recommendations for folding campers

[cascade]

Im looking for a second hand folding camper. Im pretty clueless as to what type I should be looking for. Also as it will be second hand, what faults should i be looking for?

Any suggestions welcome, thanks.

[PuzzleRocks]

Bumping for you.

[chocolateteapot]

Right, I am in no way very expert in this but bought one last May. If you look on ukcampsite.co.uk they have a folding camper section and there are loads of old threads which are very helpful and helped me loads.

After reading through I decided that a Dandy would suit us as I liked the fact that they are made of PVC and you don't need to worry about folding them away wet as they don't rot - the trailer usually gives up before the rest of it apparently. Some are winterised and have a heater which extends your camping season. Very easy to put up, takes 10 -15 mins. The Dandy awning is apparently quite heavy to put up. We've got a Khyam one which is very quick to put up and attaches to an awning rail on the Dandy. Ours is a 1994 Discovery which is a 5 berth. There are a few pictures on my profile to give you an idea of what it looks like. The Dart is a smaller one and the Destiny (two versions, one has a toilet, one doesn't) is a 6 berth. Ours is very easy to tow and I am a wuss about these things.

Other options are Pennine and Conway, both now owned by the same company. One of them (not sure which, think is the Conway) apparently opens by pulling out the bedrooms and sounds very easy. They are both canvas so you'd have to make sure they are dry when packed away but from what I understand there is plastic to pack it into if it is raining then you need to get it out and dry it out when you get home. The canvas ones are generally more luxurious than the Dandy.

There are some more where you wind the top up, don't know much about them. One thing I did find is that the price does go up a fair bit as the season progresses. I bought ours in May and it would have cost a good few hundred pounds more a month or two later.

[RubberDuck]

We have a Pennine Pathfinder which is awesome as it has a loo, washbasin as well as kitchen sink, hob, oven and grill! It's very luxurious.

The main difference between the Pennines and Conways is that with Pennines they have gas struts and the beds fold out - easy to do but then bed area is exposed for a portion of the time during set up/put down - in bad weather this can be tricky. Conways the beds pull out which is slightly harder, but at least your bedding area stays dry even if it's raining at the same time.

I don't know much about Dandys tbh.

If you have the choice, always get one with awning rather than one without as it doubles your living area.

[RubberDuck]

This is our camper although ours was second hand - a 2001 model, but there's not much difference tbh.

Before that we had a 1991 Conway Cruiser but it was a bit creaking and drafty (simply from age, rather than poor design)

For second hand advice (what to look for, etc) I'd recommend checking out the Pennine Owners Club and the Conway Owners Club - both are really really friendly, have lots of great advice on their forums and have a section for second hand sales (while there's obviously no protection buying/selling through them, I'd feel less likely to get ripped off buying on their board than from a random newspaper ad or ebay, tbh - it'll also give you a good idea what you'll be able to get for your money)

[chocolateteapot]

They do look very luxurious Rubber Duck, gorgeous. I feel unfaithful to my poor Dandy saying that, she is extremely basic in comparison.

[hercules1]

Quick question as I want to get a caravan this year. What are hte main differences between tent/caravan and a folding camper?

[nappyzonehasastroppytoddler]

ooh i would so love a folding camper - dh who is a reluctant camper said we could seriously look at one this year but has just conned me into gettign a smaller car and now we have no way of towing one. THe pathfinders and conway equvelant are quite heavy so you need to check what you can tow comfortably. Oh i am so jealous. We had a trailer tent which was a pita to erect. Folding campers are fabby. If we pass a camping store ever i always make dh visit so i can get my kicks

[cascade]

thankyou so much RD and CTP for replying, im definitely going to the websites to check it out. We have camped a fair few times, now want to upgrade, but dont want a caravan as we would need a bigger car, so thought folding camper is the best compramise.

thanks very much.

[cascade]

Well the difference for me, why i want a folding camper is its more home like, beds are off the floor, kitchen sink and chairs, plus heating. A tent is great, but i miss my home comforts after a few days and its cold (last summer urhhh)

[hercules1]

We have a tent and wanted to upgrade to a caravan but am now wondering about folding camper. How are htey for storage?

[nappyzonehasastroppytoddler]

We live in a newbuild with a tiny integral garage and could get one in our garage easy for storage so you can just drag it out on a nice weekend as oosed to plannign and driving across town to collect caravan from storage.

[chocolateteapot]

Ours lives in a carport in the winter but in the summer made a great playhouse/escape room (for me)(the escape room not playroom that is)

[RubberDuck]

Yep, proper mattresses lifted off the floor to sleep on was the big win for us (and the little bedroom zipped compartments are fantastically snug - I call them our nests!)

The difference between folding campers and caravans is that generally folding campers are cheaper and much easier to tow needing a much lower weight car - more stable towing and you can see round and over more easily than you would towing a caravan.

nappy: it's worth working out the kerb-weights etc. We tow our pathfinder easily with a diesel Nissan Almera - not a huge car at all, but safely within the 85% kerb-weight requirements with a fully loaded camper.

hercules: storage is more complicated. Some of the smaller ones will fit in a garage (our cruiser JUST got into our single-width modern garage but there wasn't much room for manoeuvre to be honest). The very smallest ones (suitable only for couples though realistically) are much more easily storable.

Offsite storage I wouldn't be so comfortable with as they're very easy to break in to (soft top you can just take a knife to them). If I need offsite then I'd get a second hand hardtop model which are harder to break in to - they tend to be older though as Pennine & Conway stopped making the hardtops a while back. You do have to carefully check the winding mechanism for putting them up on the hardtop models as I believe some of the older ones have problems.

