We are looking at getting our first 2 berth van. We would like one with dinette seats 6ft long. Most seem to be shorter at 5ft. The Swift Basecamp is ideal for this but not ideal in other ways. Has anyone got any ideas of which small van to look at please.
You will be lucky to find a small convetional 'van with dinette seats 6ft long. With normal made up dinette you sleep across the caravan. Width between the walls is usually at least 6ft 4" or often 6ft 8" with wider caravan. This would be on a dinette & end kitchen layout. You can get different layouts. Caravelair for example do small fixed bed 'van with small dinette which is good layout for 2 people.
There are other foreign made caravans like Kip that are narrow with 6ft dinette designed for sleeping along the caravan. Also look at Eriba Touring models.
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Foriegn 'vans have the door on righthand side but not really a problem. Caravelair are sold in the UK by Marquis. Kip are imported in small numbers I think. Adria are worth a look. They make a range of left hand door 'vans for UK market. Several UK dealers sell Eriba new & secondhand.
I have a Streckeman and do not have any problems getting it serviced / repaired.
Door on wrong side, you may occasionally have to pitch it nose in.
No cooker/oven if that is an issue.
Enjoy your search.
My grampian has decent length seats at the front, its sold as a 4 berth not a 2 berth though, but you could always use it as a 2 berth leaving the side diner in place.
Not sure on your budget but our Bailey Pursuit 400-2 has 6ft long front seats which work really well as singles.
I am 6'4" tall and fit on one of them. I would like an extra 2" or so but can manage to stretch out slightly diagonally if necessary.
I always get good nights sleep on it.
The Pursuit replaced an earlier model called Orion.
It feels a very roomy van with end washroom incorporating the wardrobe. We can keep all our clothes in the wardrobe so it makes an ideal dressing room as well as having a roomy shower, wash basin and toilet.
The van is clever in that there is no front locker making a lot of extra space inside. Gas bottles etc all go in a side locker over the wheel so good for weight distribution. The locker easily takes all my stuff I would have put in a front locker as well as a 3.9kg and 6kg propane cylinders.
Thanks everyone. It has got to be a lightweight van as we don't really want to replace the car we already have - hence we were looking at the Swift Base Camp. So we want something similar. But the sleeping arrangements are important; a 6ft wide bed would be a deal breaker! We could compromise on other things. (We don't need an oven). Our budget, with an awning, would be up to £19,000 but obviously if we can find something used but decent then we'd go for it.
It's good to know that foreign vans don't present problems with servicing etc.
We plan to go up to the Birmingham NEC but I'm doing some research beforehand. Any advice from you experts is very much appreciated; up till now we have been hard and fast campers.
As well is two words!
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Geoff and blueexpo thank you. Geoff you confused me for a minute - I think the NEC in October was the Caravan and Motorhome Show and the Feb one will be the Camping & Caravan Exhibition. Is the Manchester one worth going to? I've heard reports that you can go round it in two hours. I thought the NEC one was fantastic when we last went.
Not been to Birmingham, I have been to Manchester and will be going again his year link is Manchester I believe Manchester is a smaller exhibition than Birmingham. It depends what you want to see it usually takes me approx 4 hours to see what I want.