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

We grew up with a dog and a caravan. Two words for you.... DOG FARTS.

Do your research, consider the points others have made. I doubt you would save much, but I could be wrong.

True about the other motorists as we are restricted to 50mph on single carriageway and 60 mph on dual carriageway and motorway, bear this in mind as journeys take longer than a car

You can buy a caravan, if you like, but you do know that every other motorist will hate you? 😂
I don't see the appeal of spending holidays cooped up in a tiny little box, that you then have to drag around with you. I would never have one, but they are bizarrely popular, so......6

As well as the financial considerations already mentioned on here I would consider the work involved. It's a work intensive holiday, packing, cleaning, making up beds, packing them away everyday. Fetching the barrels of water, emptying the toilet. If you are willing to accept all that and treat it as a hobby that takes quite a bit of effort fine. If you like to go on holiday for a rest it's not for you! We have caravaned for 17 years. I won't go for longer than a week now as I struggle with the lack of space but we have toured the country and further in that time and had some great family memories. Teenager won't come anymore unless it's abroad or going with friends 😄

We often end up going to sites that are less than an hour away from our house but you could be anywhere in the world really and it feels like you're on holiday!

We bought a old cheap £2,000 caravan about five years ago and has had lots of good holidays and weekends away in it. Sites cost anywhere from 30 pounds to about 40 a night so you still have to factor in that cost but when you've got three kids that's a pretty cheap night away. Caravan sites are totally set up for your kids age range as well with play parks and things like that. if you can park it in your drive then it saves cost and it means it's easy to be spontaneous also you can use it as a nice place to have your dinner or playboard games or something like that. I totally recommend giveng it a go. There are plenty caravans on Gumtree that are somewhere between two and five thousand which are in pretty good nick. You don't really need to buy anything super expensive as long as you have a car that will tow it and are brave enough to give it a go!

We have a touring caravan, it's not that cheap, SUV does much less mpg when towing, site fees are £30-£50 a night if you want a niceish site, we mainly use CaMC sites, insurance is about £300 a year for our caravan and servicing about £200. We use our caravan a lot as we are retired and go away for at least a week at a time but if you don't use it much it's a lot to pay for not so much time away, they are a lot of setting up if you only go for a weekend especially if you need an awning to set up as well. We don't use an awning much as there is only two of us.

We are tent campers and we love it, have been camping for about 12 years since the kids were small.
We're in wales for the week, it’s cost £250 for 6 nights for 4 of us plus fuel, food and days out we’ve probably spent £700, which I don’t think is that bad.
I don’t fancy the idea of a Tin Tent, my neighbour has one and it sits in her car port and they hardly ever take it away.

My neighbour has one & it looks like quite a lot of hassle. Cleaning it, keeping it tidy, maintenance costs. I’d rather have fewer holidays in luxury.

Have to admit that I agree with @ODFOx having had a caravan, a camper van and a tent. It’s so much easier and there’s a lot more options for sites if you are tent camping. I spent a few days in Devon in July for £10 a night on a basic pitch. It was lovely. If you get a trailer to put all your camping gear in, you just need to add food and clothes and off you go.

With children of that age I would consider a folding camper- you get two double beds and another can be set up in the middle then when they get bigger they can sleep in an awning extension or pup tent. Cheaper than a caravan, easier to store (to some extent) and less drag so possibly better fuel economy .

I'm going against the grain and say that as you have kids get a tent instead. Camping in a tent is a holiday in itself. Camping in a caravan is trying to maintain your usual standard of living in a tin box 1/10 of the size of your house.
My father bought a caravan when I was a child and I have memories of my Mum hiding in the toilet cubicle crying while we squabbled and my Dad standing outside chatting to his friends ( we did a lot of weekends with his friends) . Looking back I wonder why she went along with it. Whereas tent camping is so bonkers it's brilliant, especially with kids. Barbecue bacon butty or egg in a bag ( basically every child gets a plastic (heatable) bag with an egg on to squish, then they can add chopped ham, cheese, spring onion, anything else that doesn't need cooking: all the bags hang from a wooden spoon so the eggs hang into a pan of water. When the eggs are cooked they can eat their own omelette with a spoon and some bread straight from the bag and you have hot water for 2 teas and to wash the spoons) for breakfast, out all day, barbecue or tinned chilli and tortilla chips and cheese for supper (only 1 pan to wash). Go to a place with campfires if you can: baked potatoes in foil, sausages on sticks, chocolate cake in orange skins, camp pizza; fun enough in themselves that the kids will love it.
Make the camping itself the holiday and everything else falls into place. And because you travel light you can get 5 people, and all the kit into the car with a roof bag or box, so you can go for a single night if the weather is good enough, or a week if you use it as your main break.
In short, invest less money ( a second hand family weekend tent will cost you less than £200: say £400 all in with bedding, self inflating mattresses etc), embrace the outdoors, have lots of mini breaks a year for £15 a night plus food,

