle than camping, which is like setting up base from scratch at every site you visit. Your caravan can remain fully-equipped all year round, ready for the road at a moment s notice and, when you have small children, that is no minor consideration.

We took our first caravan holiday when our children were very young, heading off to the beautiful Lake District for a few days of pure air and breathtaking scenery. Our first caravan was not luxurious like most young couples, money was tight for us but a fourth- or fifth-hand one donated by the kindly in-laws. It was one of those tiny pop-top affairs which was only 12 foot long, making towing very easy. The facilities were basic, but perfectly adequate.As the children grew, more space was required and we managed to scrape enough money together to upgrade to a second-hand four-berth caravan. To us, this seemed very luxurious. It had its own little bathroom and a well-equipped kitchen and, yes, if we wanted it, we could have installed a TV. It was slightly more cumbersome to tow, but that didn t put us off and at least a dozen times a year we would go off for weekends or even longer breaks all over the country. We even took the dog with us on some trips.

Since then we have had two other caravans, the largest having six berths. That was like a mobile hotel. It had everything except a swimming pool! The children were never short of friends to invite along for bank holiday weekend getaways and, as the in-laws grew older and less independent, they too were happy to join us for a change of scenery. Oh, and yes, that one did have a TV two in fact!The children are now grown up and mostly holiday abroad in places like Ibiza, where the young are drawn like shiny little pins to a magnet. However they still speak with great affection of their caravan holidays which gave them a much greater appreciation of their own country than most young people seem to have. Some of their friends have travelled to the Far East but know nothing of the UK beyond their own county or city!

Recently I was looking online and I came across a site dedicated to buying and selling

caravans for sale

. Now how useful would that have been back in the 80s and 90s? Of course I was interested because we are just about to change our caravan again, hopefully for the last time. Our love of touring has never diminished but our needs have. We are back to considering a two or three berth caravan so we can drive off into the sunset in our dotage!

The site allowed us to place our own ad, including photos. This is so much better than the classifieds in the local paper as the ads reach a much wider audience. I thought I might as well place a wanted ad at the same time as this was also free. I thought how satisfying it would be if we could exchange with people in the reverse situation, perhaps a young couple looking to upgrade just as we are looking to downsize. That didn t happen, of course, but we sold our caravan very quickly and shortly afterwards found exactly what we needed for the two of us. Now if that isn t a perfect resolution, I don t know what is!

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