In praise of Cls

Hear, Hear, redface. They are the jewel in the rather tarnished crown that is the Caravan Club.

If it wasn't for the CL network I doubt we would remain members.

Not everyone of them is perfect by any means but they are all different and there are very very few of them that we wouldn't go back to. A well deserved thread of thanks to them Redface.

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We mainly use CLs and using a bit of care with the reviews of them haven't had a dud one yet. This week we are on a club site and our first reaction on driving round was that they are packed in like sardines, then having pitched up every car or motorhome coming in or out of the site has to drive past our pitch. This isn't meant as a criticism as it is a beautiful site in a lovely position and well maintained but the busyness is just not for us.

With the exception of NYM Whitby (like a big CL, anyway!) and Sandringham at Christmas, all of our trips this year will be on either CLs or CSs.  I hate regimented rows of caravans and signs everywhere saying "Beware of this..... and that.... and that"  I think I can work out for myself that if I take Meg for a walk in the woods, that there will be tree roots sticking up without having to be 'advised' about it just to cover someone's back!

The atmosphere on these smaller sites is just so different - and people actually talk to each other! I am another one who is extremely grateful to all the CL and CS site owners who allow us to share their lovely locations.

We tend to use sites because they're the nearest to places we want to visit so we use a mixture but we always feel more relaxed on a CL, there's something about them, they often have a character of their own and they're in areas you can't always get to. There's the occasional dud, but it might be someone else's heaven! And we've had a favourite which we always loved and looked forward to visiting. 

Perhaps I was unlucky, or perhaps my research wasn’t detailed enough, but the CLs I stayed at weren’t any sort of jewels in any sort of crown.

I remember a fenced off corner of a field, a scrap of land behind farm buildings with no other use, some gravel patches in an old lady’s garden. Things like that. They were all clean and tidy and we stayed for a day or two. I never wrote critical reports  but they had little appeal and frankly the owners had made very little effort. I made a note of them being useful stops if we went that way again, but we didn’t .

The sites I liked better were ones which had started as a CL or a CS, and where the owners had spent time, hard work and money to develop forward from that base,

I think you must have been unlucky then, et. In our last few years of vanning we used almost exclusively CLs all over the country and I wouldn't say there was one we wouldn't return to. And very often the more difficult access was more than made up for by the location, peace and quiet. 

Agree - in 25 years of vanning, the majority on CL’s we have only come across two which were awful.   One was like a scrap yard and one had a dreadful slope in the overflow field - the site had 14 vans on in total but with nowhere else to go at short notice we had to stay.

Having said that, we’re currently on one of our favourite CL’s - our first visit since pre-COVID to find that they’ve installed 3 large glamping pods which was a bit of a shock!  It may spoil the quiet ambience of the site moving forward, as the CL was adult only but would appear children allowed in pods (can see a teenager in one, so maybe teenagers upwards).      The CL is empty except for us which is unusual as it’s usually pretty well used especially in summer.     I wonder if word has spread and caravanners are put off.   Price has increased to £14 per night but now includes WiFi.  

"Perhaps I was unlucky, or perhaps my research wasn’t detailed enough, but the CLs I stayed at weren’t any sort of jewels in any sort of crown."

When we returned to caravanning a few years ago, I drew up a short list of about a dozen CLs / CSs that looked promising and were within an hour or so from home, in the belief that we might find a few 'bolt-holes' relatively close to home and without the stress of travelling long distances. I suppose we are lucky that in that sort of radius, we have such a wide variety of countryside around us.

We then spent a day - without the van, driving around to have a look at them 'in the flesh'. We found a couple of horrors but we also found some gems which, over the years have become firm favourites and two of those have turned out to be real 'life-savers' during the last year when we wouldn't have contemplated going anywhere busy.