so ur not a motorhomer

lifes to short friend enjoy thailand we will keep on motorhoming 10-4 good buddy

 

Re: so ur not a motorhomer

lifes to short friend enjoy thailand we will keep on motorhoming 10-4 good buddy

exactly how many time can you visit france spain or scotland life is to short now we have the funds and opertunity to visit a lot more of the world just from the money the van was costing us every year

 

travel

horses for courses ppl like the mh ppl dont u not been all over europe i have seen most of europe and china in a truck but as i say ppl like mhoming and ppl dont

 

we have just sold our motorhome as we worked out the real cost of a holiday
depreciation £5000 a year
insurance £390 a year
hab check £110 a year
service £200 a year
road tax £240 i think a year
storage £500 a year
initial purchase of van £50 £60k
diesel average 25 mpg
+ all the stress of dealing with problems that arise from poor build quality off the dealerships that dont give a toss when they have got your money
The very least it costs is £6440 a year with out worrying about site fees of an average of £20 a night
So we are off to thailand for 31/2 weeks then france for 2 weeks for under £3500 + there is all the sun holidays for odd weeks away so on these figures its a no brainer to sell her and keep all our initial investment in the bank

I do have some sympathy with your post! We are going to give it another year and then make a decision, but I think this shows that motorhoming is not for everyone, but good luck to those who make it work for them.

 

Re: travel

horses for courses ppl like the mh ppl dont u not been all over europe i have seen most of europe and china in a truck but as i say ppl like mhoming and ppl dont

we loved it but when you take of the rose tinted spectacles and think about it,It is a VERY expensive holiday and we can see a lot more and get a lot more for a lot less money

 

I'm surprised your post hasn't been bombarded with disapproving replies, but I think we all know that it is expensive if viewed from your perspective. But it is different to buying a ticket and going to a destination for a few weeks. Most of the pleasure is found during the journey (as I'm sure you know), seeing all the small places, stunning and unexpected scenery and experiencing things you just won't on a "normal" holiday.
Not a cheap holiday, but a fulfilling one and one that can be available all year from your doorstep.........who cares about the cost!!!

Enjoy Thailand -I'm looking forward to some snow up here in SCotland next week

John

 

I'm surprised your post hasn't been bombarded with disapproving replies, but I think we all know that it is expensive if viewed from your perspective. But it is different to buying a ticket and going to a destination for a few weeks. Most of the pleasure is found during the journey (as I'm sure you know), seeing all the small places, stunning and unexpected scenery and experiencing things you just won't on a "normal" holiday.
Not a cheap holiday, but a fulfilling one and one that can be available all year from your doorstep.........who cares about the cost!!!

Enjoy Thailand -I'm looking forward to some snow up here in SCotland next week

John

Like you say we loved motor home holidays and after working the real cost we have come to face the fact that we can get a lot more for our money but if we want to see some of the small villages even the ones we cant get a motorhome thru we can always use the car and stop in posh comfy hotels for less money,we have not taken giving up the motor home lightly but given it a great deal of thought you never know we might win the lottery and buy another one but until that happens we are going to have to slum it and stop in cheaper posh hotels with room service lol :roll:

 

depreciation £5000 a year
insurance £390 a year
hab check £110 a year
service £200 a year
road tax £240 i think a year
storage £500 a year
initial purchase of van £50 £60k

Stephen,
All your figures are, thankfully, greater than mine.
Some motorhomes hold value better than others, my road tax is a lot less than your figure and I don't need storage therefore my figures are closer to your holiday cost.
This year we have had 3 x long weekend + 2 x 1week breaks plus summer break of 6 weeks. There is no way we could do that by car and hotel for the cost of keeping the van.
We will be having a 2 week hotel break in Madeira for Christmas but it will mean suffering 2 visits to airport security queues and spending a total of 8 hours cramped in a plane. It will cost more than our 6 week motorhome trip!
There does appear to be a general feeling that motorhoming gives a cheap holiday and some despair when it is found to be otherwise.
Motorhomes tend to be a way of life rather than a financial choice.
Everyone has different needs and pleasures - we tried the yachting life 25 years ago and if you think motorhoming is expensive try keeping a 4 berth boat!!!
Thank goodness we all like different things.

