Enough storage space in Rapido caravans

I've got a four berth fixed bed van for just two of us and still use the car as supplementary storage.

When we had a caravan they tended to be the larger variety. However on long trips we did buy a roofbox for the car and that took quite a lot of the bulky but lightweight stuff with heavier items going in the car if that helps? 

David

What do you have in your Cabanon, which you think won't fit in the Rapido?  If, when tent camping, you fit everything, including the tent, in your car boot, then you'll still have the car boot but without the bulky tent, so more space in the boot. The space in the caravan is therefore actually extra space rather than less.  

If you currently use a roof box, then take that along as well, and you've still got more space than you had before.

I think caravans are just like homes - the more room you have the more things you will 'need' to fill it.  If you prune everything down to what you really need, what does that include...... for us, probably about a fifth of what we actually have in the caravan!  

Are you suggesting that we might just take more things camping in our vast Cabanon  than we might need? Good heavens, what an idea.... and you'd be exacly right!  Ever since I started camping around 50 years ago, I've never mastered the art of travelling light, and my wife's little better... perhaps it's time we learned.

Meanwhile, of course, you're quite right, the car will have that much less tent to occupy it. The fear is that we'll just fill that vacated space with even more stuff! We just wondered, since the Rapidos are less endowed with cupboard space than some, how others coped.

Thanks for the encouragement

PS - we've long known that when a tent is advertised as "4-man" it means that four very small people could lie down in it, nose to tail, and taking it in turns to breathe, plus no baggage. Maybe caravans are a bit more generous in that respect, but not much!

A rough rule of thumb is that you need two more berths than occupants available to fill them. We had a four berth tent for two of us, a six berth tent once we had two children, and now a four berth caravan for the two of us.

Though I don't know the specifics I suspect the "payload" of the Rapido will be a limiting factor. Some caravans are built with pathetically low payloads, in reality not viable unless you are a minimalist, use plastic eating crocks & cutlery, don’t dream of ever cooking or using a decent TOG duvet and wash your smalls every other day. 

That would be my starting point, know what the payload is and know what the essentials you carry weigh; it could be a worrying revelation.  Hope it goes well though.

Fair warning indeed. We've not yet got it, nor even confirmed the purchase yet, while waiting for inspections, so I can't check the plate, but the relevant brochure, kindly sent by the Rapido Club, reckons there's a capacity of 260kg here. Obviously a significant proportion of that will go on gas bottle(s), battery, etc, and the previous owner also fitted a motor mover, but I'm hoping that still leaves us a reasonable amount to play with.

I think they probably have a decent weight allowance

Fair warning indeed. We've not yet got it, nor even confirmed the purchase yet, while waiting for inspections, so I can't check the plate, but the relevant brochure, kindly sent by the Rapido Club, reckons there's a capacity of 260kg here. Obviously a significant proportion of that will go on gas bottle(s), battery, etc, and the previous owner also fitted a motor mover, but I'm hoping that still leaves us a reasonable amount to play with.

Two hunderd and sixty is by UK standards quite a healthy starting point. A 10 kg Gaslight has a tare weight of 5.3 kgs, so 15 odd gone there, a spare 907 is 6.5 kgs a mover, typically kissing 40 kgs and a battery able to support off EHU use 22 to 25 kgs, so 85 is gone on those basics. Just hoist in there is a real need to be aware; though a caravan is a big box it is not much of a load carrier.

you can do a bit of weighing at home, camping chairs/ table a selection of clothes , the bedding, pots and pans ets etc; it as said can be quite a revelation of how it rockets up.

Thanks for these guide weights. Luckily the current car is capacious and will carry other stuff - hopefully without going over the maximum train weight, or whatever it's called. The car's done 200,000+ miles, so at some point eventually we'll need to change it, when we may go for something smaller, But we'll cross that [weigh]bridge when we come to it.