The standard of camping & caravaning Nowdays!?

I occasionally go looking at new vans and say that's pretty flash and come back and look over our 30 odd year old Viscount and say to myself why do I need anything else.
One thing I do know is that it can take a bit of rough stuff and has not fallen apart, some thing I would be always worried about with a new flash one.

It's a contradiction in terms isn't it when you see a 24 foot or bigger fully off road caravan that weighs over 3 tonnes and has a full ensuite, washing machine and plasma TV etc..parked in a motor camp!...lol.
We took our small tandem poptop off road van everywhere we could...generally the only company we had was others in camper trailers etc. Saw very few of these behemoths actually doing much hard core off road.

I remember camping beside lake mackenzie on fraser in the seventies with just a army camp bed , a blanket , a fire and basic food because thats all i could afford . Nowdays if someone gave me a bushtracker i would use it , the troopy might have a heart attack though . Horses for courses . cheers .

Well that depends on how long your travelling really
I have been living in a caravan full time for the past year here in the Barossa this week by the way happy anniversery Coreen & Luke
Alot of baby boomers are selling their homes & or buying caravans that they are travelling in for years
I turn 55 early next next year .I am going to access my super and @ this stage in am going to buy a 20foot TRAVELLER offroad van to travel & work in WA over the next 5 years staying in one place for a max of 3 months at a time & only working 3 maybe 4 days a week max & as a chef of some note i wont have any problems finding work anywhere
Living in a caravan on a brief holiday is totally different than living full time for any leangth of time & i assure u being self sufficant & compfy is the best way to go lol
And i assure you the model i am getting has a washing machine & everything a home has except the lawn to mow & garden to weed hahahah
warren aka aussichef

To each, his own!

Gidday

It's the lace curtains that always get me ... do women really want lace curtains in a caravan?

then there was the year I went to the caravan show and all the caravans in one particular range had seats were covered in the same fabric that had been used on the el cheapo sofa that we had just chucked out cos it had lasted about 18 months ...

cheers

Rocco

Ahhh Axle...it is called One-Upmanship!!!

Mine is better than yours...lol

There they are, Mr and Mrs Caravanner. He is wearing shorts and white socks, she is wearing Knickerbockers ( its almost like when you go the livestock auctions or countrey race meetings where the Cockies all wear the same clothes...RMWilliams gear...lol).

They have a brand new 4by towing a brand new caravan with an aircon on the roof and a Sat dish hanging off the back. The Nuveaux Riche have made it on to the road. $150,000 for a rig set-up and they complain about the fuel prices, park in clusters on the side of the road and steal toilet paper from public toilets. Its a sign of the times. They do a couple of trips around the block and after that its down to the beach once a year and soon after the van is on the market.

But maybe I'm just jealous though, being a poor ole pensioner driving a dinosaur 4by and an overloaded bush trailer with all the stuff you don't need in the world. Been there and done that with caravans though, even wore the white socks once or twice!...lol Swore never again!


Cheers

It's pretty hard to buy a new van with bare floor boards and packing crates to sit on, the manufacturers build them nice so they can get the nice dollars, unless you specify what you want when you order one made to measure, I wouldn't bag it unless you have tried it or owned one, we all have our priorities,we also use a Tent now and again, like we did for several years before we could afford Caravans.

Cheers
Daza

I'm with you, Axle. I'm a simple camper, my Jack & C/t wouldnt
make $20 grand but I can go anywhere in Oz I wish in relative
comfort. I dont like feeding the "Depreciation Bug". But if your happy , & able, to spend that sort of loot, good luck to you. Too
restricted on where you can go I reckon. I can understand those who are on the road permanently going that way, but for an
annual holiday its costing the earth. Then again I will never pay
$80k plus for a 4by either. The depreciation on one of those
would pay my holiday fuel bill & expenses......oldbaz.

Until a few weeks ago, we towed a 30 year old Jayco Dove around the country for the last ten years. It was comfortable, and tough as an old boot. One night stops were a bit of a pain in the a**se though. Anyway, SWMBO and I, both being on the wrong of 60, decided we needed to make our travelling life a little easier. So we bought a 20 year old pop top caravan. Didn't cost the earth, will probably do us for ever, and is a piece of p*** to put up. Youngest son also inherited the Dove. Image Could Not Be FoundEvery body is happy. Cheers.

Roger B............

Lol, yes my Father In Law is currently in the market for a van tha's he is going to live in. He is also going to have a tray on style camper on his new Hilux ute for trips.

We lived in a cheap 16ft van when we first started our life together. We eventually rented a house and then brought a camper trailer. When kids came along came a better camper trailer, and now for various reasons we're back to tents. I guess we'll be tenting it for a while but eventually comfort may call again, and I"m thinking we'll be in the caravan market (or a cross between camper trailer and van).

I do agree though, all that flash stuff turns me off, makes me want to forget about it and just go back to the basics. One reason we sold our camper trailer is that we couldn't bear it sitting here for a year and not being used (we're living rural and building a hosue so can't afford but don't really have the need to "get away from it all" anyway).

But I digress. I remember in Broken Hill we were camping in a caravan park (in our camper trailer) and next to us were said Caravaners, they showed us inside their van with real pride. I say good on them. And I agree, you shouldn't knock it because it could be you one day, ideas and things do change that's for sure.