Who remembers when camping holidays were just wall-to-wall nylon from the
sleeping bag to the kitchen area, and one match lit in the wrong place could
spell the end of your holiday? Your children? Probably not. They are more
likely to think of camping as a cotton yurt experience with luxury kilims on
the floor and a cedar-wood barbecue area outside.
But just as camping has had a successful image makeover, with Cath Kidston
tents and family festival-goers, so caravans are now looking to have their
face lift. And who could not have been caught up in the debate last week
about who was too cool to caravan.
Ignoring the fact that fashion stylists have been using the rural "Gypsy
Caravan" for years, elbowing the real Romany couple to one side in
order to drape clothes over models, the transformation from chav to cool
begun in earnest only this year. Suddenly those same gypsy caravans are
having their wheels oiled and being offered up, complete with lessons in
horse care, as venues for family holidays in places such as the New
Forest, where a family of four would pay around £375 for the week.
In Wales the static Romany originals are suddenly so popular that companies
such as Under the
Thatch, offering its gypsy caravans at £329 per week, have no
availability until October. Real show-offs are even buying their own from Gypsy
Caravans.
But while the Gypsy Caravan may be the Cath Kidston Tent equivalent, they
still only comprise a tiny percentage of the 10,000 motor homes registered
in the UK last year, a rise of 1,200 since 2005. Two surveys reported in The
Times last Monday suggested the numbers were up because of April's
record-breaking temperatures, and the fear of carbon footprint.
While nobody can accurately predict the British Summer, the eco-argument is
sound, and a recent issue of Caravan
magazine weighed up the carbon footprint of a family of four from Birmingham
in a Menorcan hotel for two weeks (5.8 tonnes) versus the same in a caravan
in Devon (0.8 tonnes).
As well as the carbon halo that caravanning offers, it also has a few more
luxuries than its soggy camping equivalent. Fridge-freezers, ovens and
grills are now standard fittings, along with cylindrical glass showers, and
blow-air heating to warm the whole caravan. The advice in chatrooms for
virgin caravanning families is to choose the most upmarket caravans to rent
and “go for gold” rather than the “basic or silver class”.
The other trend is for families to plonk themselves in a pretty area of the
country and go off locally for walks and local pubs, rather than using the
caravan area for entertainment. As one mother reassuring a new caravanning
recruit said rather bluntly about Haven
Holidays,“Haven Holidays equals men with tattooed hands and young girls
with buggyies and fags hanging out of their mouth. Center Parcs equals 2.4
children, MPVs and North Face Jackets.
I’ve done them both and while Haven was not really my cup of tea, my
four-year-old daughter preferred it.” And the children do seem to love the
Liliputian bedrooms, the caravanning camaraderie and the swimming pools on
site.
Nor does caravanning have to be so downmarket any longer. Southlands
Camping Park on the Isle of Wight recently attracted a five-star rating,
including the David Bellamy Gold Conservation Award for its wildflowers and
1,200 willows. A two-night break including car and caravan travel cost from
£114pp – cheaper than a cheap flight abroad.
But to return to our original theme, and to prove otherwise to naysayers such
as Roland White in this week’s Sunday
Times who wrote “Caravanners couldn’t be cool if they were marched to
the Arctic Circle by the Top Gear Production Team and ordered at gunpoint to
remove their cagoules”. Tell that to Scooby
Campers who rent out vintage VW campervans, with names like Elsie or
Flora, to young and old keen to explore Scotland.
Or tell it to Jamie Oliver, who regularly takes his family off in his. And
while Jay Kay doesn’t have a family, surely he is the embodiment of a
one-man caravan makeover in his Knaus C Liner motorhome bought last year for
£46,000, complete with bathroom, leather armchairs, flatscreen TV and
sliding glass sunroof with an automatic rain sensor. It’s bigger than the
average kids club. Go on Jamiroquai. Let the children have a play inside.
There won’t be many sticky fingers, promise.
Need To Know
For details of caravanning and organisations, contact The
Camping and Caravanning Club or the Caravan
Club.
Sorry to disappoint you Margot, but my family using the car to tow the caravan is much greener than us using the train (on emissions per person), and we can take the dogs, and travel around once we're there, even if there were any trains.
David Leslie, Perth, Scotland
i have a vw camper (named bertie) but that does not make me a caravanner!
amy, london,
How, oh how, can this be deemed to be a 'green' holiday when you get there in a car dragging a very heavy object behind you? I can be persuaded that it's greener than flying, but I'd wager that taking a train with a tent in your backpack is better yet!
Margot, Toronto, Canada