What to pack for a caravan holiday?

[holliem91]

Just booked our first family get away. We're going to the coast for a few days and stopping in a caravan. We've never done a UK holiday before so I have no idea what to take with me.

I know I need to take all the usual things but should I take towels? Bed linen? Cleaning products? Toilet roll? Any thing else? I don't want to get there and realised I've not packed some essentials! Is there anything I should be aware of or check up on before we go?

I could email them and find all this out but I figured I would get a much quicker response on here

TIA.

Havent had a caravan holiday for a few years but we always had bedding included.
We took towels, toiletries, tea towels, washing up liquid, bleach,

Every site is different so you may find different responses.

Have you paid for beds made up? If so you won’t need bedding.

Take towels, take toilet roll, tea towels, matches (in case it’s a gas oven), and top
Tip - take a sharp knife if you’re cooking, they’re not always sharp!

And as for clothing, pack for all four seasons!

I think it will vary depending on the caravan and the site. Very hard to generalise.
We have a mobile home/lodge we use as a bolt hole but we let it out in school summer holidays as we don’t want to be there when the site is busy. We let through the site.

Bedding is provided but towels aren’t.
There is all the basic cooking equipment but I replace rental inventory with our own when it’s not rented. If you intend to cook for a family, I’d take a sharp vegetable knife and large pasta saucepan.

You’ll need cleaning things and loo roll. There’s likely to be a couple of dishwasher tablets and one disposable cloth but not much more.
If you want to use the washing machine bring a few laundry tablets (many have washing machines).

We’ve had blackout linings put up, but many have inadequate curtains in terms of keeping light out in the mornings. Take something to make it darker if that bothers you.

Slippers or slipper socks are good to reduce noise levels with children running around.

I’ve been really surprised how well equipped the place is for rental use. I think you get most things but the mugs are not huge.

Bin bags, washing up liquid and sponge.
Clothes pegs, they often have a drying rack for swimsuits/towels etc.

You need to take everything basically

If you are going to Park dean / hosesons / Haven they usually provide bed linen but we have always had to take our own towels .

Here’s my list :

Towels
Beach towels
Toiletries
Roll of bin bags
Roll of small Carrier bags ( for wet swimsuits / beach / bathroom bins etc )

Bleach
Bleach wipes
Scourer x 3 - for kitchen and bathrooms
Fairy liquid
Anti bac surface spray
Condiments
Full food shop for however many days you are going with all food & drink
Kitchen scissors ( we use these to cut up kids pizza / spaghetti etc )
Our own plastic tumblers for the kids ( in case it’s just glass tumblers in cupboards)

Toilet roll
Kitchen roll
Kitchen foil ( to line oven tray , less cleaning in last day )

Sometimes I take the kids own character pillow cases to pop on over the bedding there , just makes them feel homely and smells like home for sleeping

Laundry powder in a little tub or hand wash for washing or spot washing items
Pegs ( there are usually clothes airers but we like to peg swim stuff or towels out on veranda etc )

I actually take my own bath mat too
I like to know I’m stepping on thick clean mat and find that the little towel one they give you gets sodden very quickly and is too small .

Bath mat
Sharp knife
Mugs
Milton to clean everything in the kitchen before first use
Clothes pegs or an octopus hanger to dry swimwear
Pillows if you like your own
Something to go under the bottom bedsheets, as the mattress is likely to be lumpy

Tea towels
Salt
Pepper
Oil
Ketchup
Toilet roll

Don’t take a food shop you can get it delivered to your caravan.

If you've booked with a big company, ie Haven you'll need a car full, if you've booked with a private owner on the same site you'll have saved hundreds of pounds and have a much better equipped caravan.

We always take bedding, towels, loo rolls, cleaning products, bin bags, box of food to get us through the first day, condiments, road map as I hate using Google maps, hot water bottle, loose change for car parking, basically everything you usually use at home for a week.

Look at the site information, they vary a lot! They should have inventories. Definitely beach towels but some provide linens. Take self catering things like kitchen cleaner as nothing is provided generally. I take a decent sized pan, chopping board and knife as they are always terrible. I recommend flip flops or crocs for going to the pool etc and if it's got a club house with entertainment there may be a (lack of) talent competition and fancy dress contest which your children may wish to join in so take appropriate things (should be info on site website on weekly programme) the kids activities are usually free and a huge bonus on rainy days