Motorhomes - worth the investment for two adults in their 50s?

[NCTDN]

Please help if you have one with the pros and cons.
so we had caravans all the way through our collagen growing up. Had amazing holidays all over Europe in them and sold our last one when children were starting a levels.
since then we’ve travelled and stayed in hotels and apartments in varying places round Europe.
we’re debating a motorhome now but they’re a lot of money. Ferry crossings are significantly more than they used to be as are fees on a campsite. Obviously atm fuel is ridiculously high prices but hope that’s only temporary.
We’d be looking at spending around 60k. If we spent less I know it wouldn’t get used as much as I wouldn’t feel like there was any luxury (and I know they go waaay higher in than that).
But that’s a lot of flights and apartments.
I suggested hiring one for a week to try it but even that would be around £1000 so more than accommodation in a hotel.
Has anyone been in our situation?

Children not collagen 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

We love our VW campervan but we converted it ourselves so the price wasn’t 60k. We’ve driven down to Spain in it and it’s convenient when the sun is shining to just take off. Think carefully before buying a white box type motorhome as they rattle like buggery in our experience. Buy something better like a converted crafter or sprinter.

I’ve had a campervan and a caravan. You need to think carefully about what sort of holidays you want. Stopping somewhere for a night or two and moving g on? Then a motorhome and campervan is great. If you’d rather stay put for a longer period on one site they’re a pita unless there is good public transport from the site to get places, or you’re happy to sit on the site/do walks from the site. Not towing on a longer journey is great but nipping to the nearest town/shop/tourist attraction in an motorhome is not so good.

I have a motorhome and love it . Don’t use it like a caravan stuck on a pitch for a week ! It’s big but I can stop where ever I like - unless there’s height barriers .

But expensive yes . Also cost of insurance and tax, mot, repairs etc . So you really have to think about would you use it enough to get your monies worth

My friends has one. They planned it for ages and did all their research before buying, but got rid of it very quickly. Not sure why, was very surprised after all they’d planned for.

Are you retired OP? How often would you use it? My DH and I worked out it’s soooooo much cheaper to rent a motorhome once or twice a year than buy one, plus with rental you can pick a lovely new model each time.

My brother got a vw conversion never took to it
upgraded to. Bach built motor home. Fixed bed full bathroom there never at home
there’s a website that list places loads of pubs let you stay in there carpark free if you buy a meal and some councils charge £10 for overnight campers
being a bigger can you are restricted but they have motorbike on rack on back

Apologies for the obvious answer, but it really depends on how often and what you will use it for.

Having had caravan before you are a step ahead of newbies, but the biggest consideration is layout, especially in terms of a fixed bad which can mean a compromise on living space, especially in a small model, or having to make up a bed each night, or having a drop down bed.

We are on our second motorhome now, as opposed to a campervan, as we were in the very fortunate position of being able to get a decent part-ex price for our old one, and having some money available to make up the difference.

Its only the two of us, so ours is a 6m one, and we paid what is your budget for it.

We like going away for regular long weekends, and a week or two during the year, but tend to stay a couple of nights and move on. We have an awning that can go up and down in less than an hour so that gives us extra leisure room for not a lot of effort. We also try to find sites in easy reach of a walk, or short bus ride to local shops etc especially if away for more than 2 nights.

If you hire first, you may end up hiring 4 or 5 different styles before finding one you like, but there will be a compromise on anything you buy. On our new one, we went from a fixed bed, to a drop down bed, so the living area is bigger and more comfortable, but the compromise is losing cupboards and storage space, which we are trying to find solutions for, which I am sure we will get there.

We plan to keep ours long term, so happy to invest what we can into it, but I love the fact that most of our stuff is in it, and if we want to go away we just pack food and clothes, fill up with water and away we go.

We did toy with a caravan but it seems to me like a lot more time needed to set up, take down and so on (although I could be wrong), and neither of us really fancied towing, especially as the motorhome is so accessible to a lot of places.

