Get Wise! Get Yourselves A Caravan! How It All Started For Us!

A daunting prospect isn't it!? I mean where do you start? what do I look for? how much am I going to spend?


And more importantly in these times of austerity how cheap can I do it all for!

Well, speaking from experience we bought our first caravan a couple of years ago on ebay for £157.00 yes, you did read that correctly. It cost us £157.00 and that included a hook up cable and 2 aqua rolls!


It was a Abbey GT 212 - 2 Berth. OK, it wasn't top of the range or anything like that, but as we were knew to the game we didn't want to spend a fortune to find out that it was a bad idea! Mind you it had got to be better than a tent. Which is what we had used previously!


For that sort of money we decided we could take a gamble, we won it on ebay, then set off to collect it from a dark, wet, and desolate place - (Up North)!


We were that green we didn't check anything, we took it in good faith and what we were told about it.


Once being given the grand tour by the previous owner, we set off, the idea being that we would get half way down and check in to a pre-booked campsite at a pub.


Never having towed a caravan before, it was a bit of a game, is it still on the back was the constant question!


We pulled into the camp-site, got out the hook-up cable, connected up and hey presto we had electric! The fridge worked, and so did the heater! Well what more do you need!


So off to the pub, a few beers, then back to settle down for the night, where we sussed the bed out and had a good kip! Next morning we set about working out the cooker, grill and hob. We were told that there was a problem with the hob as only one burner would work properly. Not a problem we managed to cook some amazing meals on one ring, grill and oven over the time we had that caravan!


During the summer we invested in an awning, well, I say an awning it was really a gazebo that cost £20 from tesco's so not high quality but it did the job.


We bought a waste hog off of ebay for £10 and that was our only other purchase.


We had a lot of use out of the caravan, we only sold it as we went full-timing and ended up with our current caravan a Lunar Lexon 640 twin axle with an island bed as seen below with both awnings up - showing off a bit!

You know the best thing was we sold it for £250 minus the hook-up cables and aqua rolls!


My point to all of this is that caravanning need not be expensive at all, we have proved that. We turned up on many a site where a few snobby folk looked at us strangely in their £20k caravans, but each to their own. If your that far stuck up your own arse to look down on other folk maybe you should re-consider your type of holiday/hobby.


Here's a couple of caravans under £200 - Caravan A Caravan B Caravan C Well they were when I wrote this!

We may of been lucky with our first caravan, but really, a couple of hundred pounds on something these days is not a lot to spend, you spend more on your monthly food shop! Who cares if it smells a bit like a damp dog, there's a leaky skylight and there is a hole in the floor in one of the cupboards! It's all part of the fun!

So if your looking for a cheap holiday with the kids, and want to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the countryside, get wise, get yourself a caravan!


Till later....................