Motorhomes aren’t cheap – even old ones – with positively geriatric models starting at around £5,000 and most new models costing at least £30,000. For most motorhome owners, it is the second-most expensive purchase they will ever make.

To help first-time buyers negotiate the hurdles of buying their first motorhome, Motorhome magazine MMM (Motorhome & Motorcaravan Monthly) has published a new guide, Buying Your First Motorhome.

It is aimed at helping first-time buyers to find the right motorhome for their requirements, first time. To that end, it covers a wide range of topics in a step-by-step format, aimed at helping you identify the right type of layout, base vehicle, size, age and dealer – as well as providing an explanation of finance options.

Given that typical British motorhome buyers will spend between £30,000 and £50,000 on a motorhome, spending £4.99 on this guide could be money well spent for motorhomers who are inexperienced or unsure of what the market is currently offering.

The guide also includes a current model guide listing over 900 models, together with a directory of 174 UK motorhome dealers. Insurance and breakdown cover are also covered, as are driving licence requirments for motorhomes over 3.5 tonnes.

Buying Your First Motorhome is available for £4.99 in WH Smith or for £3.49 to subscribers of MMM, Which Motorhome, Caravan and Which Caravan magazines. A digital version is also available from www.pocketmags.com.

Visit www.your-first-motorhome.co.uk for more details.

Bedford Camper Vans and Motorhomes

Forty years ago, Bedford was a respected name in commercial vehicles; the Vauxhall-owned brand was once the favoured choice of the British Army and its HA, CA and CF vans were as ubiquitous as Ford Transits are today, maintaining a strong position in the UK market from the 1950s through to the late 1970s.

Bedford had corresponding success as a base vehicle manufacturer for camper vans and motorhomes. Its van models were used both for panel van conversions and in chassis cab form as the basis for coachbuilt motorhomes, which became increasingly popular in the 1970s.

In Bedford Camper Vans and Motorhomes, Martin Watt tells the story of  Bedford vans and the conversions they were used in. Long-since defunct names like Dormobile and Canterbury are featured, along with converters like Murvi and Auto-Sleeper that are still in business today.

The book is packed with 200 pictures, most of which are in colour and many of which picture in detail the interiors of these classic campers.

As I mentioned in my review of Watts’ book on Dormobiles, many of the conversions pictures show layouts that are still in use today – unlike, say, tent design, relatively little seems to have changed in the motorhome world over the last 40 years.

The book concludes with a look at Bedford and Vauxhall vans of a more recent vintage. Neither the Bedford Midi nor the Bedford Rascal were conspicuous successes, but both made niche inroads into the camper van world. Conversely, the Vauxhall Vivaro van has been a massive success as a van, but has not been used much as a motorhome base vehicle -probably because it lacks the buyer appeal of the VW Transporter, which is nearly identical in size.

Bedford Camper Vans and Motorhomes is another excellent book from Martin Watts and should make a very enjoyable read for anyone interested in Bedfords and classic campers.

Buy Bedford Camper Vans and Motorhomes: The Inside Story direct from the publisher or on Amazon

Book Information

ISBN: 978-1847971579
Publisher: The Crowood Press
Published: February 2010
Pages: 160
Binding: Hardback
Size: 296×210 mm
Inside: 200 colour photographs

What this highlights (apart from my ignorance) is that Dormobile’s success was so great that it became a generic name for camper vans – even though the only genuine Dormobiles were those from Martin Walter’s Dormobile factory. Martin Watts is an expert on classic British motorhomes and Classic Dormobile Camper Vans is an astonishing reference resource for anyone interested in Dormobile camper vans.

Its 128 pages are sandwiched between hardback covers and contain 317 colour and black and white photos, plus a massive amount of detail on all the main Dormobile models and base vehicles. The level of detail and the number of authentic pictures used are all the more impressive considering the age of some of the models being covered and the fact that most of the Dormobile company’s records have been lost over the years.

Note: The original Dormobile company closed down in 1994 but was purchased in 1997 and subsequently resurrected into a parts supply business for original Dormobiles. It is also possible to buy a complete, new Land Rover Dormobile conversion for current model Land Rover Defenders, should you wish. Visit the Dormobile website for more information and price lists.

