Touring caravans

We caravanned since 1970, only gave it up last year due to DH's health. It was wonderful for taking children on holiday, they had their own beds and their own routine with meals etc.

Elegran, this year`s holiday is going to be the telling one for us, we aren`t as fit as we used to be, and we are waiting for August to find out if we can still hack it, although we`ll be very reluctant to sell the van.

I hope it works out for you, numberplease. I've seen in your other posts how much you love the area you go to in Kintyre. It's the place to be if you want to leave all your cares behind you.

You`re not wrong there, Greenmossgiel!

numberplease - The best thing we ever bought was the powered caravan mover. It meant we could maneouvre the van into place without doing a back in, and get it into the drive when we returned home to find cars parked everywhere so we could not get a turning circle. Worth every penny.

We`ve considered it Elegran, but money is a bit tight nowadays, and it would probably cost more than the caravan`s worth! Tempting thought though...........

When you do eventually decide to call it a day and sell up, the mover could make the van more attractive to buyers. We sold ours to the first person who looked at it, who had rejected several similar models (some of them for smelling of everything eaten in them for the last 3 months)

Today I spotted a van on sale on Ebay that I said was a brilliant starter van for a caravanning newbie, only £3950 with a remote control mover attached, it`s not that far from here, now he wamts to go and look at it!

Go for it , numberplease!

Spotted another since, only £2500, but I`m reluctant to let him spend the money, it won`t get replaced now that he`s retired, but it`s certainly tempting.

numberplease we gave up our tourer last year as my husband developed angina and couldn't pull it about as he used to. We considered buying a caravan mover but felt that we just didn't use the caravan enough to justify spending the extra money. I still miss it though. We sold ours for £2200 which included brand new carpet & curtains, plus all other contents so I'm sure you could get a bargain.

We`ve been weighing up the pros and cons of either having a motor mover put onto this van that we have now, oe selling up and looking for another with one already on. I`ve just rung the man who installed the oven for us last autumn, and he reckons, for our size of van, about £700 to have one fitted, so that thought will go into the discussion now!

I dont know which part of the country you are in "number" but here
in the North West we have a Freecycle forum on line and people can
advertise for such things as your motor mover (I have seen the advert for one last summer) they are given away free,maybe from people who
cannot use them again ,all you have to do is register at your local
"Freecycle" and go from there,its worth a try,

Well, we`ve taken the plunge and ordered a motor mover to be fitted to the van. I mistook what he said to me the other week though, it`s around £700 for the mover, but another £130 for fitting, which was a bit of a blow, but never mind, it`ll make things so much easier now.

Well done, numberplease. Hope you enjoy your caravanning for many years to come.

Thanks Elegran, I`m sure we will.

When we retired 7 years ago we decided to have a "Gap 3 years" and let the house and move into our 4 birth caravan. We had a wonderful 3 years touring Britain in the summer and wintering in southern Spain.
We thought that we were very brave to take such a step, (the family thought we were mad) but we discovered that we were just one of many couples who were doing the same thing; some had actually sold their house in order to buy a state of the art motor home.
After getting stuck in the mud a few times when pulling onto a farm site we invested in a motor mover which proved invaluable as well as providing entertainment to a number of Spanish children!
We still get away as often as we can in our caravan which is now 11 years old.
The Christmas before last we stayed on the Caravan Club site at Sandringham. Although there were several inches of snow the site was full.

nanaval, that sounds great, but unfortunately my hubby`s not that adventurous! We are still waiting for our "caravan man" to let us know when he has a slot to put the mover on for us, really looking forward to it now!

When the DSs were young we had great caravan holidays, mostly in five-van sites which necessitated taking our toilet tent with us as we had an unsophisticated van. Nowadays I do it the easy way. DS(1)and family take theirs to France and I travel down and join them - I don't think I could stand the long car journey with the kids' games machines beeping all the way!

The motor mover is beingt fitted tomorrow.

Yes we too are ex caravaners...we di a bit of camping and enjoyed that.but after 2 holidays getting soaked and wet.we tried the caravan lark...we did enjoy it but we started too late as Hubby was already ill...but the few hols we did manges we enjoyed..but then It was always down to me to do the donkey work, driving towing setting up getting the water,etc and it made hubby feel useless, then just over 2 1/2 yrs ago hubby had another episode so the decision to give up the caravan was made for us...we sold it and since then have tried to have 2 weekends away in hotel at Llandudno & Whitby...but that seems to be dwindling.......thers a good site ofr caravners.

" ukcampsite " its has loads of info on reviews of sites , adults only etc..

happy caravaning to you all who are still fit enough..I I realy dont mind if it you! in front of us!! lol

Well, we`ve taken the van for the mover fitting, he`s ringing us later when the job`s done and we`ll go pick it up. Really looking forward to the holiday now that we won`t have to push the van around anymore on site. Bikergran, we were looking at the possibilty of having to give up the caravan, till we decided to spend some of our (fairly small) savings on having the mover fitted, so that we can look forward to a few more holidays that we thought we`d have to forego, we can`t really afford hotels.

Glad to hear it numberplease. Here's to many more caravanning holidays.

Well, the mover is fitted, and it`s great! It`ll be a real godsend now that we aren`t as fit and strong as we used to be.