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hi weve just bought our 1st caravan a burstner .

my step father has said its not legal to tour with over here as the door is on the wrong side its illegal is that correct . panicking now . has no problem with insuring it ?????

thanks for any help

Our last caravan was a Freedom with the door on the continental side; it definitely isn't illegal to tow it.  Just be careful if you stop in a layby, best not to be in and out of the door too often as you are close to traffic. 

We often used to pitch with our hitch facing inwards onsite, depending on the pitch of course, so as not to be staring straight at our neighbours.  Some sites did ask us to do this, sometimes we did it of our own accord.  A bit trickier to hitch up to go home though as we had to turn it around first.

Do they make the French, German, Dutch etc. park the other way round then? Can't see the difference myself.

We have a motorhome with the door on the continental side and have never had a problem of being asked to face the opposite way when pitching

Jean 

We are collecting our new Eriba today and it has the door on the Continental side. Looking forward to finding out if Balbirnie park will be enforcing this "rule" at the weekend. I wouldn't necessarily want to face my neighbours though,.

I do wish people would stop scare-mongering about European vans!

It's absolutely fine to tow a van with the door on the opposite side as with German van, as previously mentioned just be careful when stopping in laybys etc!

Our Burstner is insured with CaravanGuard who have no issue with European Vans. We also used them on our last UK van.

Some sites are a bit difficult about pitching but just turn your van around if needs be but as your van is the same layout as ours with your bed at the front it won't affect the view anyway!!

Happy Hols to everyone,especially those off to NFOL in Exeter- look forward to seeing you there.

Me too, we have a European van (Swift Speedbird 490, based on the Toscane sold in Holland) with the door on the wrong side, and have never had problems with insurance, sites, towing, or even been asked to 'pitch' the wrong way around.  We just put our tow-hitch at the front where everyone else does!    OK, sometimes we're looking 'at our neighbours' but have made very good friends because of that - and everyone is interested in our van because it looks British and has British number plates, just a door on the wrong side.

Crikey, what do sites do - turn away all the French, Dutch, German and other continental vans with doors on the wrong side!  

Whenever we could we used to go across the pitch instead of hitch in or out.  Probably not viable with a long van but our Freedom was tiny.

Quote: Originally posted by maisy-mai on 20/8/2007

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my step father has said its not legal to tour with over here as the door is on the wrong side its illegal is that correct . panicking now . has no problem with insuring it ?????

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Some people will use any excuse to stop European visitors coming to this country. 

Carr