Classic Dormobile Camper Vans reveals just how successful and innovative Martin Walter’s Dormobile designs of the 50s, 60s and 70s were – most of the layouts remain in use in today’s panel van conversions with very little change, although the popularity of roof beds seems to have diminished – strange, considering that many smaller vans only get used from spring to autumn.

Classic Dormobile Camper Vans must surely be the definitive guide to the work of the Dormobile company – recommended.

Buy Classic Dormobile Camper Vans direct from the publisher or on Amazon

ISBN: 978-1847970831
Published: April 2009
Publisher: The Crowood Press
Pages: 128
Binding: Hardback
Size: 296×210 mm
Inside: 317 colour and black & white photographs
RRP: £19.95

Campervan Crazy

The purpose of this book is potentially much more serious, more vital; to capture the particular variety of madness that makes people want to live in a tin can for weeks or months on end and make difficult journeys to far-flung corners of the world.

For me, that’s what motorhome travel is all about – travels where the journey is at least as important as the destination and creates magical, indelible memories that stay with you once you are home again.

The book starts with a very brief introduction to Volkswagen campers before getting to the meat of the matter; personal tales of bus-powered journeys all over the world. The first story is that of David and Cees’ 1978 journey to India in their 1967 Canterbury Pitt conversion. Their route took them across Europe and into the former Yugoslavia, down to Greece and then through Turkey and into Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally into India.

The events of the last decade have made the idea of western tourists visiting Afghanistan seem far-fetched at best, but in the 1960s and 70s it was an entirely feasible thing to do. The Eccles’ photos of Afghanistan reveal just why it was worth the journey; the scenery of Band-i-Amir puts a shadow over most of what Europe has to offer, and few westerners realise just how rich in cultural and social history this ancient country is.

If I was to criticise this book, it would be to say that after reading the story of David and Cees’ journey, the rest of Campervan Crazy struggles to top this (although the epic journey of the Zebra Bus from South Africa to Europe comes very close). However, there are plenty of other great travel tales, plus fantastic pictures of interesting buses and information about the bus scene in the UK.

If you are into custom buses and the VW scene, this book covers these areas too, with knowledge and enthusiasm. This book could only have been written about VWs – but at the same time anyone who loves campervans will enjoy it, even if they aren’t VW fans.

Buy Campervan Crazy direct from the publisher or on Amazon

Book Info

Title: Campervan Crazy
Authors: David and Cee Eccles
ISBN: 978-1856266529
Format: Hardback
Size: 240 x 250 x 19mm
Pages: 176
RRP: £16.99

TV chef Phil Vickery is clearly passionate about food cooked outdoors and the recipes in this book are far from ordinary, despite being relatively simple to cook. The Great Outdoors Cookbook is divided into sections based on how the food is cooked, rather than what type of food it is.

The result is section headings such as ‘Barbecues On The Go’, ‘Feast On 1 or 2 Rings’ (particularly good for campervans) and ‘Cooking On A Wood Fire’. Vickery also covers Dutch oven cooking, picnics and food that can be put in a flask and kept hot for later.

Phil Vickery makes no secret of the fact that advance preparation is the key to successful outdoor cooking and emphasises this point throughout the book, even though he admits that this isn’t always convenient – especially if you are camping. I’d also add that there are a decreasing number of campsites (or other places) where open fires are allowed. The recipes in this book are hugely varied in style, complexity and cooking duration and there is almost certainly something for everyone.

He also suggests ways in which you can get more mileage from your barbecues – such as cooking desserts over the embers while you are eating your main course. Here are a few examples of the 150+ recipes on offer:

• Simple Brined Chops with Bacon and Chicory Salad – definitely motorhome do-able
• Soupy Spicy Lamb Meatballs with Gnocchi and Shiitake Mushrooms
• Simple Grain Salad with Dried Meats, Fruit and Pine Nuts
• Hamburger Hash with Fresh Sweetcorn and Pickled Cabbage
• Warm Golden Syrup Muffin Cake with Strawberries
• Grilled Thai Prawns

The list is endless and also includes some American-style smoked barbecue dishes. These take several hours and Vickery recommends using a gas barbecue with a smoker  – probably not motorhome fare but terrific at home.

