In the last blog, due to a series of unfortunate experiences, we had narrowed the decision down to two options. These were a motorhome or a caravan.
Here we will outline our decision process and why we have decided to go with our option. What I would stress though, is that this is a personal decision. Despite the multitude of online forums telling you that there is only one correct answer, that you are wasting your money if you pick the wrong option, and that your entire holiday will be a nightmare if you choose the wrong option… in reality, it isn’t going to make or break your holiday. For us, we figure we can do that well enough without having ghe additional stress of wondering how our holiday might have been in the other option.
First I would of course encourage you to actually try out your options. This of course means that you’ll need to have a number of smaller holidays or long weekends leading up to the bug adventure, which could never be a bad thing. We stayed in several friend’s and family member’s caravans to start off with, in the Blue Mountains and the Central Coast which are on the east coast of Australia. The first take home we got from these was that nights can get really cold, as is the case in the Blue Mountains, but caravans don’t have a lot of insulation, so pack warm. The second was that beds seem specifically designed for the general height of a grey nomad. If you fall outside the standard you have to search quite a bit to find a bed that would accommodate a 6 foot two person, as one of us is. Otherwise, you can expect to be wearing multiple layers of socks to keep your feet warm as emerge from the bottom of the bed as very, very present thermometers.
We also went on a trip around New Zealand’s North Island in a 4 berth motorhome – more on that to come.
Caravans are great in terms of flexibility. By taking one, you also guarantee that you will have a car, and so be able to travel anywhere a car, and in most cases, a 4WD, is able to travel. This means that you won’t have issues with parking in the middle of the city, and getting into some of those truly outback roads that Australia is known for. A motorhome doesn’t afford you that same capability, as you will be driving around a 6 to 7 metre truck that doesn’t fit into standard car parks and won’t go offroad in any true sense of the word.
What a motorhome does offer you is simple ease of transport. Towing a large object such as a caravan can be a highly anxious experience, and those High Wind Area signs imbue a new level of awareness and fear whenever you see them. It also means you need to be comfortable reversing, turning, and yelling ‘left hand up’ and ‘right hand down’ to the driver as you attempt to reverse a caravan into a spot just so. At any caravan park you can expect an audience divining the long term viability of a relationship through watching a couple attempting to park their caravan. One can imagine the sighs of relief across Australia every day, as drivers finally get to undertake the magical task of unhitching, which signals that they’ve survived another potentially life threatening situation.
All this can be managed of course , and almost all towns now run regular courses on driving and packing a caravan to make it simpler and less of an affront.
A motorhome, on the other hand, is very simple for set up and take down. You might need to chock the wheels to make sure it is level, but that’s the extent of the engagement you’ll need. This also ties into how you might approach your trip; in a caravan, you might be more likely to stay in single spots for longer, the memory of parking a caravan fades from an intense emotional response into a dull ache. A motorhome needs to set up and pull down quickly, because if you need to get some milk and sugar, you’ll need to pack up and take your whole home with you, and not just pop down to the shops in a car. This also means you might be quicker to move on.
Then, of course, there’s the cost. If you already have a car that can tow, a caravan is a cheaper option, where you will get more features and mod-cons for less. In a motorhome, you are paying for an engine as well as the living space, and this can often parallel the cost of buying a caravan and car to tow.
For us? We’ve decided to take a motorhome. Not because we fear our relationship couldn’t survive parking a caravan, but simply for the ease of set up and take down. We’re on this trip for 6 months, not 2 years as some people do, and we want to be fairly mobile. We also don’t have or want a car that could tow a caravan, adding to the expense and making the options fairly similar in cost. As for the difficulty of trying to get anything done in the city in a truck-like motorhome, we’ll be taking bicycles with us and using this as our main transport for short distances. We recently acquired an electric bike, which does feel a little like cheating, particularly when you can ride to work in a suit and somehow still overtake the MAMIL brigade (Middle-Aged men in lycra). But it makes getting around short distances so easy! Another electric bike will be coming. And a motorhome allows us to stay a little more flexibility in free-camping spots, rather than staying in a caravan park every night, which we are looking forward to.
So, the hunt for a motorhome begins!
