Campervanning for Beginners

Going on that great Aussie road trip and planning on doing it all? Making the wrong choice when considering which vehicle to hire can leave you missing out on some of Australia's most spectacular scenery — or even stranded in the outback. As part of the three month road trip through four states of Australia which Terry and I recently completed while researching guidebooks, we tested out several different 4WD vehicles and in our story Campervanning for Beginners published recently on NineMSN's travel site, we explain the pros and cons of each vehicle and how to decide on the right one to suit your style of travel and type of journey. Essentially, there are two main vehicle choices for this kind of trip, a 4WD campervan and a motorhome. But while motorhomes are spacious and comfortable and allow you to stop anywhere and make a meal or take a nap, they're generally 2WD, rendering many of the country's most scenic bush tracks (especially those we wanted to tackle) off-limits to travllers. As Terry writes in the story: "Any feelings of envy for those decked-out homes-on-wheels with onboard bathrooms would soon be forgotten as we passed them turning around at the start of tracks signposted "high-clearance 4WD only". A motorhome may get you to the Blue Mountains but it's not going to take you along the Birdsville Track!" And we know where we'd rather go.

Pictured? Terry putting the vehicle into 4WD in preparation for a muddy track ahead.

Keeping up with the Joneses in caravanland*

In caravan- land* as much as anywhere there seems to be a desire to keep up with the Joneses. It apparently important to splash out when fitting out your van, especially if you’re just starting out: “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 chat rooms for virgin caravanning families is to choose the most upmarket caravans to rent and ‘go for gold’ rather than the ‘basic or silver class,” according to The Times Emma Mahony. UK travel journalists encourage spending on cool accessories by using extravagant celebrities such as Jay Kay as inspiration: “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,” Mahony writes. (BTW: did you know some of these things even come with Swarovski crystal lighting? Check this out.) There’s a snobbish-ness to travel writing about caravans that I’ve reflected on in previous posts, a condescension you rarely read in other travel writing. Even when journalists appear to be objective, and even self deprecating, as The Sunday Times’ Emma Smith is in ‘How the motorhome changed gear and drove up cool street’, they can’t resist having a dig in the end: “Across the Atlantic motorhomes have long enjoyed an adventurous rock’n’roll image. Giant RVs or Winnebagos (even the names sound cool) bring to mind heady summer road trips across rugged country and the unrestricted freedom of a wide-open highway. In Britain the motorhome was traditionally about as glam as Bagnor, with all the wild pioneering spirit of Mary Whitehouse. Our motorhomes were cheap, cramped and naff. Something even caravanners could look down on.” (My italics). UK travel journos must have been relieved to discover a caravanning aristocrat. Caravanners themselves reveal there's a class system in caravanland with certain distinguishing signs, as Mahony reports: “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,” she admits, before having another dig: “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.” Unfortunately this kind of travel writing reveals more about the writers than it does about travel, conservation or the socio-economics of caravanning.

Pictured? One caravan whose owners didn't make an effort to keep up with the Joneses.

* caravanland: see next post

The rising interest in four-wheeled holiday pleasure in Turkey: motorhome tourists rule!

Motorhome tourists get haircuts at the local barber, shop at local markets and buy more souvenirs from the places they go to see: "They never want to stay in just one place, and unlike the tourists taking advantage of the cheap ‘everything included’ system we see in many of our hotels, they don’t only stay a short time and then return to their countries,” Bulent Karaboncuk, the head of the Turkey Camping and Motor Home Association, said in ‘Four-wheeled holiday pleasure around Turkey’s hidden treasures’ in Sunday’s Zaman. Karaboncuk is campaigning to convince his compatriots to develop motorhome tourism in Turkey, a country that so far only has 20 campsites, by promoting the benefits to the local community: “People who come to tour a country with their motor homes tend to stay longer than other kinds of tourists and tend to mix more with the people of the country they are visiting,” he says. Karaboncuk is also trying to persuade Turks to buy a motorhome rather than a summer house in a coastal development, a growing trend among Turks as much as foreigners: “A holiday in a motor home is actually a way of life. European citizens actually spend their entire holiday in their motor homes… in the summer, the roads are full of motor homes.” However, Karaboncuk says, he’s meeting some resistance: “Unfortunately… we seem to be blind to the importance of this kind of tourism and have set up all sorts of blockades to it.” Onur Onurmen of Can Karavan is resorting to the promotion of creature comforts to increase motorhome sales: “Mobile homes offer the possibility of unlimited comforts in a smaller environment… we are seeing things like plasma televisions and satellite systems in motor homes these days,” Like the rest of the world, it seems in Turkey the comforts of home are important to people, no matter where they are.

