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some very interesting points of view here folks,we have only just got into camping in our tent and its mind boggling the range of gear you can get to go with it.

bear in mind that i got rid of my 2.0 tdci mondeo as i no longer needed a large type family car,i now have the "pleasure" of driving a citroen c3 supermini,yes i know!

of course im now regretting that decision and i realise that now im hooked on this camping lark i need a bigger car again.

it gets worse, after only two camping trips(which were like a breath of fresh air!)

i now have caravan envy in a bad way!

we couldnt help noticing how relatively easy our caravan neighbours got set up compared to the rigmarole of setting up the tent.

the funny thing is that if you had told me a few years back that id enjoy camping i would have shot you down in flames muttering something or other about "roughing it" or such like.

for sure im a bit older now but definitely wiser lol!

We've just come away for our 1st full week in the van (only done weekends til now) & have to say it took just as long to set up as our huge 9 man dome tent does.  Having said that we did have a new awning and 2 new units to contend with plus a pup tent.

The main advantage of a caravan for us is that if it's pouring down you can just leave the awning til it stops & have a brew instead.  Other than that it takes just as long to get set up as the tent does.

We bought all the camping gear (big 6 birth frame tent and a smaller dome tent for weekends) when our daughter started school as we stopped being able to go to France in the mobile homes in September (£200 a week!!!).  Having to do the same holiday in the summer holidays can cost over £1000!!!

I was an abject caravan hater (how stupid of me I know) so camping it was.  In 2006 we went to Merley Court for the May Day bank holiday weekend and while camping was fun (for me anyway) OH could not take the cold.  Seeing all the other caravans around induced servere canavan envy and we jokingly wondered what caravan we could tow with our then car.

Six weeks later we were the proud owners of a brand new Bailey Ranger!!  The rest is history.

One big advantage, for us, is that living in Scotland, Wild Camping (well Wild Caravanning) is still possible. You would be hard pushed to pitch a tent in locations like this and with onboard water and a solar panel for power, we could have stayed here a week had we wished.
As it was we were on a 27 day tour and we wild camped for 10 of those nights.

Okay, when we are wild camping we leave the car hitched to the van and use this set up like a motor caravan but when we are on a site and can leave the van in a safe and secure pitch, then we still have the advantage of using a small car with all its fuel economy and freedom to roam.

Quote: Originally posted by Zafiral on 27/7/2009

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Lobey, from our bitter experience with a 05 Scenic that is about the heaviest caravan you can tow, even with a 1.9 DCi!!!

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Both our towcars, the Scenic and the Clio are 1.4 diesels.

The van's unladen weight is 704-kg and the max load is 1000-kg.
Normally, on an extended tour, we are towing about 850-kg.

We have never encountered any problems with towing the van and we have been on some pretty hairy and overgrown roads, especially on the west coast of Harris.  

In 27 days on the Outer Hebrides last August the raincoats never saw the light of day and the only bad weather we had was 2 nights when it was rather windy.

On both of these we dropped the roof (we can still sit up when the roof is down) and we slept through the worst of it, raising the roof again when the wind eased off a couple of hours later.

Whilst tents do have some big advantages, in windy conditions I much prefer my two layers of insulated glass fibre between me and the elements.