We have our pathfinder on our drive in front of the garage and park our cars on the road. It's not ideal, but the best solution we have at the moment.

[RubberDuck]

Incidentally, if anyone is in the market for a brand new folding camper, Pennine have just announced that the latest Conway Cruisers & Crusaders have a new acrylic material which has better heat retention and water repelling/mildew resistant (i.e. not such a problem to put down wet):

Caseys have them in stock

Kinda wish we could afford a new one now instead of second hand

Incidentally - second hand market in folding campers seems very robust and they hold their value well. We bought the 1991 Cruiser a few years ago for £1200, kept it for a year then sold it on for £1000. (Got our current 1996 Pathfinder in a private sale for around £4000 - a very good deal at the time as similarly aged models were going for around £4500). So you can easily look at getting one for a year, trying it out, and as long as you don't treat it terribly badly, then can sell on after a year if you think you'd prefer that caravan after all.

[nappyzonehasastroppytoddler]

Rubberduck its a 5 door 1.3 yaris so im thinking it wont tow much tbh. DH has an astra twintop but flatly refuses to 'spoil' it with a tow bar - clearly he is a knob!

[nappyzonehasastroppytoddler]

oh i just clicked the link - they are loooooooooooooovely

[RubberDuck]

Nappy - your Yaris has a 1,110kg kerb-weight and 85% of that is 943.5kg. That said, the maximum towing weight according to manufacturer (breaked) is 900kg.

A Cruiser is about 900kg unladen, so yes, that does seem unwise to me.

The very basic Continental (no electric, no fridge) is only 750kg here - I'd miss all the luxuries, but is possible. Realistically, with a family I think a smaller one that that isn't very practical.

Now with an Astra, (I couldn't find it on manufacturer's site though and used a 3rd party, so don't take my word for it, check the manual) it's much more doable - kerb-weight 1,683kg so 85% of that is 1,430kg but max towing weight braked seems to be in the 1,200kg region. The heaviest folding camper in the Pennine Camper line-up seems to be 1,000kg so well within range.

Tell him he's being selfish

(sorry to everyone else for talking techie)

[RubberDuck]

Ah, I've misread the Pennine site - that 900kg for the Cruiser is at maximum loading I think (they use ex works weight, maximum carry load and then list gross weight as the addition of the two, so that means laden?). Either way, that's a bit too narrow a margin for me to be comfortable towing with a Yaris, I think.

[chocolateteapot]

That's one of the reasons I went for the Dandy as mine is light to tow - 395kg with a total maximum weight of 500kg. Rubberduck, I am jealous, are they in reality as lovely to stay in as they look?

Nappyzone, would he be persuaded with a removable tow bar for his Astra ?

We went to Normandy in a cottage last summer and were amused to see an old Dandy in the garden of the place we stayed. Apparently their DDs sleep out in it most nights in the summer.

[RubberDuck]

They really are... okay, in reality you track dirt and mud in etc, but it's fantastic to have pizza one night (small ones though, it's a tiny oven, lol) or oven chips instead of always having a BBQ or hob meal. Fantastic to take the kids to the loo in the camper in the middle of the night instead of having to trudge across the campsite.

The awning gives you masses of space too - we tend to keep the table outside so inside is just lounging around with a book area, and we eat in the awning and have all the toys and bikes and general 'stuff' out there in a collapsible cupboard thing.

[chocolateteapot]

I shall have to aspire to one for the moment I think

Can't complain really though, we have our old porta potti from camping trips when I was a child (my Mum is a bit of a hoarder !) and I think we'll take our little electric oven which is a camping oven that we use instead of the main oven at home - it can go on the little table in the Dandy then we've got another table that can go in the awning. So it is relatively civilised in the scheme of things and I recovered all the cushions and made new curtains plus put a new floor down so it feels clean.

We're going to try sleeping in the awning though this time as the double bed is a bit on the narrow side at 4ft and I think the children will sleep better on opposite sides of the camper.

[RubberDuck]

Take lots of extra blankets for the awning - it's surprising how snug those bed areas are.

One of the reasons I don't really believe that the bigger Pennine/Conways are 6 berth - the 3rd double bed is the table/seating area and because it has no inner tent bit over it, it gets frickin' cold out there . Even colder in the awning!

Though saying that, I know you can get bedroom extensions for the awning with inner tents for them, so they make more sense (although I plan to stick the hardier kids out there once their teens and don't want to share a bed anymore!!!)

[RubberDuck]

We're also lucky in that one side of ours is a "king" size bed and a bit bigger than the narrow double on the other.

We tend to put the kids asleep in separate beds then carry the youngest over to share with his brother once they're both asleep (they settle quicker). However, they're 4 and 7 now and I'm not sure realistically how long we're going to get away with that for.

[chocolateteapot]

We only got ours last year and with the weather and other stuff only made it away once so are real novices - spent a lot of time in it whilst up on the drive though !

One of the double beds has two little seats at either end so we piled up the cushions on each of the chairs to bring them up to the same height as the bed then put two air beds along the extended bit on each side, with a very sophisticated shower curtain clipped up the middle on the roof bars. It meant they could both sleep on the same side without having to climb over each other, which worked well as DD was up and down like a yo yo. We were then on the other side but it is that bit too small really.

The PVC does make it pretty toasty and we had to open the window as it got too hot and it wasn't a particularly warm day. But I'd rather take my chances in the awning and let them have the main camper I think, so will stock up with blankets and find some hats ! I'd better buy the awning inner tent I guess.

[RubberDuck]

Ah, don't think we could extend the beds like that in ours as we have inner tent bits for each bedding area. Does make it very cosy though!