Likewise, when you arrive at your campsite it is important to find a good pitch – one that’s right for you. All pitches are different and one person’s preference is another’s nightmare. And some pitches are just bad for everyone and should be avoided!

Departure Checklist

Motorhomes are designed to be self-contained, but what about when you want to sit outside your motorhome?

Consider taking:

• Folding table and deckchairs
• Insect repellent candle
• Picnic rug
• Sunglasses
• Travel mugs
• Portable / disposable barbeque

At the Campsite

You’ve made it to your first campsite and you are ready to find a pitch. What do you look for?

• Do you want to be near the toilet block – they can be noisy (if you aren’t planning to use it much, why be near it?)
• Are you about to park under a tree that drops sap – avoid this, cleaning it off is a nightmare and your hire company might penalise you if you don’t
• Is the pitch you are looking at level – if not can it be levelled with levelling wedges?
• If you don’t have levelling wedges, find the flattest pitch possible – cooking and sleeping on a slope is a pain
• Do you need electric hookup – make sure you chosen pitch has it. Many campsites have both electric and non-electric pitches (expect to pay extra for electric hookup)

Keep these things in mind and you should be set for a fantastic motorhome holiday. Happy travels.

Getting lost in a larger vehicle is much more stressful and awkward than in a car – places where you can turn a car around easily magically shrink when you try to do the same with a family-sized motorhome…

Using a sat nav will also help you work out the time required and distance along unfamiliar routes and will enable you to specify preferences for toll motorways and so on.

It is important to be a little careful, however, especially if you usually use a sat nav in a car. The reason for this is simple – size. If you are driving a coachbuilt, 4-berth motorhome – typical for a family holiday – your vehicle will not only be longer than you are used to but it will be higher and wider.

This will mean that routes that would be passable in a car are impassable in your motorhome. In particular, 6′ 6″ width restrictions – common in the UK – and very low bridges will be out of bounds. Even some panel van conversions won’t fit through 6′ 6″ gaps – so don’t try. We’ve all seen news stories about lorry drivers following their sat nav directions into small villages and getting stuck – the same thing can happen with motorhomes.

The lesson here is that it’s vital to know the dimensions of your motorhome – height, width and length. In Europe you’ll need to know these figures in metres, in the UK you might want to know the feet and inch versions, too.

Sheikh Mejren Mohammed al Shaikh has founded the first RV park in the Middle East. Called “Relax RV Camping and Resort”, it is aimed at Emiratis who wish to experience the beauty and serenity of the desert and to relax completely – away from raucous modern entertainment.

Guided tours into the desert will be available, as will overnight stays in remote spots. Each RV emplacement comes fully-equipped with an air-conditioned American Coachman RV, imported by the Sheikh, together with a palm-leaf hut, sitting area and barbeque.

One night’s accomodation will cost from $250 – $1,000 and the park is due to open in the next few weeks. To find out more, take a look at this article in the The National, a UAE newspaper.

The company, which operates a fleet of twelve Volkswagen California and Bilbo Celex campervans, has attributes some of the increase to the weak pound – which has made booking a UK holiday cheaper for European and American visitors. At the same time, UK holidaymakers are more likely to stay in the UK for their holidays as the pound’s weakness makes going abroad more expensive.

Kamper Hire founder Mark Daysh says that “With the US dollar stronger than it has been for several years, we’re taking a lot of bookings from Americans. Many of them take big road trips all over the UK, often checking out family history and connections and meeting relatives. The US visitors tend to hire for longer periods – between two and four weeks – so the current exchange rates are great news for us. We even had one American who hired a ‘California’ for 84 days.”

Kamper Hire’s decision to use high quality VW T5s conversions only means that customers are guaranteed a comfortable, well-equipped and easy to drive campervan – and the compact size of these vehicles means that they aren’t difficult to drive for anyone only used to driving cars. Rental rates start at £60 per day and Kamper’s vans can be taken across the channel and into most European countries, although there is a surcharge for European use.

Anyone worried about the environmental consequences of their holiday plans need not worry, either. Kamper Hire has teamed up with carbon offsetting organisation Climate Care to offset the CO2 emissions from their rental vehicles.