Get a Dandy? It's like a caravan tent that folds up small. Little kitchen, heating etc.

I'm considering a motor home but...

1. site fees upwards of £30+
2. noisy neighbours who are only 10ft away
3. even being a member of the club that own the site fees are bloody expensive and have stupid rules like you can't book in until x oclock, you have to face a certain wsy
4. your in a field, if you don't like "weather" then it might not be for you
5. tiny loo in a caravan (between 5....). Showers on board aren't great either so
6. communism shared loo/shower
7. clothes washing on longer trips (especially when you are in the UK and there's weather) is a pain
8. no swimming pool like in Spain
9. once your on site you have to travel to everything else via car as most sites are well out of town
10. motorway traffic in school holidays
11. cost of insurance/towing/
12. you need to store it and keep the damp/rodents out
13. parking in towns/motorway services when towing
14. towing isn't the easiest thing to pick up
15. British sites are a bit shit...not always the cleanest not always friendly...heard stories of people being chucked off for not obeying signs that hadn't been put out yet!I
16. takes a long time to get to Spain/South France, Italy let alone Greece etc. Like days of driving on the wrong side of the road....especially if your North of Birmingham. Ferries aren't always cheap.
17. you will.always need to own a big car...no little cheap run around for both of you

I'm going for it, but it's just two of us and we propose going abroad a lot

I'm considering similar, but I've heard totally conflicting stories.
One pal of mine picked up a tourer for 300 quid while back, still has it and it's been amazing for her and her ddog.
Another friend dropped 12k and hated it, didn't use it and practically gave it away after a few years because it had some water damage.

This thread is already very much 50/50 on experiences already so I'm no wiser 😁

We have a touring caravan and we love it but you still have a lot of preparation in addition to everything financial everyone said above. There is always a site you can get somewhere and we have got our packing and setting up to a fine art now (used to take us hours) so if you take all that into account and think you would like it, go for it. We've never regretted it.

I bought a 20 year old tourer in January 2020 and it was the best thing I've ever done.

It's given us freedom and created some incredible memories. We use it for off grid 99% of the time and have modified it to take a solar panel, now have a fixed double bed too.

We use it about 7-10 times a year including music festivals and small private camp gatherings.

We get it serviced every other year and I do all the repairs and mods myself.

Do it! Just make sure it doesn't have damp or that will be a killer

We have sold our tourer at quite a loss on what we paid for it.
We had ours on a seasonal pitch so with that, electric and gas, services and insurance, it cost us a small fortune and couldn't afford it. Then there are the repairs if something breaks and storage if you don't have room for it at home.
We totally underestimated how much it would cost us a year!
I know you said you will tow, but it's still costly. Look into it carefully

Have had a caravan for 30 years. It’s a great way to enjoy lots of different, interesting areas and children can roam safely. Why not hire one for a weekend or week and see if it’s for you?

Id never have a caravan and store it at the house. I mean we can fit about eight cars on our driveway easily - but having caravan is a green light to burglars

We got a static but we got it cheap and in a very popular holiday area (can walk to the beach) so it's rented out every week we are not there (if possible).

We have a dog and lots of children (6, blended family) and holidays were just too expensive for us. Having the static meant we could all go down with whoever was available plus the dog.

We pay someone to manage the letting side and make sure the letting revenue that covers all the site fees/any other costs

For us it has been totally worth it but we did go in with our eyes open!

What about getting a tourer but siting it for the season? It will be cheaper than a static, once you've set up your awning etc, it's done for the season and if you get bored you can move it the following year?

Do you have somewhere at home to store it? It’s just my neighbour has to pay a caravan storage when his is not in use.

I don’t have one myself but the people I know with them, I’d say the ones who have smaller ones are the ones who seem to get the most use/pleasure ones. They usually camp alongside them.