Should I buy a caravan instead of paying so much for holidays?!

And much easier to find last min pitches for tents

Very rarely have problems with sites selling out from last minute trips - have always been able to find decent places (I have a camper van)

Grew up holidaying in a caravan as a child.

Pros:
●We saw loads of our country (over many years of travelling)
●Great family bonding time and lovely memories were made
●We used it for sleepovers with our friends when it was parked up at home

Cons:
●Sites often booked out so the spontaneity doesn't happen very often
●How much longer it takes to get to a destination pulling a caravan
●It was parked up more than it was out, so make sure you have adequate storage
●Surprisingly easy to hear neighbours / not very sound proof

We also use our shower for all the wet stuff as we prefer to use the site showers so I put a shower mat in the shower and use it for our shoes, boots and wet coats and some other stuff.

We also bought a couple of small water containers to keep in the caravan for drinking water as I don't like to use the water out of the barrel and caravan pipes for drinking even though we clean it all out with the chlorine stuff.

Our caravan has a fixed bed but there is only two of us, with a family a fixed bed might be a bit cramped

You need a good tow car. You need to know the nose weight and how much your car can tow, ie, the. mTLM amount of your van. You must not overload your van and balancing is important. Weigh everything you put in the van.
Costs: insurance - around £350 ish annually: servicing: replacing tyres every fourish years. Storage - major cost annually. I pay around £800. Then you need water hose (food consumption), water barrel, grey waste container, wheel clamps. Awning (divorce in a bag). Always put the awning in the car.

I would go for a good quality second hand van from a dealer and see how you get on. You can get fully serviced pitches so on tap water and grey waste ( you will need the pipes). There is a lot of 'stuff' involved in caravaning and a bit of faffing around but once set up it is great. Most importantly, if you do go for it, teach your kids camping etiquette such as no walking across other peoples pitches, no ball games near vans, all noise travel.
Get a van with a decent loo and shower room for keeping wet coats!

Love our caravan. We bought a “cheap” one from marketplace with the plan of using it for a few trips to see if I like it and then selling in a year for an upgrade. Maybe we got lucky but we love it, it’s been a few years and we aren’t planning upgrading after all! Best £3000 we’ve spent!

The ‘drop of a hat’ notion is not the reality. Especially during peak seasons, sites can be fully booked weeks in advance.

I hated our touring caravan. Was bloody hard work packing/unpacking. Miserable in British weather and took forever to get anywhere.

I’d love a beach based static though but sadly don’t have the budget!

Get a really super duper large camping trailer, a good tent, sleeping bags and some camp beds and go from there.

You have many hands and your DCs won't be cramped like in a caravan.

We have an Outwell Montana 6 person tent with awning that we LOVE and is perfect for 3 kids and 2 adults (you need two adults ideally to put it up). We started with a smaller/cheaper 4-man tent which we also still have.

DCs will LOVE camping, it's probably on a par with the work of a tourer, and just so much more relaxed/flexible.

Camping! Great fun, and with electric hook up can be quite luxurious these days! 😊

You can be spontaneous depending on what you want, obviously the sites with all the singing and dancing will get booked but if you just want to get away u will find something

Don't buy from Yorkshire Caravans - we bought ours from there at the beginning of the year at they've been a pain in the arse getting all the relevant paperwork etc!

As one who spent holidays of my youth with my family ( 5 of us plus large dog) in a touring caravan, all I can say is ‘ aaaargh’

But if you must, look at the caravan Club who can suggest marques and sellers.

I had a tourer for 10 years & never regretted it. We had it on a seasonal pitch but could take it off if we wanted to go away. We used in 52 weeks a year, been in it in winter when it was snowing, at Christmas & new year. Prices look to be bottoming out at the moment because several large dealerships have gone bust so the market is flooded with vans for sale, now is the best time to buy.

And make sure you're both confident and able to drive and tow the van. Our friends who had the van I mentioned earlier assumed they both would be. Husband did all the driving then broke his ankle while away and she couldn't get to to grips with towing it so they had to get his brother to come and get them.

With young kids - just get a big tent and book camping holidays in France where the weather is better.

Our friends did caravan holidays every year, got themselves a towing caravan and sold it after 12 months. They would happily drive to a site for a weekend but found it too much hassle to go and fetch their van, load it up, drive then have to get home in time before the caravan storage shut on a Sunday (midday and they couldn't get in after this time)

They did keep it on their drive but there was a covenant in their deeds that said all houses were not allowed to keep caravans on their drives, no one ever did and then people complained when they put there's on and started legal action which is why the ended up looking for storage. The storage was also a 20 mile drive from home.

How often do you think you would realistically use it?

If you go for a site based one, then you also need to be aware that some sites only accept caravans of certain ages and expect you to remove or replace your van when it hits that age, they can stipulate that the van has to be made free during peak holiday season for them to rent out (my Mom had a van and she had to make it available for use for 3 weeks of the summer, 1 week of Easter and all half terms and couldn't use the van at all from November to February as the site was closed) she also had to pay ground rent, utilities and service charges and had to remove personal items each time she left (luckily for her she only ever rented it out for income but it's just to give you an idea how some parks operate)

That’s the mistake we made, sites get booked up early so you can’t be spontaneous.

We've had many caravans over the years. No towing, it stays and is stored at the site in Dorset. We drive down and they pull it out. Works beautifully. Most 2nd hand caravans come with awnings, everything you need.

Also the tent cost about £280 and it has 4 'rooms' much more spacious than most caravans/camper vans which is great when it rains. It packs down to the size of a large suitcase which we keep in our shed. No real ongoing costs to consider.

We have 4 kids (similar ages to yours plus one older) and the highlight of the year for them (so far! 😁) is our week camping in our tent. We've been going for 8 years and pitch price has gone up in that time but it's still a cheap holiday and usually really lovely for our family of 6.

I love touring, but you have to be of a certain mindset, are you practical? It's absolutely brilliant we go all over the UK and are members of the caravan club.
I couldn't do it on my own because there's always something wants seeing to and I couldn't do that. If you could go for it