As Daysh says, “We’re keen to do our bit to minimise the impact of our business on the environment, and with this new initiative we can make our holidays a pleasurable – and guilt-free – experience for our customers.”

For anyone who would like to be able to travel around freely and enjoy the sites without being tied to a fixed location each night, a motorhome is the perfect choice – as this couple found out recently.

Motorhome hire in the UK is readily available nationwide – so you probably won’t have to travel far to pick up your motorhome or campervan.

If you’re attracted to the idea but a little intimidated by the thought of driving a motorhome or working out how everything works, don’t be.

Our beginner’s guide to motorhoming covers all the bases and motorhomes aren’t really that difficult to get the hang of for anyone. After all, most can be driven on a normal car driving licence without any extra training.

Give it a try this year – it may never be more affordable than it is at the moment, and more and more people are discovering just how much fun hiring a motorhome is all the time.

It seems that the freedom of motorhome holidays – coupled with the high level of creature comforts available in modern motorhomes – is attracting more and more people. Of course, there is a downside to motorhomes – they are very expensive to buy.

One solution to this is to try hiring a motorhome before you commit to buying one – or even just hire one each time you go on holiday and never have the hassle or cost of owning your own. This approach can be extremely cost effective – hire rates compare favourably to the cost of buying, maintaining and insuring a motorhome.

The other advantage of hiring is that you are likely to always get a fairly new model and can try different types and sizes of motorhome each time you go away. It’s a great way to ‘try before you buy’ – as layouts and facilties can vary widely between different motorhomes.

If you haven’t tried motorhoming before but enjoy travelling by road and like the idea of being comfortable and having everything you need at hand – wherever you are – why not consider hiring a motorhome for your next holiday?

As your blog writer, I look forward to bringing you more motorhome news and information in 2008 and thank you for your interest and support in 2007.

If any of your are hitting the road in a hired motorhome this holiday season, drive carefully and have a great time.

Best wishes,

The motorhomeplanet.co.uk team

That’s certainly true with motorhome hire – all of the motorhomes available for hire through our site are fairly new and well specified.

A few UK companies have decided to buck the trend, however – and offer classic VW campervans for hire instead! Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool, as automotive blog Ridestory explains:

“Marketers love the power of nostalgia and the power it carries with consumers. Recreating an experience by evoking memories is just what these two companies are taking advantage of.”

One of the two companies mentioned is O’Connors, who offer fully-refurbished 60s and70s Volkswagen campers for hire from their Okehampton, Devon base. Their fleet includes at least one geniune split screen model and are all fully converted motorhomes, with awnings available to expand the sleeping accomodation.

The funny thing about Volkswagen campervans is that they are still being made today – in Brazil. They make excellent low-cost vans and minibuses for the South American market and are now being imported to the UK for nostalgia-hungry buyers.

Seven Degrees West have capitalised on this trend and rather than offering refurbished old ‘vans for hire, have a fleet of four new (Brazil built) VW campers. Also based in south-west England (Bristol), Seven Degrees’ vans have been customised – with alloys, lowered suspension and various other surfer-style bling. The company boasts that they offer “today’s reliability with fabulous traditional retro looks”.

If you’re worried about the reliability of a true classic but love the style of these old vans, Seven Degrees’ service could be the answer.

If you’d rather stick with today’s motorhomes, you can get an instant motorhome hire quote from our rental partners here.

When mainstream newspapers start covering a subject, it’s usually a good indicator that it is becoming popular and mainstream. I certainly believe this is true with motorhome rental, which offers a much more affordable and headache-free alternative to owning your own campervan or motorhome.

Both the articles provide a genuine beginner’s account of holidaying by motorhome – and they both show that there really is nothing to worry about, even if you haven’t done it before.

Check out the links below and see what you think.

The Maidenhead Advertiser has a story about a weekend motorhome break in rainy England here.

For a more European flavour, The Times recently carried the tale of a fly-drive holiday, with the holidaymakers renting a motorhome in France.

You can rent motorhomes online for use in the UK and throughout Europe through our motorhome booking engine – and it was good to see that one of the websites recommended by the times (worldwide-motorhomes.com) actually books their rental motorhomes through the same rental broker we use – one of the biggest in the business.