 

depreciation £5000 a year
insurance £390 a year
hab check £110 a year
service £200 a year
road tax £240 i think a year
storage £500 a year
initial purchase of van £50 £60k

Stephen,
All your figures are, thankfully, greater than mine.
Some motorhomes hold value better than others, my road tax is a lot less than your figure and I don't need storage therefore my figures are closer to your holiday cost.
This year we have had 3 x long weekend + 2 x 1week breaks plus summer break of 6 weeks. There is no way we could do that by car and hotel for the cost of keeping the van.
We will be having a 2 week hotel break in Madeira for Christmas but it will mean suffering 2 visits to airport security queues and spending a total of 8 hours cramped in a plane. It will cost more than our 6 week motorhome trip!
There does appear to be a general feeling that motorhoming gives a cheap holiday and some despair when it is found to be otherwise.
Motorhomes tend to be a way of life rather than a financial choice.
Everyone has different needs and pleasures - we tried the yachting life 25 years ago and if you think motorhoming is expensive try keeping a 4 berth boat!!!
Thank goodness we all like different things.

got to agree with you i am not having a go at motorhomes we loved it for 7 years but it was getting rather expensive and samey (think thats how you spell it) drive to dover 5 hours wait for the ferry then the crossing then the worry of leaving an expensive motor in a carpark with all the other cars parking 6inch away and smashing their doors into it its just that we want stress free holidays in more exotic locations for cheaper costs you cant blame us for that like i say we love motorhome holidays but your life styles and out looks change and we have just moved on in another stage in our lives,the blog is just to make people think motorhoming is not a bed of roses and if you are not careful it can work out very costly

 

Hotel rooms are for people who can't afford a Motorhome

:wink:

 

Yes it makes you think. Motor homing is new to me but the costs are not that different to owning a car. £60k for my car £400 tax 25mpg etc, similar running costs and far greater depreciation. I still plan to have non motor homing holidays and breaks. My kids cost me far more

Enjoy yourselves, have great fun and bring back great memories.

 

Always worth looking beyond the immediate horizons to see what is out there, there's no real reason to stay with a particular hobby or lifestyle if you find that you are not enjoying it for any reason.

Peter

 

Always worth looking beyond the immediate horizons to see what is out there, there's no real reason to stay with a particular hobby or lifestyle if you find that you are not enjoying it for any reason.

Peter

We loved the motorhome just didn't realise how expensive our weekends away were till we put pen to paper and worked it out try it,it might shock you it did us

 

Its Horses for Courses.
We recently had a week at Lake Garda in a Hotel. At the end of the week we decided we must go back there - but with the Motorhome. The Hotel was fine but we were tied to Breakfast and evening Meal times which we found restricting. Couple this with a mix up with the transfer back to the Airport and then a two hour delay for the flight home. Also on the way out the case was 1kg overweight so I had to pay a tenner rather than open it in and move stuff to the hand luggage.
I know there is going to come a time when I turn up at the tunnel and there is a delay/cancellation but it hasnt happened yet.
We have weekends away in the UK courtesy of Britstops so only really count the cost of fuel. Our £30k Hymer is worth the same as when we bought it (Depreciation can be a factor in the early years if you buy new but as we bought secondhand not in our case) I guess we are lucky also that we dont need storage either.
We enjoy the freedom of being able to take comfort stops when we need them rather than hunting for facilities and take meal breaks when and where we choose.
There is more to Holidays of all types than the cost involved.
As I said its Horses for Courses.

 

Depends on all the factors put together doesn't it. We bought a 5 year old camper for 21,000 euro probably still worth 18 or 19. I don't do hab checks, do them myself along with most all repairs other than engine stuff. Have very low cost outdoor parking and rarely use campgrounds. There is no way we could afford to do all that we do with two kids staying in hotels not to mention having to worry about reservations, planning ahead etc. The more expensive new camper is always a temptation, but reading the op note makes me feel our situation is the better one from an economic standpoint. I would like to make those long trips, more back to the US and Tahiti which I love, but just one of those is almost half the purchase cost of our camper. And when they are over they are over.

 

Our mh was purchased so that we could have weekends away summer holidays etc. As it happens we now have less time usuing it. we do hop on an aeroplane now and again, but look at the queues at the airport. Crammed like uneducated cattle into a coach. Beds that so many other people have slept in. Food that is repetitious. At least you had the mh to sell to fund your new adventures. £60k on a motorhome, thats the price of a house up here.

The year before we bought our MH we did a tour of Normandy and Brittany. All preboooked hotel accomodation for a couple of nights for each stop. Then a week in a mobile home before returning home.
It was not expensive and one of the best hols Lady p and I have had without kids.

Best of luck (envious)

Dave p

 

Always worth looking beyond the immediate horizons to see what is out there, there's no real reason to stay with a particular hobby or lifestyle if you find that you are not enjoying it for any reason.

Peter

We loved the motorhome just didn't realise how expensive our weekends away were till we put pen to paper and worked it out try it,it might shock you it did us

it makes you wonder how someone can embark on a major purchase (motorhome) without first costing it all out and researching the pros and cons.

 

I think the answer lies in the word compromise.

I love my motorhoming but I also love my non-motorhoming travel - they can both be very expensive but they can also be more affordable.

You don't have to spend £50k - £60k, ours cost £15k. It's a bit tarnished, quite small and not full of electro-gizmos but we can go anywhere a £50k one can, and I don't over-worry about it getting damaged.

Likewise with non-motorhoming holidays. We like to spend our English winters in the warm African sunshine but there's no way we could afford to do it every year in hotels or on organised package holidays so we just rent a small granny flat and self cater -spending less than we do here in the UK. We also fly Goat Class.