The book is lavishly illustrated and the recipes do not generally require any obscure or exotic ingredients. Many of them will also lend themselves well to adaptation and provide inspiration for cooking your own favourites in new ways.

Buy The Great Outdoors Cookbook on direct from the publisher or on Amazon.

Book Info:

Title: The Great Outdoors Cookbook
Author: Phil Vickery
ISBN-10: 1856269191
ISBN-13: 9781856269193
Format: Paperback
Size: 250 x 210mm
Pages: 192
Price: £18.99 (RRP)

In addition, we found that there was not a great choice of road maps for Norway on sale in the UK – we usually buy a Michelin or AA road atlas for European countries but found these were non-existent for Norway.

We ended up with three maps:

• Michelin Norway 1:1,250,000 ( map 752)
• Michelin Scandinavia & Finland 1:1,500,00 ( map 711)
• Freytag & Berndt Norway Supertouring road atlas (1:400,000).

Michelin Norway 1:1,250,000 (752) – Buy on Amazon

This map is number 752 in Michelin’s National series – the red ones. It’s a folding map at 1 inch:19.7 miles (12.5km) scale.

We used this for route planning before we left and during the trip and, occasionally, to provide a ‘second opinion’ when navigating. It was a good map for route planning and general driving, but as you would expect with this scale, it lacked some of the detail needed for detailed navigation of minor roads. The ‘city maps’ are not really that useful – they simply show the major roads through the cities in question. They’re enough to allow you to drive through a city without stopping, but not to help you navigate within it.

Overall, this map was exactly what you would expect – clear, easy to read and accurate, with a useful table of driving distances and times. At around a fiver to buy, it’s not bad value either.

Michelin Scandinavia & Finland 1:1,500,000 (711) – Buy on Amazon

Both of the Michelin maps we used were review samples, provided for us by Michelin UK. This map covers Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark and with a scale of 1 inch: 23.67 miles, it is (obviously) not designed for detailed navigation on minor roads. It claims to include city maps for six major cities, but again these are very basic, and would only be any use if you just needed to drive straight through the cities in question.

However, this map is well suited for route planning and long-distance journeys on major roads. That’s how we used it – primarily in Denmark. Like Michelin Norway, this map has a useful table of driving distances and times and is easy to read.

Freytag & Berndt Norway Supertouring (1:400,000) – Buy on Amazon

We bought this road atlas with the intention of using it as our main navigational map. Unfortunately, we were a little disappointed. Even when planning our trip before we left, we began to discover that the maps in this book were not as detailed as we had hoped for. Google Maps became our friend as we worked out the best route around Norway and tried to locate places listed in our guidebooks.

This impression was confirmed when we started driving in Norway – minor locations were often completely missing and the roadside viewpoints marked on the maps became a running joke – they almost never existed.

Producing a road atlas for a large country with few roads must be quite difficult. In order to get high levels of detail, you will also end up with lots of nearly empty pages. However, Norway Supertouring was disappointing. Had we not had the Michelin map to cross reference with and taken the precaution of printing off various detailed local maps and of acquiring several (good) regional maps from Norwegian tourist offices, we would have found some places quite hard to find.

Recommended Maps For Norway

Our experience with the maps we took was that none were quite as good as we hoped for detailed rural navigation. We filled in the gaps in our maps by using a combination of local maps obtained from tourist information offices and maps we printed off from the internet before we left home.

This worked well enough for us, but if you would like really detailed coverage from a single set of maps, then there only seem to be two good options:

Satellite navigation: A sat nav with good European mapping might work – we saw many people using them, but check the level of detail for Scandinavia – it’s often less than for Western Europe.

A set of regional maps of Norway: Freytag & Berndt does a set of 4 maps that cover the whole of Norway, while Cappelen (a Norwegian company) does a set of 5 maps that cover the whole country). County-level maps are also available for even more detail.

