Campervans

[oysterpots]

Thinking of buying a camper van, but I'm not at all bothered about the beautiful retro ones, would rather something practical and reasonably priced.

Where do I start??

Will be watching this as we have just spent the week in a hired camper and are hooked! We hired a beautiful retro yellow and white VW but know that realistically like you we will have to have a much less attractive one! We will leave it now until the Autumn as prices are at a premium now as everyone gets into the spirit of summer!!

I'm on my 3rd VW and i sold the last two for mre than I bought 'em for - they generally hold their value. My current one is a T25 which I bought for £3k from a local garage that does up old vans and sells them on. Definite pros to buying from a dealer if, like me, you buy one that developes a hideous fault the first time you drive it!

Whereabouts are you?

First thing is how much do you want to spend.
How many will be sleeping in it.
Will the kids be punted out to sleep in an awning?
How big a white box do you want with everything including stuf that puts your own house to shame, or are we talking a transit van with a matress and a calourgas stove? .

We have a T4 and it's brilliant. We can sleep 4 in there, have a little cooker and we take a small beer fridge for a tub of butter, pint of milk and packet of ham. If you CAT me I can show you the ones dh has built (and is selling at the moment!).

Do it! Best thing we ever did. Unless you have cash to splash now I would wait until autumn/winter as you can pick up bargains after people have finished with one for the summer.

we have a retro T2 VW but you can pick up the T25s for a couple of grand. Depends what you want to spend really and if you are prepared to do some work on it. We bought one that was mechanically sound but had no interior and kitted it out ourselves. You can reupholster seats etc a lot cheaper than sorting out engines and welding.

Also, as others have said, how many do you need to sleep and how - we bought a big awning for ours that has a little inner tent that will sleep 2 adults or 3 kids. We use the awning for cooking and eating/chilling in the evenings the van is purely for sleeping and storage.

Surfermum - T4 is next on the list when the T2 finally gives in to the rust monster!

We love ours. We have a small tent alongside the van, but not an awning as we like to open the side door and look out at the view (only have a window on one side on ours). But an awning would have been helpful when it rained last week!

I can honestly say having a camper has been everything I dreamt it would be and more. We have had so much fun in it.

I leave it ready packed so all we need to grab is clothes and off we go. And we were able to go last week when it stil wasn't really warm enough for under canvas camping. We were toasty warm in the van! And 4 nights away for under £40!!

We use ours in the winter too for day trips. We're near the beach here, so just take it somewhere with a view and have bacon sarnies and a cuppa. It's brilliant.

Forgot to say. We only tax ours for 6 months a year to save costs - will only work if you have somewhere off road to park it tho.

Leaving it packed is the best thing as you can just up and go on a friday after work, even just going an hour from home feels like a break.

Oh Surfermum you are making me so DH is as obsessed as I am but he is getting carried away with the whole vintage VW lark. We had such a great week in the hired van and are full of more quality time together at weekends in our own van.

We hired ours from here Riven. Out of season it's not too bad but I think it's prob miles away from you!

I just don't get the old VW thing. I know a lot of people do ... but it just doesn't float my boat.

We have a memory foam mattress to sleep on and little LED reading lights!

We're thinking about renting one that dh has built out, but have never really pursued it. I'll have a look at those links in a minute.