Paul J
Free Member
- Feb 27, 2018
- 220
- 40
- Funster No
- 52,609
So, many years ago, when I was in my 20's I had a Bessacarr motorhome, we averaged almost one trip per fortnight and went pretty much everywhere in the UK, fast forward to today, I'm 42 and return to motorhomes. I got my van in May of last year, and we managed an absolutely disgraceful 4 nights on holiday in the entire rest of 2018. Meanwhile, every few weeks, I've been inside the van, or under it spraying under-seal, and driving it round on occasions, maintaining those moving parts. A couple of times we've attempted to plan a weekend, admittedly at rather short notice, and often to a significant interesting town, finding in almost all cases that sites were fully booked. I joined the caravan club only recently, so I guess we have a few more options, although the CL's which I was so excited about from a value point of view, are typically so far away from said town that we'd never make it there. I've spent the last two nights looking on Caravan and Motorhome Club website and trawling through loads of sites, to no avail, I found that the Southport Caravan Club site had availability, but I don't fancy Southport this time.
All is not lost, I love my motorhome, I don't lack any interest in holidays either, I'm just struggling for good available locations, once found, I'm sure we can make a collection of favourites and frequent them. I'm also trying to use the motorhome for as many annual events as I can, again hoping to increase them each year, a kind Funster reccomended the Great Dorset Steam Fair, which was very nice of them, unfortunately they neglected to mention that I would get stuck in a 5 hour queue (honestly !) and that it would hammer it down with rain forcing us home a day early, never mind, we tried.
Looking at some European travel, I notice that it's actually surprisingly cheap to get over the water, something crazy that I hadn't considered, so I'm sure we'll give that a try when a good plan can be formulated.
Back to the UK, we're trying to do something tomorrow, having failed to find sites in and around Harrogate, and or York, we've decided to go to Harrogate first, I've some very carefully selected parking spots noted down, in quiet neighbourhoods, wide cul-de-sacs, alongside a tall wall or hedge, and not particularly in view of anyone's house, we'll take a tour of our 'Google street view'd' locations, taking our safe day time spot and maybe moving to the next to 'possibly' sleep.... if we get the gut feeling that it's safe, if not, we drive home, it's really not that far.
I've been forever scarred by something that happened the first night we used this van. We've gone to a reasonably local pub, with an arrangement that we'd eat and drink there in return for being allowed overnight use of their car park. Turned out the pub was quiet, and we sat with a guy who was a real character, we'd explained how we were wary of someone hammering on the side of the van while we were inside asleep. we left the pub at 22:45 Well, what do you know, guess what the bloke did on his way out of the pub at closing time. Initially we hadn't worked out that it was him, we both felt trapped, stupid really, the joys of not being on a caravan site.
Waiting patiently of this years Brit Stops book coming out, are there any other similar schemes that allow parking in city centre locations, or do you have any tips that might help me find safe parking spots. I decided not to park near grave yards because of the undead, but parking closer to the church might give me some obvious protection from the Lord, might work, who knows
Paul
All is not lost, I love my motorhome, I don't lack any interest in holidays either, I'm just struggling for good available locations, once found, I'm sure we can make a collection of favourites and frequent them. I'm also trying to use the motorhome for as many annual events as I can, again hoping to increase them each year, a kind Funster reccomended the Great Dorset Steam Fair, which was very nice of them, unfortunately they neglected to mention that I would get stuck in a 5 hour queue (honestly !) and that it would hammer it down with rain forcing us home a day early, never mind, we tried.
Looking at some European travel, I notice that it's actually surprisingly cheap to get over the water, something crazy that I hadn't considered, so I'm sure we'll give that a try when a good plan can be formulated.
Back to the UK, we're trying to do something tomorrow, having failed to find sites in and around Harrogate, and or York, we've decided to go to Harrogate first, I've some very carefully selected parking spots noted down, in quiet neighbourhoods, wide cul-de-sacs, alongside a tall wall or hedge, and not particularly in view of anyone's house, we'll take a tour of our 'Google street view'd' locations, taking our safe day time spot and maybe moving to the next to 'possibly' sleep.... if we get the gut feeling that it's safe, if not, we drive home, it's really not that far.
I've been forever scarred by something that happened the first night we used this van. We've gone to a reasonably local pub, with an arrangement that we'd eat and drink there in return for being allowed overnight use of their car park. Turned out the pub was quiet, and we sat with a guy who was a real character, we'd explained how we were wary of someone hammering on the side of the van while we were inside asleep. we left the pub at 22:45 Well, what do you know, guess what the bloke did on his way out of the pub at closing time. Initially we hadn't worked out that it was him, we both felt trapped, stupid really, the joys of not being on a caravan site.
Waiting patiently of this years Brit Stops book coming out, are there any other similar schemes that allow parking in city centre locations, or do you have any tips that might help me find safe parking spots. I decided not to park near grave yards because of the undead, but parking closer to the church might give me some obvious protection from the Lord, might work, who knows
Paul