Regional maps of Norway don’t seem to be readily available on Amazon or the high street, but they can be bought from specialist map suppliers like Stanfords and The Map Shop.

However, before our recent trip to Norway, we received a copy of The Rough Guide to Norway to review. We both had a browse through it before we left for the trip and immediately took a liking to it, finding it more readable than Lonely Planet Norway.

As you would expect, the two books cover a very similar range of topics, but it is presented quite differently. Having used both guides extensively throughout the trip, we came to really like The Rough Guide to Norway and favoured it over Lonely Planet Norway for several reasons:

The Rough Guide to Norway – Pros:

• Text is laid out in full-width pages, rather than columns – we found it easier to read and more logically ordered than Lonely Planet’s fragmented two column layout
• More accurate and realistic descriptions of most of the places we visited – a definite benefit compared to the sometimes over-hyped descriptions found in Lonely Planet
• Better suited to people travelling in their own vehicle – more consideration given to interesting routes and roads
• Rough Guide appeared to place more emphasis on scenery, wildlife and driving, with less on food, restaurants, hotels and cities. This matches our preferences.

The Rough Guide to Norway – Cons:

• Lonely Planet Norway’s town and city maps are definitely better for drivers and those who walk in from the outskirts (like many motorhomers). They are more detailed and cover a wider area than those in The Rough Guide, which were not very useful.
• Lonely Planet has just published a new edition (May 2011) of its Norway guide. The current Rough Guide to Norway was published in June 2009 (5th edition), so might be due for updating soon.

Buy The Rough Guide to Norway direct from Rough Guide or on Amazon

Book Information
Title: The Rough Guide to Norway (RRP £13.99)
ISBN: 978-1-848360273
Publisher: Rough Guides
Author: Phil Lee

All the Aires Benelux & Scandinavia

We recently returned from a (fantastic) month-long trip to Norway, during which we travelled the length of Norway and spent every single night wild camping or parking in designated parking areas, normally for free.

One of the books we took with us was All The Aires Benelux and Scandinavia (published by Vicarious Books). We had high hopes that this book would prove very useful, based on our experience of using All The Aires France and All The Aires Spain and Portgual.

However, All The Aires Benelux and Scandinavia proved very disappointing.

We only used this guide in Norway, so these comments apply primarily to the Norway section of the book.

There were a number of problems with the Norwegian section of this book, which I’ve summarised below.

Incomplete

This book is so incomplete as to be irrelevant.

Motorhome service points are plentiful throughout Norway and are almost always clearly signposted and often free. Only a small minority are listed in this book. In most cases, going off your route to find one of the service points listed in this book is a waste of time – you will come across plenty along your way. Just plan ahead a little and don’t cut it too fine.

Similarly, with overnight parking – overnight motorhome parking is largely unrestricted in Norway and in most cases the sites listed in this book are no better or worse than all the other ones that aren’t listed, especially if you are looking for free sites. One exception was the motorhome parking in Ålesund, which was fantastic (and expensive). However, this is clearly signposted as you drive into Ålesund, again rendering the book unnecessary.

Out Of Date

The current edition (as of June 2011) of All The Aires Benelux and Scandinavia was published in 2009. Naturally, the research was done before this date and many of the Scandinavian locations were never visited – simply ‘contacted’, in some cases as long ago as 2007.

On the occasions we did try to find a location listed in the Norway section of this guide, we usually found that it had changed, become more expensive or disappeared. The directions were not always as good as usual, either.

Although it is only natural that facilities and costs will change with time, the fact that many of the Scandinavian locations in this book have not been visited and inspected really lowers the quality of the information compared to other Vicarious guides we have used.

MotorhomePlanet.co.uk Says:

We have previously been big fans of Vicarious Books’ All The Aires… guides and have used them with great success in France, Spain and Portugal.

However, trying to use this book in Norway led us to conclude that Vicarious has been trying to cash in on the (deserved) success of its earlier guides. The Norway section of this book (and I suspect, those for Finland and Sweden) are poorly researched, incomplete and often out of date.

