All things RV

I thought I would put this bit of information in for anyone who’s brave or daft enough to follow in our footsteps.

I was once informed ‘you will never stop learning about your RV’ and boy was he right. Even though we had done loads of homework on the subject prior to purchasing the RV you never even scrape the surface of it.

Buying is one aspect, trying to get the best deal for your bucks another, understanding what you’ve purchased into is a nightmare. There are weight issues, your licence, insurance, MOT and road Tax, then you have the law in the UK and Europe to navigate through and finally the big one ‘does it feel right’.

After you have got to grips with that lot along comes the running and maintenance with those associated costs and then the big one…..site finding.

It helps if you and your partner split some of the load; Kay does her best to cover the booking of the sites and the day to day aspect of our living in the RV.

Just for the ladies who try this, finding a site can be a big problem even with the help of such tomes as the Big Pitch Guide.

Using the Internet’s Google Earth can help you to see if you can get safely to the site, as some B roads can be a nightmare to travel down. Remember the RV is one of the widest vehicles allowed on UK roads at 2.65m wide not including the wing mirrors and you have a vehicle that is often over 3.5 meters tall, Google Earth can’t tell you the height of the trees down a road or what you’re going to meet coming the other way.

Ever wondered why they call the passenger seat in a left hand drive RV ‘the suicide seat’ your passenger will when a lorry come thundering towards you down a narrow B road.

I was once asked ‘what’s the small red strip for on the windscreen in front of the driver?’ my reply ‘it’s the idiot strip; I have to keep that lined up with the gutter. That way I know Kay is on my side of the road (and it works, as so far the white in Kay’s hair is from age and not pure terror).

Even if you can get to the site, can you actually get into the site? We once found a very nice site called Apple Tree farm only to realise we wouldn’t even get through their gates it was far too narrow so phoning ahead armed with the vehicle details can also help.

Even the Big Pitch Guide (which is a boon to all RV’ers) can be misleading, as the references are often supplied by other well-meaning RV owners. We recently had one site lined up for a visit but thankfully we took a day out to check it out first. The Guide said that this particular site would take any size RV, which it would but what it didn’t say was ‘if your towing a vehicle on a trailer the dirt track leading onto the field where the pitches were sited was so steep that you would end up in real trouble especially if the weather was inclement’. So we cancelled and booked elsewhere although this meant the loss of our deposit.

Space for food storage is a lot less than your average kitchen, even though some RV refrigerators are larger than UK home ones. Having a Toad (towed car) is great in that you can nip out to the local supermarket to top up supplies regularly without having to move the RV, although Kay finds this a good excuse to eat out as often as possible (like yesterday).

Checking if the site has laundry facilities is another area not often mentioned and the cost of using their facilities can in some cases be expensive especially Camping & Caravan Club sites that can work out at £5 for a wash and dry, but it does teach you to be more frugal with clothes, I get by most days in tea shirt and shorts.

I will drop more snippets of information in as we travel along especially if you find it helpful, fellow RV’ers your comments would be appreciated.

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