Campervan becomes Caravan

It's summer 2020 and a lot has changed in the world in the last few months.  But our decision to change our "van" was made back in autumn 2019.

In October 2019, after a lot of soul searching, research and discussion we decided to trade in our VW T5 California Beach for a Caravan.  Why?  Well, mostly it was due to the changing circumstances of our family.  With two young kids the campervan was proving to be hard work to use for extended trips, even with a drive away awning.  And we also wanted to extend our camping season out into the autumn and winter.

So we went to the excellent Chichester Caravans in Uckfield and spent a long time looking over the different options they had.  We finalized on a huge 6-berth, double axle, 8' wide van, even though there are only four of us in the family.  We bought the giant Bailey Pegasus Grande Palermo which is a fantastic piece of kit.

People said we were mad to tow an 8' van with no towing experience.  Mad.  But we did it anyway.  We swapped our old campervan for a powerful Nissan Navara pickup which has no problems dragging the van around the countryside.  And, precisely because we have no experience towing, we don't find the 8' wide van suddenly wider or harder to two than "before" as there never was a before for us!   

Of course so far we've not met another caravan or big truck coming the other way on a tiny country road.  I know it will happen sooner or later, and then maybe we'll wish we had something smaller.  But for now, the huge van pays off in spades when we are camped up and have a lovely spacious caravan to relax in.

With Lockdown ending in the UK and campsite opening up again, we are beginning our travels once more.  I'm going to endeavour to restart the blog, this time discussing our travels in the new "van", and probably writing it more from a family perspective.   We'll be discussing the campsites we've stayed in and the pros and cons of the locations, plus the activities we've done whilst staying at these new places.

If nothing else this will serve as a reminder to us about the different campsites we've stayed in and help us being able to find the good ones to return to!