Our Kidsetter has wanted to have the experience of hiring a campervan for as long as we can remember. It’s not something we naturally want to do, but we are happy to give things a go at least once. We travelled with our 11-year-old Kidsetter to United Kingdom and hired a campervan from “Just Go”. The sales assistant was most helpful and could sense our nerves, saying we could take as long as wanted to ask as many questions we needed to.
We hired a 4-berth campervan with a tiny kitchen and bathroom. We are not light travellers so thankfully had plenty of storage for our 3 large suitcases. The driving seats were comfortable and supported your back for long distance driving.
There are a few benefits to travelling in a campervan. We are the type of crazy travellers not staying still in one location for very long, so for us, the campervan gave us the flexibility of not having to pack and re-pack or check in or out to hotels every day or two.
The beds were very comfortable, if you are taller than 6 feet you really would struggle to move about the van and climb up and down out of the beds. 4 people would be a stretch to fit comfortably inside this vehicle.
We quickly decided we were only going to use the bathroom during the night. I attempted to use the exceptionally tiny shower. That was a near miss. Tip: use the showers in the caravan park, much easier to operate.
The downside of campervanning is trying to find somewhere to park the vehicle in towns. Usually you need to park just outside the town and catch a bus to ride into the heart of the city. This would be ok if the parking options weren’t difficult to locate and wasting valuable time.
What I didn’t anticipate was the teachings it offered our Kidsetter. He was able to sit in the front passenger seat and help navigate and keep involved in the experience. He also learnt how to empty a toilet, the grey water, about using the control panel within the van which powers the heating and lighting, take the dishes to the caravan park allocated area to wash up. He learnt how to operate the water pump, fill up the tank with diesel and about the safety of turning the gas on and off.
Campervanning is not something we will do again as we value the time we have in a new location too much but now we know and this experience has been ticked off our Kidsetter’s bucket list.
