what is it like to change to a motorhome

1 March 2021

5 Tips For Extending the Life of Your Motorhome

Jul3s 2021 Blogs 5 Tips For Extending the Life of Your Motorhome, 5 top tips for motorhome preservation, Motorhome advice, Motorhoming for the First Time, new to motorhomes, what is it like to change to a motorhome 1

There’s much to love about having a motorhome in your life, but there’s no avoiding the fact that they can be expensive. To make sure you get most from your motorhome, here are five top tips.
We’re going to make sure your motorhome lasts for as many years as possible.

Pexels – CC0 Licence

Protected from the Elements

While you might dream of spending all your time travelling in your motorhome, the reality is that it will be spending a time sitting on your driveway, or in storage. Your motorhome will be exposed to the elements, the weather and UV light. A lot of sunshine and rain can have a hugely negative impact on any vehicle, including a motorhome. As such, it’s important to take steps to keep it protected. This could involve covering it with a motorhome cover or a wheel cover. This will protect the paintwork and rubber tyres from degradation and damage.
It is worth considering a ceramic coating to protect your paintwork from the elements. This will make washing your motorhome easier to keep it looking sparkling.
Try to keep your batteries topped up when you are not using your motorhome. His will prolong their life and improve their performance.

Keep the mileage down when you can

It might be that your motorhome is in regular use as a main vehicle. This can be a tempting way to cut costs (since you won’t need a car), but it’s not a recommended approach. Your motorhomes mechanical parts will wear sooner with a higher mileage. You will find servicing costs increase as parts such as brakes, filters and tyres need replacing.
The more you drive it, the faster you’ll reach the limit of your motorhomes life span. Instead of wasting precious mileage on just getting around town, get a runaround vehicle. Perform a used car search, and you’ll find plenty of affordable, high-quality options. It is nicer to drive a vehicle that’s designed for urban spaces when you are popping to the shops or collecting a takeaway. If you purchase a small car you may be able to tow this behind your motorhome too.

Servicing and Maintenance

You will be putting your motorhome through its paces when away touring. It might be you take short weekend breaks, a few weeks touring Scotland or eight weeks around Europe. Whatever your touring style you must remember to service your motorhome. Depending on the chassis your motorhome is built on will depend on the service intervals. Some require a minor service at one year and a major at two years. You will need a mechanical service for the chassis and cab and a habitation service for the motorhome. A yearly habitation service is needed to maintain any warranty you have. The engineer will check your gas appliances and check for any damp too. A service is important to ensure your motorhome is safe and roadworthy. At three years of age it will require an MOT test on a yearly basis, like a car.

Deep Cleaning

We all want out motorhomes to look clean and shiny. When touring in bad weather that is easier said than done though. There are plenty of good blogs available with tips around cleaning your motorhome. Make sure you deep clean the interior and exterior of the vehicle on a regular basis. You will notice any damage to your motorhome if you clean it regularly.
Some products can be abrasive and not suitable for your motorhome. Make sure you use specific products such as those from PP Protect.

Leave it to a professional

Unless you know what you are doing, do not start DIY projects on your motorhome. If you motorhome is new then leave it to a dealer or reputable engineer to fit equipment to it. It might be you are considering air conditioning, satellite or a solar panel. To start cutting or drilling in to your motorhome is not recommended. You may invalidate your warranty, cause water ingress or cut through an electric cable.
When you come to sell your motorhome, it won’t look good is you have fitted some wonky plug sockets, or had a go at painting a wall. After all your motorhome should be your pride and joy, so treat it as such.

These tips should have given you some very quick and simple guidance about motorhome care.

14 September 2020

Motorhoming in West Somerset

Jul3s Caravan Blog carvanning, difference between caravan and motorhome, from caravan to motorhome, getting away, holiday freedom, making a decision on motorhome or caravan, motorhoming, Motorhoming for the First Time, Staycation, what is it like to change to a motorhome 0

Motorhoming in West Somerset

With so many places to explore it is often hard to know where to visit. In this blog we will share some motorhome friendly places to stay, visit and eat at in West Somerset.

Where is West Somerset?

West Somerset is in the south west of England. It covers the area around Taunton, just off the M5 motorway, and stretches out to the beautiful coast of Minehead and the wonderful moorland of Exmoor. West Somerset adjoins the county of Devon and offers a superb base for exploring both Devon and Somerset.
West Somerset has a mild climate compared to more northern counties and enjoys plenty of sunshine. Some of the higher lying areas, such as the Quantocks and Exmoor are more exposed and the weather can be changeable there.

Where can I stay in my Motorhome?

You really are spoilt for choice as to where to stay, whether it be a rural or coastal location you are looking for. Both The Caravan and Motorhome Club and The Camping and Caravanning Club have sites in Minehead. There are plenty of certified sites and locations if you prefer something a little quieter. If you are looking for a sea view then Warren Bay Holiday Park in Watchet is ideal.
It might be you prefer a pub stopover, in which case The Friendly Spirit or The Enmore Inn might appeal to you.
It doesn’t matter if you have an Adria Matrix 520 or an Adria Sonic 810, you will find a site to accommodate you.

What can I see and do in the area?

