Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 i Campervan

For the second year running, the coveted overall campervan of the year title goes to a surprise victor. It’s a model that we’d not clapped eyes on prior to the NEC show, but never has a debutante been so worthy of an award first time out. Take a bow, the Grande Adventure 600-4 from CJL Leisure. WHAT THE JUDGES SAID It’s the attention to detail that’s mindblowing in the Grande Adventure, everything from the anti-rattle cutlery and crockery to the 460Ah of lithium leisure batteries and 3kW inverter. Peter Vaughan Head of the judging panel What Motorhome Editor As soon as I set eyes on the Grande Adventure I knew it was special – and on closer inspection, it turned out to be absolutely exceptional. So much thought has gone…

For the second year in a row, this prestigious award, voted for by you – readers and campervanners – has been won by CamperKing. This is the only campervan award not judged by our editorial team, and the emphasis here is on customer service and aftercare as well as the quality of the vehicle. CamperKing is one of the biggest campervan converters in the UK, producing up to 35 Volkswagen Transporters a week. That’s a lot of ’vans, with the potential for lots to go wrong, so it says much about the company that so many people chose to give it their vote, two years in a row. CamperKing is not a name you’ll have seen at the major motorhome shows but it reckons it builds more camper conversions on…

Over 260,000 California campervans have been sold over a 35-year period, making it the world’s most successful campervan. Sales of the current T6.1 generation show no signs of abating but regulations will soon bring an end to production of the Transporter in this form, so Volkswagen has had to develop a new model. Many expected it to be a copy and paste conversion of the new panel van to be launched in 2024, which is a joint development with Ford. Who would have blamed VW for not messing with what is clearly a winning formula? It must have taken big balls to redesign such a successful product to such a degree but the California Concept was the talk of this year’s Caravan Salon Düsseldorf, where it made its world première.…

Trewan Hall is a seventeenth century manor house located on the north coast between Newquay and Padstow. The coast is only four miles away, where there are sandy beaches and cliff walks. St Columb is a short walking distance away with shops and pubs. Pitches are not allocated, allowing for plenty of open space, and there are 36 acres of woods and grounds to explore. Electric is available and facilities include an outdoor swimming pool (high season only), toilets and showers, shop, launderette, games room, play area, and entertainment in high season. Trewan Hall’s grounds offer lots of open space for a gentle stroll or to simply relax and enjoy your holiday. We met up the family owners and asked them to tell us a little more about the site.…

Leading UK camping equipment company, Vango, has unveiled its latest range of driveaway awnings for campervans. The innovative new Eco Pro range was revealed to the public at the Motorhome and Caravan Show at the NEC. Eco Pro awnings are made from Vango’s Sentinel Eco fabric – using recycled single-use plastics with 420 double ripstop threads and a 6,000mm hydrostatic head. The awnings also feature ColourLok technology, designed to reduce colour fading caused by harsh UV rays. Other key features include AirBeam technology, ventilation panels, easy-access doors, roll-away connecting tunnels and Diamond Pro windows. The Kela Pro is the most compact model in the collection, making it a great choice for those looking for some additional storage space or a cosy area to socialise. A bedroom can also be connected,…

• Packing cubes so I can fit as many clothes as possible into my cupboard • My kindle with an assortment of books • A kettle and a lifetime supply of Yorkshire tea bags • Tinted face SPF and a little pot of Vaseline lip gloss • My yoga mat – there is no better feeling then a morning yoga flow on a beach • My Swiss Army knife for opening things, especially wine bottles • A good pair of flips flops. I never took them off my feet! • A boonie hat to protect from the sun and to cover those bad hair days • Samsung tablet for entertainment: magazines, books, films and streaming the football • A Nalgene water bottle for constant hydration…

ON MY WISH LIST YETI TUNDRA COOLER There are coolers and there are coolers but there is only one cooler that is truly cool, and that’s the Yeti Tundra. Much beloved of social media influencers, this is the coolbox that everyone aspires to own. Needless to say, I don’t own one and, with prices ranging from £250 to an eye-watering £1,300, I almost certainly won’t ever buy one. But for some reason, even though I own two perfectly useful camping coolboxes already, I would really like one. I suppose I would just like to be the cool kid for once, and if that means owning a big, chunky coolbox that I can fill with cold beers, take to photogenic beaches and snap for my Instagram account, then so be it.…

