Now camping or caravanning is either something you love or hate. I don't think there is anything in the middle. And as you can probably guess, I love it, caravvanning as opposed to camping which I haven't tried since i was a child but I do have fond memories.
Hubby and I made a conscious decision a few years ago that we would not take foreign family holidays but would instead have any holidays in the UK. Firstly we bought ourselves a cheap little two berth caravan that took me a whole weekend to clean to see if the lifestyle suited us. Our first mini break was in two nights in November in the New Forest (only up the road for us). Our middle boy was only 2months at the time and slept between us in his carrycot in the big king size bed that you had to make up each night. It was snowing outside so the heating was tested to it's limits. It was so cosy inside and we played board games, drank red wine and ate chocolate in the evenings. Bliss! We were pretty much hooked after that and did the little caravan up with new carpet and curtains and sold it on for twice what we'd payed!
Taking into account the money would save by not going abroad again we decided to really go for it and buy a brand new four berth van which was a real luxury.
A few years after that and with another baby and all the accompanying paraphinalea we went for a six berth which we have now.
We go away for regular weekends from March to October and usually have a week away somewhere further afeild at Easter and in August so we get our monies worth.
We manage to go away cheaply by going to the camping and caravanning club ralleys most of the time.
the weather has been so fab this year we can't understand why people would want to go to all the hassle of taking the kids abroad.