Cool camping vs cool caravanning: a case study in 'cool' travel writing

Travel by caravan, RV or kombi may be just as cool as camping if vehicle registrations and club member- ships are anything to go by, but to the travel media it’s cooler to write about camping – unless the caravan is expensive, luxuriously fitted out, comes with quirky extras or retro-cool packaging, or is simply not a caravan. For the travel media it’s more palatable for travellers to camp than to caravan. Even though travel writers are perfectly willing to jump on the cool camping/cool caravanning bandwagon, employ the same buzz words, regurgitate the same press releases, and borrow ideas from each other. If they have to write about caravanning it must be qualified and if the traveller must caravan, then they must do it in a luxe vintage model or retro van with kitsch value. (Despite campers being allowed to pitch £50 tents.) Take The Observer’s much-critiqued (by me) Cool Camping article where we’re told “...the lowly mobile home has had a Changing Rooms moment.” (My italics.) And: “Also on the continent, Belrepayre Airstream & Retro Camping is more trailer flash than trailer trash.” Ouch! (My italics again.) The story continues: “Closer to home, Vintage Vacations rents out three shiny Airstream trailers on a farm on the Isle of Wight. With interiors more suited to the pages of Wallpaper* magazine than Butlins, this is the UK's swankiest camping experience.” But “if you really want to be mobile, Scooby Campers has just set up shop... Rental of its re-conditioned VW campervans (which come with cream leather upholstery, SatNav and a CD of Sixties 'Scoobymusic' to set you on your way) starts from £250 for a three-night weekend and similar companies are springing up around Britain. Be warned though, that 'mobile' is a relative concept; budding Jenson Buttons need not apply." I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of snobby writing and derogatory language doesn't have a place in travel writing. Call me a snob but I prefer an Airstream to a daisy-patterned tent any day, however, I'd happily camp in either and gladly write about both on equal terms. Isn't the important thing that they allow us to travel? Isn't that cool enough in itself?

Okay, if I have to choose an Airstream then I'm opting for The International Line and the Ocean Breeze please. Check out the photos. Call me a hypocrite, it's retro-cool, I know.

Travel has no (age) limits

Caravanning around Australia and ‘full- timing’ by RV in the USA was once the domain of grey nomads, adventurous families setting out to give their kids some real life lessons, and middle-aged couples looking for a sea change. But caravanners and campervanners are getting younger so it seems. Travel around Australia and you’ll see foreign 20-to-30-something couples driving a hired Britz campervan and gap year backpackers trading the hop-on-hop-off-bus for a psychedelic painted Wicked Campers kombi van. You only have to take a quick look at their websites to see who they’re marketing their products to - a very different audience to the campervanners of a decade or so ago. In the USA, the average age of an RV owner is 49, yet they’re apparently getting younger there too. Take a look at 12 feet, an inspiring travel blog by San Francisco-based travellers Rikki and Chris, two guys who, after a clash of schedules and cancelled Alaska travel plans, spontaneously rented an RV to explore the Nevada deserts. “We loved it so much we ended up buying our own,” Rikki tells me. “For some reason there was this need to disprove that RV travelling is only for old people,” he admits, “And now our friends, co-workers and families all agree: it is cool. How else can you go places, be out enjoying nature, travel with your pets, and be in the safety and comfort of your own home all at the same time? I think in the US, RV travelling is becoming popular and 'mod' again. More and more families, younger groups, and couples are travelling on the road rather than flying (a fact after 9-11). We wouldn't mind living in the RV if we were able to travel full-time. That's how much we love the RV and the experience of travelling in it!”