Sitting between a mountain range and the sea, Barmouth, in west Wales, is an absolutely stunning place to visit. From its old town to the harbour, there is so much to explore. Barmouth’s beach bustles with water sports, walking and cycling trails, as well as plenty of places to grab a bite to eat, drink and shop. In addition to the usual seaside amusements, like arcades, fish and chip shops and rides, it is filled with history to investigate, with links to the shipping and slate industries and plenty of museums. Included in the spectacular views in this area is the beautiful Cardigan Bay, with its clear waters, intriguing rock pools and exciting wildlife; there is plenty to take in. It has something for everyone. EXPLORE SNOWDONIA NATIONAL PARK Snowdonia…

Ecowagon is virtually in a class of its own when it comes to VW campervans. It offers a full line-up of models but most of its builds are the top-of-the-range Expo+. Once you’ve seen one, you wouldn’t want anything less! There are no surprises with the layout – a rear bench/bed and side kitchen – but why would you mess with what works best in a Volkswagen Transporter? Where the Expo+ excels is in its build quality and spec. There are certainly cheaper pop-tops than Reimo’s Easy Fit, but German roofs are considered to be the best and Ecowagon mates this to its own roof bed with Froli springs and a sliding panel to hide the canvas above the cab. The seat system, meanwhile, is borrowed from Volkswagen’s own camper,…

Fixed bed campervans based on the Fiat/Peugeot van are available from a bewildering number of brands and, in layout at least, they all look much of a muchness. So, here’s a category where you, perhaps, need some guidance more than any other, and the models on this page should definitely be on your shortlist. The Summit Shine is the latest range from a German brand that builds only campervans. It has a reputation for excellent build quality and, with this newcomer, it has also introduced some interesting innovations. There are larger Summit Shines, based on the six-metre and 6.36m vans, but it’s the smallest model in the line-up, the 540, that gets our vote. Not only is it usefully more compact and more manoeuvrable but it has fewer direct rivals.…

This is Bailey’s long-awaited, first-ever campervan. It adopts the classic, and perenially popular, two-berth, rear lounge layout to appeal to a mass-market audience. But, while almost every mainstream rival is based on a Sevel van (Fiat Ducato or Peugeot Boxer), the Endeavour is based on a Ford Transit. That gives it the advantage of a smoother, more comfortable ride and a better, more car-like, driving position. This isn’t just any Transit, but the tallest (H3) version, chosen to give excellent interior headroom of almost 2m as well as a raised floor that ensures a step-free walk-through from the cab to the back doors. The 155bhp engine, automatic transmission and 12in touchscreen are all standard equipment, and the Endeavour comes with alloy wheels and metallic paint. Another feature is the overcab…

Over the past few years we have loved exploring far and wide in our campervan, from Shetland to San Sebastian, Malin to Mizen. With just a few weeks to go until our next big foreign adventure, we thought it was time we revisited our local patch, the beautiful Causeway Coast in Northern Ireland. We moved from Cambridge to Portrush, Northern Ireland, in 2016, and spent that first year enthusiastically exploring our local area. Everything was new and exciting, a mere 15 miles from home felt like a true adventure. Over time, however, familiarity can lead us to think that our local area is not worth exploring, pointing our compass to far-flung destinations instead. Once in a while, though, it can be a good thing to remind ourselves of the benefits…

The 2023 Motorhome & Caravan Show saw record-breaking visitor numbers. Organisers said 106,131 visitors flocked to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham over six daysin October – suggesting interest in the leisure vehicle lifestyle shows no sign of slowing down. Manufacturers are also said to have recorded strong sales at the record-breaking event, which ended with sell-out weekend. The industry’s leading manufacturers and dealers took part – with some brands using the show as a platform to launch completely new model ranges to the UK public as well as innovative concept vehicles. Among the celebrities taking part in Q&A sessions were Joe Swash, Jenny Powell, Josie Gibson, Kwoklyn Wan, Jeff Brazier, Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) and his wife, Nancy Sorrell. Ask the Expert sessions offered practical and technical advice…

