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We've got a tent (only our daughter has used it) as well as the Caravan but wouldn't choose the tent out of choice. I'm afraid we're fair weather caravanners & proud of it.

The flip side of that is, we friends who wouldn't even consider anything other than their tent. All down to personal choice but if you've already got the tent, why not keep it when you get the caravan.

BB

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for all of your advise!!!!!  We are going this weekend to have a look a some caravans to get an idea of the layout.  We want to get caravan for some extra comfort, the last 2 years we have come home early due to the weather but we will still keep our tent and equipment at first, (we are fair weather campers!!!!)

Anyway thanks once again I will keep you posted

Debbie

I know I am not your average family man and admit my main reason for buying the van was to give my late mum some holidays but now as we haed into the new season and my 1st on my own (sob sob, any females wanna share my van) my thoughts are, keep the van for holidays I was going to sell it but hey I enjoy the van for having holidays in, all the creature comforts be daft to flog it

however I also bought a new tent mainly for motorsport where all I need is somewhere to doss and make a brew so essentially backpacking gear plus I can drive home after a weekend racing a blinking lot faster than i can towing. the tent is dry and has space for me to sleep in so I dont need no more

We camped for years and loved it but after 2 very wet washed out weekends in wales 2009 we decided to buy a caravan and we havent looked back, we just love it,  we were lucky enough to be able to afford a new one but got a good end of season deal  about 2k off.  Just remember you need a tow car too and we had to fork out another 15k  for a second hand volvo,  so basically if you want to change to caravan , yes its much better but its also more expensive.

J  x

We tent and caravan, we take the van out for anything longer than a couple of days, but during the summer, if we have a weekend with good weather comming, we hit one of a couple of campsites within a couple of hours drive.  The kids love it.  Julie picks me up from work on Friday afternoon with the car pre packed and we hit the road.  A bit longer winded with the caravan.

I've got a barmy work mate who tents 9 months of the year to takes the mick out of fine weather tenters, but I dont mind as long as I can sit in my heated dry van with a mug of coco and work out what to do with the day.

Tony B

I have a van (sterling europa) and several (too many) tents, but my preference is with the tents

To me they are totally different holidays. 

My favourite part of camping is sitting outside round a bonfire, tripod and dutch oven bubbling away with my dinner in, the dogs asleep round my feet and a drink in my hand. 

In the caravan we sit inside, TV on, very civilised, but too much like home for me sometimes.  The highlight is usually finding a decent programme on one of the 4 tuned channels (can never get channel 5), altho even this will change now with digi boxes

I can't be arsed with towing for just a weekend, so the van sits in storage in cornwall all year and we phone to have it towed onto a pitch.  If I didn't like Bude so much, where the van is in storage, I would probably get rid of it

As i've said before, just because you have a caravan it doesn't mean you have to site inside watching the tv! We do take a tv with us but it usually stays in the bag all the time we are away!

We still go 'campiing' even though our mode of camping is a caravan. We love the life of camping in our caravan. The only time (obiously) that we sit inside the caravan is during our winter trips  but we wouldn't being camping with a tent then anyway.

Quote: Originally posted by Lassie on 03/2/2011

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As i've said before, just because you have a caravan it doesn't mean you have to site inside watching the tv! We do take a tv with us but it usually stays in the bag all the time we are away!

We still go 'campiing' even though our mode of camping is a caravan. We love the life of camping in our caravan. The only time (obiously) that we sit inside the caravan is during our winter trips  but we wouldn't being camping with a tent then anyway.

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I've only ever had a caravan & personally would never consider a tent, nothing to do with snobbery I'm just idle & love my creature comforts.

Our friends have a tent & joined us once & it seemed such a hassle for them packing everything into the car at home, unpacking it all out onto the pitch, erecting the tent, organising all their stuff inside & then the reverse when they packed up.

With a 'van just hitch up, pull up, wind down legs, plug in leccy & pour wine!

You get the best of both worlds, you can sit outdoors with your bbq & bevy when it's nice or sit inside on a nice comfy settee with your legs up watching the world go by, they're cool in the summer & warm in the winter.

Have fun choosing your layout, my one tip is to make sure you choose one with a decent amountof workspace, we swapped our old van after 1 outing because the lack of worktop made it inconvenient at meal times.

We switched to a caravan from a tent last year and so far we've found it suits us much better

As you can see from the pics below we had a big tent which was kitted out with all the home comforts we could need.....ultimately I think we were trying to make it as comfortable as a caravan....it was all a lot of effort and faff tbh.  The first day was pretty much wiped out setting everything up, you could argue that we could have got a smaller tent and took less stuff to put in it, but thats my point we didn't want to, we wanted comfort.

I'm not knocking camping at all, it's great fun and I enjoyed it when we did it.

So we switched over to a caravan which has all of the above and more, the first time we used it we were so excited to actually get hot water from the taps lol!

The best thing is we can go away more in a caravan without having to use holiday from work, if we decide mid-week to go away that Friday we can knowing its just a case of grabbing a few bits and bobs from home and off we go! 

Here's hubby enjoying a cuppa in our porch awning:

Yes yes we have a telly and we watch it lol!  It was the midst of winter...

It's funny how a simple thing such as a drawer for your cutlery can make a person very happy lol

A proper bed mumsy?  How brilliant!

One happy chappy!

Look he matches!

I don't think anyone can truly say caravanning is better than camping or camping is better than caravanning - it's all down the the individuals and what works for them.

Whichever way you choose to have a break from normality - just enjoy it!

Woofers i agree with everything you say!

We had a large tent and made it as comfy as we could BUT when we got the caravan - wow! As you rightly say a drawer for your cutlery, a proper bed for the dogs!! I still get quite excited when we're away to ave such luxury! Maybe it will never leave us!