If you are in no rush, its worth going to the Motorhome and Camping show at the Birmingham NEC in October (you have just missed the one at the start of this year), or one of the Warners shows as they have 100s you can walk round and look at, sit and see what you think.

I don't worry too much about the cost of fuel, as weekend trips are usually 1-2 hours drive away, so don't cost too much in the grand scheme of things. Insurance is about the same as our family car, although road tax is about £360 a year on our model.

It's not an easy decision and I would definitely think about an older, cheaper model at first to see if you enjoy it. You can easily make an older one feel more luxurious for not much money, and there are decent quality second hand ones about at the moment.

We’re on our second VW Transporter. 1st one was an older van, converted by a hobby converter, second was a brand new van when bought, converted by an authorised VW Converter. We have friends around the same age as us who bought a small motorhome when they retired.

They definitely use their motorhome a lot for holidays, they are away pretty much every month in the UK and they’ve taken it over to the continent as well. They do a mixture of short breaks and longer trips. They chose a model that would fit on their (quite short) driveway…easy to set up for going away, cheaper on ferries etc because it isn’t too long, relatively easy to drive around. They take bikes for travelling around to reduce how often they need to move the MH when on sites. They love it and I don’t think that they have ever regretted it.

We generally use ours for shorter breaks and a lot of day vanning. We have a little canopy that takes about 5 minutes to set up that gives us a bit of covered living space outside (we had a driveaway awning but that was a huge pita) and when on longer trips abroad we take a little popup tent from Decathlon to store stuff to make day to day use of the van easier. We also use bikes to get around as much as possible. The obvious downside of the smaller van is that we don’t have onboard toilet and washing facilities so we have to use those on site. We do have a little emergency bucket toilet for nighttime use. We now also have a caravan that we tow with the VW when we are going on longer trips and we want a bit more comfort. We bought the caravan new and our total spend was a bit over your budget but not much. We like the flexibility that we have with both.

I’d definitely hire first if you can to get a feel for how much you actually enjoy the lifestyle. You need to be organised as space is limited, you need to be confident driving it around and finding places to park it if you are out and about. If you still love the idea then visiting a motorhome show (rather than a dealer) will let you compare lots of models and layouts. You might not really want what you think you want iyswim.

We have had several over the years, went back to the all inclusive holidays abroad for a bit but back to a van last year and I’m so glad we did! We spent lots of time looking at layouts and what we planned to do, and haven’t looked back! We have a 7.5m Chausson with two single beds (under 3.5 ton as I took my driving test late and don’t have grandfather rights). We pop off for weekends and whenever we can really! We tend to wander round Europe for a bit in the summer and have also done Northern Ireland and things like the European Christmas markets. We have electric bikes so can easily access places we want to get to.
Our summer trip last year, including ferries, campsites, fuel, food, drink and adventures whilst away cost under £2500: our typical 2 week all inclusive at the same time of year would be £6000. Some people love it, others don’t. I would suggest hiring one to try just once to see if it’s for you though!

We love ours. When the dc were small we went out every other weekend, and then took lovely meandering road trips through Europe in the summer.
That’s been pared back a lot to accommodate teens’ busy social lives and studying. We’re biding time to switch to a smaller model, better suited to just two of us.

It’s different to a static. You can also use it that way of course, but we love the ability to travel. Lots of small French towns have free aires, and either a map to the bakery or a bread truck will pass by in the mornings to sell you a baguette.

It’s also an easier vehicle to drive and park than a caravan. Height barriers are occasionally a problem, but we google where we’re going first.

Personally I love having a home from home, set up just how I like, with the reading light where I sit in the evening, a charger to hand, and all the bits and bobs I want. I much prefer that to packing suitcases, fiddling with the air con in hotels, etc. I like to save my spirit of adventure for the fun parts of travelling. One really nice aspect is that the holiday starts the minute you step in. I can feel myself relax even when I’ve just popped in for a few minutes to clean it.