ENJOY ALL OF THIS WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE: The BEST campervan road trips The BEST new campervans Live your BEST vanlife SAVE up to £120 on Warners Shows each year SUBSCRIBE NOW! BEST OFFER £10.99 quarterly direct debit – SAVE £27.92 a year 6 issues £22.99 or 12 issues £44.99 motorhome.ma/cpvndec23 Call 01778 392019 quoting CPVN/DEC23 Offer is open to UK residents and close on 24 December 2023. Gift subscriptions will begin with the February 2024 issue, published on 18 January.…

HI The winter season is truly upon us now and, for some, that means hanging up your campervan keys. But it shouldn’t, and let me tell you why. I get asked all the time if “winter vanlife”, be that full-time touring or weekends away, is hard, and do you know what my honest answer is? No! I’m not going to say it doesn’t have its challenges because it absolutely does. But if you think about it, so does the summer. Those challenges are just masked underneath sunshine (well, when we have it in the UK, that is). What do I mean? Well, it’s easier to warm up than it is to cool down. You can add layers of clothing, you can turn on your heating and the front of your ’van…

Judging the annual Campervan Awards is not easy. In fact, as husky-voiced, Welsh chanteuse, Bonnie Tyler, sang (sort of), it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. But we can now confirm that we've deliberated, cogitated and digested, and have reached our conclusions. So, without further ado, we can now announce the results of this year’s Campervan Awards, in association with Creation Personal Finance. It’s time for us to reward the best of the best… the new ’vans that have made the biggest impression on us over the last few months. Our annual awards are all about helping you decide how to spend your money wisely and it’s always a tough job to pick the winners. But some campervans stand out from the rest and, in finding them, we…

The Nugget has been a big part of the German campervan scene for almost four decades. Here, it is much less well established (only having gone on sale through official Transit Centres in 2020), but the fact that Ford introduced a right-hand drive version to compete with campervans from Volkswagen (California) and Mercedes-Benz (Marco Polo) shows how important this sector has become. So, while a large number of converters now build on the Transit Custom, the Nugget is Ford’s own product, built by one of the most highly respected firms in the business, Westfalia. And now there is a new Nugget, based on an all-new generation of Ford van. In fact, that is to rather undersell the base vehicle here, because it’s not actually a Transit Custom that forms the…

What exactly is cool? It’s hard to put your finger on it, but you’ll certainly know it when you see it. When it comes to campervans, it’s a design that really stands out from the crowd, a true head-turner, with features that will make you say “wow” – and all of those certainly apply to our winner in this category. When the judging team first set eyes on the Crafter-based Grande Adventure 600 at the NEC show it stopped us in our tracks. It looked incredible, with eye-catching, lime-green contour line decals contrasting with the dark grey body. When we had a closer look inside we were even more impressed. And when CJL owner, Cye Hayes, talked us through the thought process behind the campervan’s myriad features, we were simply…

“Watch out for crocs,” our daughter, Sophie, warned as we entered the Daintree National Park. She wasn’t joking. This is the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area of north Queensland and there are crocodiles lurking in creeks and around beaches. I scanned the waters and banks as we crossed the Daintree River on our drive towards Cape Tribulation, disappointed not to see one. A few weeks later I was very relieved not to have seen the owner of suspiciously croc-like prints as I walked alone on a beach. Talk about a sharp exit! We were meeting Sophie and her boyfriend, Harry, in the world’s oldest rainforest, so I had expected crocs – and a whole lot more. We were to encounter snakes, swarms of flies under toilet lids and frogs under…

The high-quality campsites group, Premier Parks, has revealed the 100 top campsites that will make up the 2024 collection, in partnership with specialist leisure insurance broker, Lifesure. Premier Parks sites are all visited and independently inspected to ensure each offers the ultimate in camping luxury. Spread across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, every type of holiday experience is catered for. From adults-only rural hideaways and laid-back countryside retreats, to campsites by the sea and full-on family fun holiday parks, there is a Premier Park for every taste and budget. There are also plenty of dog-friendly sites, too, so that no member of the family needs to miss out on a great stay. The Premier Parks group was created in 2008 by the editorial teams behind Campervan, MMM, Caravan and…