According to Vicarious, all of the locations featured in the Benelux section of the book were inspected before it was published – so this section of the book may be of more use. However, for use in Norway and probably the rest of Scandinavia, I would not recommend this book.

My Cool Campervan

This book is definitely not just another collection of classic VWs. Although a few (worthy) examples of classic VW campers are included, My Cool Campervan is all about unearthing the best, most unusual and most diverse examples of the genre, and its scope is surprisingly wide.

For example, have you ever seen an early 1990s Skoda campervan? What about a one-off 1960s car-based Ginetta model? In total, 32 vintage campervans are pictured and described by their owners. A surprising number are British but the book also includes some European models, an Australian self-build and five classic American models, such as the ahead-of-its-time GMC Motorhome. Only one current model slips in, the demountable Tonke Camper, which qualifies by virtue of its novelty and its beautiful, traditional wooden construction, despite being brand new.

Like its predecessor, My Cool Campervan is beautifully photographed and attractively presented in hardback, making it an ideal coffee table book. I enjoyed it and was pleased by the genuine diversity the authors have managed to find. This is an enjoyable book that will be a good read for anyone who likes the campervan lifestyle and admires the ingenuity that goes into the design and construction of these treasured vehicles.

Buy My Cool Campervan on Amazon

Book Information:

Title: My Cool Campervan
Authors: Jane Field-Lewis & Chris Haddon
ISBN: 978-1862059054
Publisher: Pavilion

The Close-Up Trucker’s Atlas includes details of low bridge heights, weak bridges and width restrictions throughout Britain, including 3,800 low bridge heights and 1,700 narrow or weak bridges.

Although height, width and weight restrictions most commonly affect lorries and buses, there are plenty of roads and bridges in the UK which are not suitable for motorhomes or caravans either – hence the subject of this review.

Fixed speed camera locations are also included (although these are subject to change), as are a list of truck stops and an 11-page street map of Central London. No other town plans are included, but the main maps are much more detailed than usual, so this does compensate to some extent for the lack of town plans. Instead of lots of detail for a few towns and none for others, this atlas gives you a moderate level of detail for all towns.

In Use: AA Close-Up Trucker’s Atlas Britain

This atlas is certainly the most detailed road map of Britain that I have used, and the mapping is clear and easy to follow. The atlas is wire-bound, A3-sized and with more than 300 pages, is quite large and heavy. A surprising number of width and height restrictions are sufficiently low to affect many motorhomes, as are some of the 3 tonne weight restrictions which are sprinkled randomly around the UK. Size restrictions are specified in feet and inches, as they are on road signs, but almost every page includes a metric-imperial conversion table for ease of use.

Given that most motorhomes are 7′ – 8′ wide (including mirrors) and 8′ – 10′ high plus roof boxes, satellite dishes and so on, a map like this can be a real help for motorhome owners, especially if you like to get off the beaten track and explore more minor routes.

What Are The Alternatives?

Anyone considering buying this book might also want to consider the Philip’s Navigator Trucker’s Atlas Britain 2011. This offers mapping on the same scale but also includes 100 town plans and has campsite and tourist information locations marked on the maps, something missing from the Close-Up Trucker’s Atlas.

For anyone with a smaller motorhome who really doesn’t want this kind of detail and would prefer an A4-sized atlas, the AA also publishes the Close-Up Atlas Britain, which comes in A4 format (752 pages) and is aimed at car drivers and leisure travellers. This atlas has the same 1.5 miles to 1 inch scale but omits height, width and weight restrictions. Instead, these are replaced with 55 town plans and the locations of 2,000 AA recommended pubs, camp sites and golf courses. Cycle routes and leisure attractions are also shown.

Buy AA Close-Up Trucker’s Atlas Britain Direct From The AA & SAVE 10% (or buy on Amazon)

We are able to offer MotorhomePlanet.co.uk visitors a 10% discount on all purchases* from the AA Shop plus free postage for orders over £15:

Website: theAA.com/shop

Discount code: SIMPLEMOTOR

Code valid until 30th August 2011

*Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, or with Mobility Scooters. Offer can be withdrawn or varied at anytime without prior notice.