New to motorhome

Hi, Baz & Julia.

Not many people have 2 leisure batteries and whether you need a solar panel or not depends largely on the type of camping you intend to do. If on a site with mains hook up, you won’t need it while pitched but it will be useful if you use sites without hook up.

As for satnav, the versions that let you input vehicle dimensions can be useful if you have a large van, otherwise common sense and looking at a map will do you just fine.

Hi Bazaar & Julia.

Im new here too and we’re still looking to find our Motorhome.  We are planning a year touring UK from this summer but our experience is limited to recent camping trips and 35 year old Motorhome adventures - bed in a box on wheels!  So we are delighted and overwhelmed with the choices, conveniences and comforts we can have.  We are struggling with what accessories we need too but right now we’re stuck on finding our van.

What van did you buy?

I will follow your advice with keen interest but just wanted to say hello as a fellow newbie in the motor-homing world.

 

john

 

Sorry Baz

I do apologise.... my predictive text settings intervened.

Hello and welcome to both CT and motorhoming.

First do a few trips before deciding on purchases  there are some great things that could prove useful, lots of us have shelves or cupboards of them that aren't 😉.  We have a cupboard full of stuff that was useful as we have had to give up 😢. We're not allowed to advertise on CT but there is a classified ads section. I've not got round to doing anything about ours yet - still hoping it maybe possible again.

We found a solar panel, single battery,  already fitted when we purchased, useful for odd off grid stays but we were generally on a site with EHU, electric hook up., and keeping the alarm ready. It also topped up the engine battery.

Sounds like you've done the right thing but suggest first night or 2 close to home to check out workings and needs - you can pop home for vital items if forgotten. Once sorted we kept ours ready for action and only added contents of the fridge and clothing before the off.

One thing to be very sure of are payloads - very easy to overload where this is low. Best to get your vehicle weighed empty and then when trip ready.

Mostly take your time and a sense of humour and enjoy. Fellow campers are generally great if you ask for assistance.

JC2001ONLY you can decide on what you think you'd like 😉. Look around large dealers at as many as possible,  layouts vary, and imagine living in each. Also think about size and where you'll be using it. A show would offer lots of vans to look at too. We luckily bought the right for us layout first time - we had good friends with us and it took ages. But 4 heads were better than 2 😂😂

if youve bought a gas hob type kettle (rather than an electric one) im guessing ypu have some inkling to spending time away from a hook up.

Temporary Holiday Sites (THS) from the Camping and Caravanning Club are a great way of camping right in town centres as they use out of season sports grounds and school playing fields.

no hook up, no showers etc but great locations and cheap as chips.

in this sort of location 12v power is key and its worth thinking about 2 leisure batteries and as much solar as you can easily fit on the roof (100w minimum, id suggest.....150w-200w better).

and if youre going to be off grid for a few weeks at a time (THS often run for a month or so) then ypull be running your fridge off gas so a cheaper source than Calor (damn dear) might be advantageous.

refillable cylinders arent cheap but give access to very cheap gas (about a quarter of the calor price per litre) and give the extra advantage of being easily adaptable to filling on the Continent where Calor cant be exchanged.

much to think about so will leave it for now....

good luck. 

We are also fairly new to a MH having switched from a caravan last March. We went for one battery and solar panels. Although we don't intend to do a lot of off grid, we did use it for 3 nights on Aires last September and it was totally adequate, even watched a few hours of TV. The solar panels are also useful if you keep your van in storage, as we do, it keeps both the cab and leisure battery topped up.  We went for refillable gas (Gaslow) and haven't regretted it. If you stop off somewhere the fridge switches to gas and we are not to bothered about consumption. Plus you can easily top up if you run low even abroad. So we had no concerns about consumption when we were off grid.

As to gadgets I would hold back on those. It's all weight and many of the things we had in our caravan we hardly if ever used. We cut right back when we purchased the MH and have not really noticed any difference. Don't know about yours, but our MH has nowhere near as many work surfaces as the caravan. As a result we decided to get rid of the electric kettle, toaster and coffee maker and utilise the gas in its place. Resulting in a lot less clutter and much faster packing away.

Thank you all for your advice really helpful and appreciated.

  We have purchased an old 2003 swift sundance 600s (you are right JC2001 there are so many to choose from).  We have a disabled daughter and two dogs so that did help us filter down what we needed in a motorhome ie as much walkway space as possible with nothing jutting out and floor place for the dogs.  The Sundance was the only van we found that had everything we needed and the bathroom and shower were the most spacious.  Plenty of room for my wife to stand outside the shower whilst helping my daughter shower sealed the deal!

We will definitely book a night away somewhere close to home as that is a brilliant idea.  Yes we will be doing quite a lot of stops away from hookups as we have also purchased to help us attend dog shows a little further afield then we have been able to travel too.

Have noted about the THS sites brilliant!

 

Hi Baz and Julia

We like Steve started last  year, can echo his advise totally, flexible approach to everything, our Fridays are often spent down the shore, off grid but all we need in the van, buy as you go is the way to go, we filled ours and on one site, emptied out all we had not used, at least  half of what we thought we needed.

this is the place to ask questions, always someone to help.

Enjoy

Malc

Welcome Basil, Leslie & MalcMc,  Great to hear from you .

As SteveL & Bakers2 say the first trips close to home can remove a lot of the worries about a new lifestyle as well as letting you get used to the 'van without buying loads of knickknacks - My workshop ( shed !! ) is full of expensive, heavy tackle I'll have to get a skip to shift. Well I've only been running a camper since 1978ish myself

Please let us know how the life treats you, plenty of threads on here for getting advice, telling us how it's going, and how wrong we were oops 

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