I much prefer taking the ferry to flying, and I’m not even a good sailor. We just pop on the kettle while we queue and it feels much more relaxed than an airport. No queue for the loo, overpriced food, uncomfortable seat or long walk to a gate that keeps changing.

That said, we envision taking some long rambles when we retire, parking up and taking the train for a short city break now and then, and flying home the odd weekend. So we’ll still have all those experiences too.

I definitely think you should try before you buy. It’s very hard to know until you’ve tried it how you feel and people surprise themselves. Also the rental cost will make the retail cost feel much more reasonable if you do buy 😉

We have a small camper van (no onboard facilities and our only vehicle) and thought about moving up to a bigger van conversion a few years ago. We ended up sticking with our small van because having thought long and hard about how we use our van, we realised that we like to spend a longer time at fewer places, rather than moving on every night or two.

Fully self sufficient motorhomes are really best and most cost effective for those who do not use campsites most of the time and move frequently, staying on aires or overnight stops. In my opinion they're not really that well suited to UK travel, where there is no widespread system of aires and not the space for just stopping where you please. Although a lot of people think they can, it annoys local residents and can be pretty antisocial. On the Continent, motorhomes are well catered for but you have to get there!

So you need to be realistic about how you like to travel, what you like to do and pick what suits you best.

My DM’s family friends have one. They don’t seem to use it so much now, go on holiday abroad a bit, by planes. Yes I know bad for eco footprint.

When we had one as kids it was used a lot. Fiat camper van and prone to rust. Think DM regrets selling it all those years ago.

The camper van had cooking and washing part (kitchen) at back, table and seating area in middle that converted to double bed and 3 single beds in the roof area. Plus you could attach a huge tent to it.

Do you have somewhere safe to park it when not in use, that put me off a bit. And reports of people getting sedated by gas through vents and robbed in Europe when they parked up. I do fancy one, but steep, twisty, narrow country lanes worry me a bit, they are pretty big, I know some places I've been in a car were pretty hairy, in a motorhome no way, but you can tow a little car for touring around when you are parked.

Electric bikes!

I have a converted van/camper, it’s my 2nd camper and we had some lovely holidays in the last one. I am now finding it hard to find cheap camp sites, since covid the prices have gone up so much. We were paying around £10-£20 a night before and during covid times. Now it seems to be £30-£60 a night 😬. It’s probably worth joking a motorhome/Campervan club as you get a huge discount and access to smaller camp sites, Brit stops is also good, most of these are pubs which you can stay at for next to nothing (as long as you buy a pint or a meal). If you visit Scotland there are a lot of places you can park up for free and I am guessing Europe maybe similar?

I’ve used my neighbours one, lovely for festivals but found it really restrictive for longer holidays especially parking, we are back to using the motorbike and booking hotels

We are two 50 year olds and on our first trip in our new (to us) motorhome. Spending a month in France, arrived with no plan but ended up driving down via Loire to Saumur, then through Dordogne and now on our way back up coast. We also have 2 small dogs with us. Loving it! I spent about 2 years researching what layout etc and we got a second hand (2022) Chausson 640. It has large bathroom, storage area, fridge and super king drop down bed as these are things that were important to me. Loving it so far!

We had one for a year as DH had a fancy for having one, but he sold it after a year. Few reasons- unless you get a big one we both found it uncomfortable for sleeping and it was awkward getting up in the night for wees. DH didn’t enjoy driving it and although he thought it would give him more freedom to explore, it’s quite stressful driving along smaller roads and if you wanted to take it anywhere you had to put everything away which was a bit of a pain.The maintenance was high - although this was perhaps because it was an older vehicle, and petrol costs were also high. Unless you park on the road, pitch costs can be quite high.

Having said that though we have a set of friends who love theirs and also SIL and BIL. Traits they have in common is not particularly enjoying hotels or holiday rentals and wanting to cook their own food a lot. So for some people it is worth it.

