Is buying and siting a caravan worth it for family holidays?

[Whenwillheatwaveend]

We are a family of 5 and like many finding the cost of holidays a lot. A decent holiday in school holidays is coming in at at least 5k.

we also enjoy camping breaks and go a couple of times a year- we would probably go more but the effort of packing up the car and setting up etc is a little off putting.

we are considering a caravan as an investment and siting it.

we think it will be around £15k for the caravan and have been quoted 3.5k for site costs, we’d also need to look at storage costs over the winter period.

obviously this is a significant cost and would mean we would go without abroad holidays for several years at least.

would anyone recommend or have advise on if it is worth it? Or any other costs we’d have to consider?

thanks 🙏

Unless you’re going to use it every holiday and keep hold of it for a decade, I wouldn’t.

I learnt the hard way that the second you buy one, the value drops by 50%, even if you decide to sell it a year later.

Sorry yes I know they depreciate (although not 50% in a year?) our children are still all very young so would look to keep it for a significant time period. My husband’s thought is as I am part time I can spend the bulk of the holidays there and he will join us over the weekend as we would site it about 2 hours from home

Are you talking about a touring caravan or a static caravan?

You can get seasonal pitches for touring caravans at many sites. Then it’s not difficult to move when you want to or sell the caravan if you want to. Lots of farm sites offer seasonal pitches

Yes a touring caravan which we will site for the season x

Would you consider a static? I only ask as you wouldn’t have to ‘site it’ over the winter, it would just remain in situ, and it sounds as though you’d be pitching a tourer for an entire season in one place rather than moving from site to site.

We have a static, our sites season runs from March-Jan so we get a lot of use out of it as a family (we don’t rent it out but all of the immediate family use it). We pay one fee per year, we have on site facilities (pool, parks, pub, restaurant, children’s entertainment) and it includes maintenance to the caravan itself such as burst water pipes, gas issues etc. and honestly, it works really well for us all. Chuck a weeks worth of clothes in a bag, in the car and you’re ready to go!

Caravans are fab! Why ‘site’ it though? You could go to a couple of different places and different types of site.

How old are your children? Because if you plan to be at the caravan for the entire summer holidays, before long the kids will be old enough that they want to see their friends in the summer holidays and won’t want to be away for the entire time.

Yes we aren’t 100% on this as we always visit different sites with out tent. Mainly because it will take away the feeling of having to set up which is what puts us off camping.

I dithered over this for years myself. Pulling a caravan and setting it up is a huge PITA and puts you off going, so I absolutely see why you'd want to site it.

Lots of friends of mine did it, but in the end it just felt like too much work. Another set of admin, another larder to keep stocked, being left there all summer with young DC 🤔 I decided against it in the end and I felt it was the right decision.

DC are 10 and 7 now and have so many weekend clubs we'd never make it down there anyway.

How old are your dc?

8,5,2 - my 8 year old is unlikely to have a weekend club but my 5 year old might in the future I suppose.

we do like to get away , last year we did 2 4 night camps 1 week abroad in May and 10 nights abroad in August.

this year we’ve done the following trips 1x haven, 1 x static caravan in Cotswolds, 1 camp in north wales and 1 week long camp in Dorset. We are also going to Lanzarote for a week in August, a couple of nights in London and I am going glam ping with the girls in Sept. I deffo have enjoyed the frequent short breaks which makes makes me think we would use it? It’s so hard it’s such a lot of money for something totally new!

I looked into this when my DC were primary age and then decided it would be too expensive to do this go abroad (which was a non negotiable) so we didn’t do it.

I would certainly look at spending more in the region of 5-6K , try it for a year and then you can sell without making too much of a loss if you find out it doesn't work for you ?

Setting up a caravan is so much easier than a tent. I have a tourer and go away on my own in it and have both setting up and leaving down to a fine art. Under 30 mins both ends. Maybe an extra ten mins max if I put my porch awning up.

i spend £300 on storage fees and then maybe £200 campsite fees for a week trip away.

remember a lot of your “stuff” stays in the caravan all year so apart from throwing some clothes in a bag you don’t need to pack.

I get to the site, onto the pitch, unhook, caravan legs down, plug in electric cable, go and fill up with water, put the pump into the aqua roll, tune the tv to the local area, flip the gas on and it’s done.

Have to say though whether you tour or keep it sited (and I can see the advantage of siting if you plan to spend most of the summer there) I can’t imagine being stuck in a tourer with kids for weeks on end. You’ll all be tripping up over each other. By the time Dd got to 11yo she didn’t want to come away in the caravan much as she found it boring. She wanted to be home seeing her friends and playing Minecraft.

I have a touring caravan and it's on a seasonal pitch. Spent £12.5k on Caravan and £3k a year for seasonal pitch from march to November. It'll be an additional £450 to store for winter. Best thing I ever did. It's in a gorgeous coastal town with lots of beautiful places to visit. We come for long weekends and longer holidays that fit around work and other commitments. We absolutely love it. We are happy at this site for a year and can then move it to a different site if we want to for next year. Our grown up DCs and DGCs love it too and I also have friends to stay.

We've got to know some of our neighbours and it's a lovely atmosphere. We are definitely hooked! I'd say just think carefully about what you want from a site and they can be so different. Buy your caravan from a reputable dealer and make sure you take a damp meter to test for possible water ingress and potential problems before you buy.

The £12.5k was an investment and an big outlay but we spend at least £3k on one holiday abroad so we feel the seasonal pitch fee is pretty good value for money. Also if the caravan is kept damp free and looked after there's no reason why we wouldn't get a decent price if we decided to sell it. It definitely wouldn't lose 50% of its value for no reason.

Touring caravans don't depreciate 50% in a year, £15k would be a few years old anyway so any brand new depreciation would have gone, PP probably meant static caravans, You could get a seasonal pitch or a couple of different seasonal pitches. Have you got a drive you could keep it on in the winter. Have you got a towbar on your car because that can cost quite a bit, insurance is about £150-£300 and servicing each year is about £150-£200

We did exactly this and have had many brilliant years, have never regretted it.

My parents had a touring caravan which they kept on a site. When they wanted to use it they paid for the site to tow it onto the pitch. Obviously they had to pay storage but it worked really well and as grown ups we would take our children. Many great memories.

We have decided to go for it! We are looking at a Bailey Pegasus 546 with triple bunks.

so if it’s about £4k a year for seasonal pitch and winter storage, and you'll get say eight years out of it before your eldest mumps about leaving her friends all summer, thats £32k plus say £8k purchase price thats £40k for 8 years so £5k a year on average. If that’s good value and you’d spend that on a holiday anyway then go for it.

Investment - something that usually increases in value.
Caravan - something that loses value and has huge running costs.
Hence investment and caravan are not normally in the same sentence unless investment is prefixed by bad.

I think you’re possibility overestimating the willingness of a mid-teen year old to does their hols in a caravan. We are friends with 3 families with caravans, who eeked them out to their eldest being 14 or so. By that age friends, and commitments to sports teams, orchestra, DoE, Scouts, weekend jobs, homework etc start to dominate weekends.

@Whenwillheatwaveend

Yay well done! 😁 I'm just back from a two week stay in mine with friends and it was just gorgeous. Spending so much time outdoors is wonderful and I always love a torchlit stroll in the evening in PJs, fluffy socks and crocs! I think it's the freedom and change of pace that is just so appealing at a caravan park/camp site. We're back again next week with the DGCs and cannot wait. Hope you have an amazing time in yours!