We'd love to drive a shiny new, fully equipped N&B and fly Business Class to our Sheraton Hotel but quite honestly, I prefer the pleasure of making both motorhoming and other travel possible on a limited budget.

When the time comes (bank account too low), I'll be hard pressed to decide which mode of holidaying must go.

 

We have looked at the cost of motor homing against the package holidays / cruises that we used to have many moons ago, and we still prefer our motorhome. I remember years ago we could just pull onto a campsite without booking, can't do that now. So that should tell you something. I think the more one starts looking at the costs, it's time to stop.

Regards

Dill

 

I bought my smaller motorhome second-hand and I don't keep it in storage so depreciation is negligible. If I didn't have a motorhome then I'd buy some other sort of vehicle (my last one was a classic car) so insurance etc are much the same. So apart from the initial outlay I don't find using my van too expensive, but then all vehicles can be seen as a luxury to some degree (most of us like to have nice new cars rather than a cheap runaround).

 

Whilst strolling around Poole harbour I have often wondered how much all those yachts bobbing about are costing their owners. I guess the answer is that their owners are prepared to pay the price for their hobby. A lot of hobbies are expensive and cannot be justified in economic terms, follow a Premier league football club home and away for a season and see how much you spend.
Personally I love motor homing and am off to France tomorrow for the 3rd time this year.

Have a great time in Bangkok, I spent a month working their in 1999. I was involved in the Mass Transit sky railway as my company Siemens manufactured the trains and I was a communications engineer.

http://www.bangkok-maps.com/bts.htm

 

Depends on all the factors put together doesn't it. We bought a 5 year old camper for 21,000 euro probably still worth 18 or 19. I don't do hab checks, do them myself along with most all repairs other than engine stuff. Have very low cost outdoor parking and rarely use campgrounds. There is no way we could afford to do all that we do with two kids staying in hotels not to mention having to worry about reservations, planning ahead etc. The more expensive new camper is always a temptation, but reading the op note makes me feel our situation is the better one from an economic standpoint. I would like to make those long trips, more back to the US and Tahiti which I love, but just one of those is almost half the purchase cost of our camper. And when they are over they are over.

Ditto

 

Fortunately the OP's figures don't reflect our experience and we moved across from caravanning knowing the life style was not a particularly cheap option.

We purchased our first MH when it was 4 months old and have recently traded it in against the current van and lost around £5k in the 3 years of ownership.

Vehicle excise is cheaper than my estate car and storage is free at home.

Can't disagree with the costs of fuel or site fees, but again we choose to use club sites rather than cheaper CLs or CSs, or even free wildcamping. Once the kids stop coming away with us that is likely to change.

Up to the point where we started caravanning and motorhoming, we did the entire long haul and package holiday scene and became just as disillusioned and unhappy with it as the OP seems to be with MHing.

Stephenpug, I wish you the best of luck with your latest choice and at least you have tried and enjoyed seven years of the lifestyle and don't have to go through life wondering what it might be like.

 

When you look at the big capital cost it's expensive. :roll: However, on our Stella2 we lost about £20k in depreciation over 8 years, having bought her at 4 years old. Stella3 was 4.5 years old when we bought her (used) in May, I don't intend trading her in for a few years, so it's an acceptable cost.

We've been to hundreds of places in the Uk and Europe that we wouldn't have even considered without the motorhome, and many of these are not accessible on package holidays or by cheap flights. We keep a detailed log on nights way, and have done 76 nights away this year alone - despite work commtments and Viv's health problems. We've used the van as overnight accommodation when visiting our family, and when going to watch Oxford United! Our daughter and one of our sons have also borrowed Stella3 for a week each.

Since we've had a motorhome we've only kept one car, the average mileage in the motorhomes is around 6 to 7000 miles depending on where we go in Europe for our main holidays, and I can honestly say there has been nothing "samey" about these trips - yes we've been to several places more than once, but there's a hell of a lot of Europe (and Uk) out there. We also said that each winter we would have a non-motorhome holiday to some sunshine, so we've been on trips to the Canaries and cruises to the Caribbean and to California (where one son lives). The stress and hassle of airports and being cooped up in a plane are not a great attaraction :roll:

It's a lifestyle choice, and even in the winter we try to get away at least one weekend a month as a break form working at home - and it's now been over 4 weeks since we came back from France, and I've got itchy feet 8)

 

We are all different. When I spent £45K on ours 7 years ago I never thought of how much it would depreciate. I don't care cos I was buying a dream and every time I start Hymie up I still get the same thrill. Since then we have toured Europe and the UK extensively and loved it. We bought a change of lifestyle for maybe 4 months of the year in total while still enjoying our home life as well. We also have had the odd conventional holiday by plane etc but give me the van every time.
Yes it costs to insure, tax, fuel and service but when I think of the views I have had from my front window I really don't care. We have just come back from 7 weeks touring Devon and Dorset with site fees around £700. Expensive?

Bob