Why a caravan?

When Shona came over to Melbourne from Perth when we first got together, I used to take her on lots of trips to see the sights and scenery near to Melbourne as well as further afield into Victoria almost every weekend. When we stayed overnight in some places, we found quite a number of the motels were priced at a premium but the rooms and amenities were very ordinary to even dirty.

When you've had a long day of driving and sight seeing, it can be very depressing to pull into the only accommodation you can find that as well as the high prices, the room actually smells, the linen does not seem to have been freshly washed, the towel is not much larger than a hand towel, the bathroom is deathly cold and has a water-saver shower head outlet that you have to keep moving around underneath in order to get wet, and you still have to go out to find something to eat for dinner.

We added up what we were spending. As we were investigating a trip around Australia at the time, the numbers looked quite large JUST for accommodation. We would have had to add a whole lot of take away or eat out meals (as most accommodation has no cooking facilities), as well as the fuel and sight seeing fees.

Once we added the meals to the accommodation, the dollar difference between driving a car, staying in motels and eating most meals out compared to pulling your motel room around behind you and eating mostly "home cooked" meals whilst staying in caravan parks - the difference was almost enough to pay for the caravan!

Another difference is now we KNOW for sure what the quality of the accommodation will be like. We can also stop for a toilet break anywhere it's safe to pull over. If we are both really tired, or feel the need for a nap, we can actually lay on a real bed for the nap.

What sort of caravan?

The way we sorted out our "shopping list" was a little like follows:

Shona and I are a little bit past our prime, so the idea was the van should not become a real pain to setup and pack up.

As Melbourne's weather is probably more often cool to cold than warm to hot, our choice needed to be easy to warm up inside more than it needed to be able to be cooled down.

Neither of us were keen on the idea of using caravan park amenities. I was not keen as I have to set myself up with a stool to use whilst showering and somewhere dry for my prosthesis whilst I was getting wet. Shona can not handle getting cold, and virtually none of the amenities we'd seen were heated. Neither of us wanted to think too much about getting a dose of tinea or having to mess around with rubber thongs, etc.

If we were going to be including a shower in the caravan, we didn't want a toilet in the same area. We couldn't make sense of the idea of having to dry everything down before you could use the toilet.

We have only recently got married, so single beds were not in our consideration.

The caravan had to give the feeling of being roomy rather than claustrophobic. We were imaging what it would be like if we got stuck inside it for a number of days while it rained outside.

If we wanted to pull over during a trip and have a snack, meal, coffee, nap or toilet break, we didn't want to have to go through a whole ritual first, or have to crawl around inside.

Caravan Salesmen

Logically, caravan salesmen should know exactly what their caravans weigh and how much of a load they can carry. Given the total weight of the loaded caravan, they should be able to point out what in their range are the viable options which your tow vehicle can tow.

The salesman that serviced our needs signed us up for a caravan that weighs 1998 kilograms empty. He knew we were looking to use our existing Commodore which had a 2100 kilogram towing limit.

He did stop us from looking at bigger caravans, but he really should have highlighted how close to the maximum our chosen van really was.

Camper / Trailer

A camper/trailer is like a trailer that has a tent attached. When you unclip  things and pull on the relevant bit(s), the tent unfolds into something that looks like a tent on a trailer or even like a canvas caravan. Depending on the style and manufacturer, there might be low cabinets inside, a sitting area, a full kitchen inside, or a slide out type outside. Perhaps more for those who are looking at taking a step up from a tent.

Shona and I walked straight past these without even stopping for anything more than a curious look.

So let's hitch up and get going!

So, you choose which model suits and slap it onto the back of your car and drive off into the sunset now don't you?

No!

You make sure the hitch on your car is rated to tow the van. Our's wasn't, so we needed to get it upgraded to the 2100kg towbar and hitch. From what I can tell, this is the 1600kg towbar with a weight-distribution hitch to go with it.

To take the extra load at the back of the car, Holden also changes the standard rear shock absorbers to pneumatic.

To go with it, you'll probably find that the trailer plug needs to be changed from 5 pins to 7 pins. One of these extra wires may be to run the caravan's fridge whilst you are out on the road. The fridge draws a fair amount of current, so you will probably want this wire to stop feeding the fridge when the car's engine is not running. To do this means you'll also need an isolation switch installed.

Pop Top Caravan

A pop-top is a bit of a cross between a full height caravan and a camper/trailer. It is basically a low caravan that has the top 500mm or so made from flexible vinyl (a "tent-like" skirt) so the roof can be lowered whilst towing. This supposedly means they create less air drag and therefore use less fuel to tow. The roof tends to weigh more than the roof on a full height caravan, so the extra weight negates any fuel saving from less wind drag. They actually have more benefit if you have the need to store your van under a carport. All the people we have chatted with tell us how cool they are in summer as they have all that ventilation at the top. None of those people have mentioned how warm they are on bitterly cold nights.

We had a look inside quite a few of these, and were put off by how ugly the vinyl skirt area at the top of the walls is. We also didn't think we'd do too well with popping, winding up, winding down and relatching the top after we watched some "newbies" being trained on how to do this and they both looked lost.

So now we're ready?

Well if your chosen van weigh less than 750kg you might be. If not (and our's definitely didn't), you'll need brakes on the caravan which operate when you apply the car's brakes.

Earlier caravans and most boat trailers use an "over run" style of brake which is a fully self-contained hydraulic system on the trailer. Modern caravans (like the one we chose) use magnetic brakes. This means you also need to install a brake controller in your car.

5th Wheeler

The idea behind a 5th wheeler is that the hitch point is directly over or just in front of the vehicle's rear axle. This adds a great deal of stability to the overall rig. With the added stability, a whole lot more can be added to the trailer home. Such things as slide-out sections can be common. Down side is that you need a utility or flat bed truck style of vehicle. We had a Commodore, so only looked at these at caravan and camping shows after we'd made our purchase.

We must be ready by now?

Well, yes!

You just need to head home and load some clothes and other gear and you can head off!

Most standard build single axle caravans are rated to carry a load of 300kgs and tandem axles a load of 400kgs. Most couples out there travelling struggle to keep themselves below those weights.

If your van has a shower on board, it probably has at least 120 litres of tank. If you fill those tanks, there's 120 kilograms already.

When we started out, we only had 102 kilograms difference between what the van weighed empty and the maximum the car could tow. So we were limited to a dribble of water in our tanks, 18 kilograms of gas for cooking and hot water, the lightest plastic crockery we could find, a few bits of cutlery, a few changes of clothes and some food. We had to keep the tinned food to a minimum as it weighs so much. We even left the jockey wheel at home and used a Trail-a-mate which could double as a jack and a jockey wheel.

It soon became apparent that we needed a different vehicle for towing our caravan. This page indicates what we went through in our search.

Full Caravan

Based on our shopping list above, we chose a full height van with shower and toilet.

The van layout we looked at was quite roomy inside. There was a model that even had a slide out lounge that gave another 400mm or so of floor space. It may not sound much, but it made a significant difference for moving about or entertaining inside the van.

The kitchen layout in a full height van is a lot like in a small house including overhead cupboards.

If you intend to have air conditioning, a full height van has the unit mounted in the middle of the roof rather than being mounted inside a cupboard.

The centre of gravity is higher in a full height van, but you make allowances for this when you tow.

Our journey into buying our first caravan is on this page. Covered there is how we decided what sort of caravan we thought we needed.