Think of all the travelling you could do with £60k!

We have had MoHo's for years and love it.🙂👍

Just the two of us and Ddogs, we like a decent sized Moho (7.5m & 4.25t) as it gives you more space and full facilities.
I can't drive ours any more due to licence restrictions (no C1 due to medical issues) but my OH usually did all the driving anyway but it shows that you need to check beforehand.
Overloading MoHo's is very common (people carrying too much "stuff" that they imagine they can't do without) and will cost you if you are found to be too heavy.
You need to be certain about buying one and make sure it is going to be used because as a PP said, you can do a lot of travelling for £60k but we do and are happy (wrong terminology???) to spend £100k to buy one that does everything we want.
We don't do holidays but we do go away regularly for a couple of nights (by regularly I mean most weeks throughout the year). We never wild camp and always stop at sites, more often than not they are CAMC.
Space is important for us so I sleep in a double at the back (with Ddogs) while my OH sleeps in a double up top. This setup leaves the central dinet free so whoever is up first can make a cuppa & breakfast.
A rear lounge, central dinet plus swivel cab seats means we have lots of room & choices for relaxing.
We have a bathroom & separate shower but TBH we never use the shower as using sites means there is no need (the shower is good for storing wet clothing & dog paraphernalia).
For cooking we have a 3-burner gas hob & electric hot-plate, gas grill & oven, microwave plus a toaster and choice of electric & gas kettles. Some people create some magnificent 3-course meals (and photograph them☹️) but we are much more basic in our creations.😆
We are not fans of fixed beds, we bought a Moho with one once but it was a big mistake as there was a lack of lounge space and it ended up as a dumping ground during the day.
Likewise garages, they encourage overloading and usually means that the rear bed is fixed and very high (awkward to get in/out of, especially for Ddogs).
At the end of the day, you need to do your research and find a layout that suits you and your lifestyle.
Vehicle storage can be an issue for some people. We have plenty of space to park securely at home but storage locations (CASSOA are best) are available, usually not too expensive at £35-60/m and can often result in reduced insurance costs due to the parking address being a secure location.
Running costs are not insignificant but if you can afford to buy a MoHo, you can afford to run it. Insurance is usually not too bad (based on actual milage) but most people will be starting fresh with a new NCD. Tax varies but our 4.25t Moho is only £175 (classed as a Private HGV). You may have to shop around for servicing locations as small garages often cannot take a coach-built Moho (too tall & long for the ramps), same goes for the MOT (if your Moho is old enough to require one). Tyres etc can cost a bit more than a car but depending on your mileage, these often need replacing due to age rather than use. Fuel consumption is going to be significant, we rarely get better than 25mpg. Don't forget the annual habitation check, important for safety (gas etc) plus to check for damp and other warranty related issues.
When away, we often choose sites within walking distance (or have public transport) of our chosen location but if we want to go further afield, packing up and taking the MoHo is the work of just a few minutes so it is not a problem. Parking at destinations however can be an issue, some places provide suitable parking bays but occasionally you have to park (and pay) for two spaces as you are too long.

Anyway, I have written a lot but hope it is helpful 👍

Yes....... but a MoHo is an asset with a resale value (often quite a good one).

Agreed that after the initial purchase (including equipping the vehicle) there are costs associated just with owning one (insurance, tax, servicing etc) and of course there are the costs associated with actually going away (fuel, gas, site fees etc) but you still own the asset and in our experience, after the initial drop (which you get when buying anything brand-new) the depreciation is minimal.

The OP talked of spending £60k which won't buy a brand new Moho so they have already saved the depreciation you suffer when buying new and taking it out of the showroom.
If they use it for only 2yrs and then decide it isn't really for them, chances are they will easily be able to sell it for around £50k.

Yes there are the upkeep & running costs incurred over that time but they can be minimised (on a per-trip basis) by using the MoHo as much as possible.

I sold our three year old motorhome, last year, for £60,000.