Why Caravanning

Let’s go caravanning!

It sounds simple doesn’t it, but now we realise that we’ve gone 3½ times around the equator.

3½ times around the equator! How did that happen we just went for a bit of a drive? (Image: Pixabay Arek Socha)

In these Covid times I know a lot of people are thinking about caravanning and whether it is a travel option for them and I would say yes.

We’ve just chalked up 142,696Kms towing the van, well 2 vans to be precise.

That’s 3 cars and 2 caravans. The first car, a Ford Territory towed a Windsor Pop Top. We were newly retired and didn’t know if we’d like caravanning back then, so it was a cheap and affordable way to try it out. We liked it from the get go but wanted a bathroom so pretty soon there was a Grant Tourer 19’ caravan in the driveway and being larger and heavier the car had to be upgraded to a gutsier Jeep Commander. In time the Jeep was replaced with another Jeep this time a Cherokee.

In over 8½ years there have been 57 caravan trips, 1216 days and 1160 nights in 348 places and for those with a pecuniary interest our accommodation cost averages out to $21.59 per night and fuel costs $23.12 per day. That’s pretty damned cheap when you consider the fun we’ve had. Sometimes we free camp, sometimes we stay in the best caravan park or anywhere else in between. We prefer to choose whichever is best suited for the particular area. Therefore, it could be a National Park, a farm stay or the backyard of a pub. There’ve been bowling clubs, truck stops, showgrounds, boat ramps, railway stations, a monastery, a bewildering number of roadside rest areas (some quiet but most noisy), outback roadhouses, a back street in the town of Home Hill, Qld, a gun club, Brown Bros winery, a scout camp, a boat club, a skate park, we’ve even slept on a tennis court! We had no problems with levels there.

We’ve had a variety of animals, kangaroos, emus, cows, sheep and chooks knock on our door. We’ve even had a cow lead us to an outback pub!

We’ve camped beside lakes and beaches, waterfalls and rivers. In deserts and rainforests and on clifftops, amongst rabbit burrows and gravel pits and loved every minute of it, though the view wasn’t all that great at the gravel pit. We’ve swum under waterfalls, walked miles, broken bones, torn muscles and worn out our shoes. When we set out on this crazy adventure we also made a point of visiting interesting pubs whenever we could. We’ve now been to 210 iconic bush pubs and a few city ones, we’re still counting…

If you want to go caravanning, do your research (‘cos that’s seriously important) then hit the road. You’ll never want to stay in a 5 star hotel again!

The red pins, 348 stays in a caravan or two (Map Source: Pin365) The green pins? Well I couldn’t leave Tassie off the map now could I?

27 thoughts on “Let’s go caravanning!”

  1. OMG you guys are my heroes. I’m a new camper having just begun to do baby trip since 2018. As a solo traveller I’m also into research first but being flexible with plans. Covid has forced us all to have to be awaee of travel changes that we have no control over.
    Thank you for doing your blog. It has been a real bonus to share your travels.
    Stay safe. Love and best wishes. Margaret M

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    1. Thanks for your kind words Margaret. In this caper plans will often go astray, floods, fires, illness, gear failures, road closures but this pandemic certainly threw things out of whack. I believe the fun of it all though is that we never stop making mistakes and we never stop learning. How fortunate we are to have the time to travel this beautiful country of ours. Enjoy it all and keep up the blogging.

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      1. Never a truer word. I’m having some technical glitches at the moment with my site. Hope I’ll get it up to your standard one day. It is more work than I expected but I’m doing it for friends who don’t use Facebook. 🤣

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      1. There was a little green dot that sent me googling for quite some time – King Island in Bass Strait. I had never heard of it – and have subsequently read all about it. Obviously you didn’t drive there, but it looks like the kind of place I’d like to live!

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      1. I understand all too well…..Driver’s health saw us switch from van to motorhome, and now just sold the latter. Hopefully some car based travel still, but – given the cost of accommodation – short trips!

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  9. What a fabulous endorsement to camping and caravanning. You too are like the Leyland couple of the modern era. Awesome post and one I can fully relate to! Keep enjoying. 😊

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  10. You are so fortunate to have so many places to visit! Here in Canada it is too cold to do any kind of camping for about half of the year and with Covid we can’t drive across the border into the United States (where many Canadians spend the winter!)

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    1. Sometimes though it is a juggling act trying to avoid the hot wet in the north and the searing hot dry in the south in our summer. I often watch the weather map and wonder how you guys can tolerate the cold. We get cranky if the temperature gets below 15c! Take care and stay warm Margy.

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