Now, you might imagine that I am a lover of large, expensive all singing all dancing motorhomes and you would be correct BUT I also realise that there is a place for the compact Campervan. There are many reasons why someone would prefer to own a van and it’s not always just about the cost aspect.
What do you want from an RV?
Do you want something that you can live in long term, a home away from home and with all of the luxuries incorporated into multi purpose recreational vehicle that will allow you to tour the world OR do you want to be able to go fishing with a buddy and live reasonably well for a day or two and with at least some degree of comfort but a fair amount of security and convenience..
Well to be perfectly truthful about my own needs, I actually want all of the things that you might expect to get in the way of facilities and accommodation in a bespoke coach built or even an A class and of course I want all of this for the cost of a decent car and within the footprint of a family saloon. Possible? NO. Well not unless your idea of a decent car is a Ferrari and you have the build instructions for a Tardis. I can’t afford a Ferrari and the Tardis is only available on T.V.
A large coach built might give me the interior that I want but all that extra width, height, weight, cost blah blah and did I say that I want to use it as everyday transport? Wait a minute a campervan with the best will in the world in still an unwieldy beast and too heavy with the price of fuel these days.
OK you’re right and the actual mpg that you would get using a campervan as a run around might not be up to much but, only you can know how many miles you might actually do in a year and when you compare that with the cost of buying and owning a second vehicle as well.
It could be justified and not even I would not recommend that you drive around on a day to day basis in your motor home but a compact campervan for me is a “different kettle of fish”.
Yeah, you can keep a fully fledged motorhome for your vacations and a campervan for occasional weekends. Brilliant! Well only if you’ve got oodles of cash and a pretty big driveway or maybe a farm to keep them on.
There are some interesting sums to be done when you compare cost of running two or more vehicles as opposed to one true multi purpose RV or maybe even 4×4 RV.
Keeping an all singing all dancing motor home parked up just for that few weeks of use each year is a high cost luxury and probably not a good ROI (return on investment) and I mean how much travel, hotel and motorhome hire can you get for that kind of cash?