There is something for everyone in West Somerset and most attractions are accessible to motorhomes.

Minehead

If you enjoy a walk along a promenade, fish and chips and an ice cream then you don’t need to go further than Minehead. Minehead is located on the Bristol Channel and has an interesting past. It is a popular location in summer and offers a traditional seaside feel. You can walk along the promenade, past the marker for the start of the south west coast path, and on to the Quay West car park. You can find motorhome parking at Quay West and on Warren Road, along the seafront. Minehead is often recognisable by the huge North Hill landmark, jutting out from Exmoor.

Porlock Hill and Exmoor National Park

Here We Tow :Motorhoming in West Somerset Exmoor Sunset — Exmoor Sunset

If you prefer countryside to coast then drive out of Minehead on the A39 towards Porlock. If you have a motorhome over 7 metres long you may want to avoid Porlock Hill and use the toll road. The A39 will take you directly on to Exmoor, with its miles of walking and cycling tracks and trails. It is quite likely you will see an Exmoor Pony too. Exmoor offers plenty of activities if you have children, including pony trekking and Exmoor Owl and Hawk Centre.
As you drive over Exmoor you can take in some amazing sea views and The Valley of the Rocks is worth a visit. You can enjoy a walk on the cliff top and take in the stunning views.

Here We Tow :Motorhoming in West Somerset Porlock Weir — Porlock Weir

Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway

As you carry on the A39 you will come to Lynmouth, a small village located on the coast. Lynmouth is actually just over the border in to North Devon, but it is certainly worth a visit if you are in West Somerset. Lynmouth is accessible in most motorhomes and parking can be found in the car park at the end of The Esplanade or on the roadside. There is a fantastic fish and chip shop on The Esplanade but watch out for the Seagulls.
Above Lynmouth sits the village of Lynton, which is where you can park and take the cliff railway. The Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway is a great attraction for everyone, dogs included. You can park and use the railway to take you down the steep cliff to Lynmouth and back up. There is a charge for the railway but it is a great experience.

Lynton Railway image courtesy of Lynton and Lymouth Cliff Railway

Dunster Castle – National Trust

If you like castles then Dunster may be worth a visit. The castle is dated to at least Norman times and stands in beautiful gardens. It is surrounded by woodland but has long distance views across the Bristol Channel. Dunster Castle is free to visit and park if you are a National Trust member, make sure you bring your membership card. If you are not a member then motorhome parking is £11 on top of the entry fee.
Whilst at Dunster the village itself is certainly worth visiting. It is filled with plenty of quaint shops, pubs and tearooms. You can walk to the village from Dunster Castle car park.

Watchet Harbour and Attractions

Watchet is a lovely harbour town with plenty of car parking and small shops. The harbour car park will take small motorhomes. The harbour is a lovey place to get a bite to eat and people watch. If you have pedal bikes you can cycle to Watchet from many of the sites in the area. We have eBikes from Mark2 and these make getting about much easier with a range of over 30 miles.

Watchet itself has several places to visit, including Tropiquaria Zoo.

Tropiquaria includes a Tropical Hall with a variety of snakes and lizards, and birds. The zoo also features an aquarium and outside are parrots, gibbons, wildcats, wallabies, emus, cotton-top tamarins, red-handed tamarins, ring-tailed lemurs, yellow mongoose and meerkats amongst many others.
There is also a number of outdoor play areas, and an indoor play area and cafe.

Weston-super-Mare

Situated on the west coast of Somerset, about twenty minutes from Bridgwater, is the popular and bustling seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. If you like donkey rides, arcades and candy floss then you will love a visit here. Parking is available across the town but the Melrose car park is a good option.
Weston-super-Mare has a wonderful long promenade for a walk by the sea. The promenade has numerous takeaway food huts, pubs with outdoor seating and of course, fish and chips. The Grand Pier offers plenty of entertainment for adults and children alike. If you like less hustle and bustle then head for Marine Lake Beach, situated at the top end of the promenade, near the car park. This offers a lovely secluded beach, ideal for paddling.

Visiting a Cider Farm

No trip to Somerset would be complete without a visit to a cider farm. There are plenty of them across the county but two you may want to try are Sheppy’s Cider Farm Shop and Torre Cider Farm. You can enjoy some cider tasting, find out more about cider making and enjoy their farm shop and cafe.

When is it best to visit?

West Somerset is open all year round but some of the attractions do close for winter. The most popular time to visit is from April to October and this is when you will benefit for the better weather. August is the busiest month due to the summer holidays so you may want to work around this. In the better weather you can explore the coastal path on foot or take to your bikes across the Quantocks.

West Somerset is a great place to visit if you are heading to Devon or Cornwall. There is much to see and do but it has the relaxed atmosphere you find across much of the south west of England. Touring in your motorhome should be an enjoyable experience and one to add to your list.

31 August 2020

Motorhoming for the First Time

Jul3s Caravan Blog, Trips carvanning, difference between caravan and motorhome, from caravan to motorhome, getting away, holiday freedom, making a decision on motorhome or caravan, Motorhoming for the First Time, Staycation, what is it like to change to a motorhome 8

Those of you that have followed us for some time will know we bought our first touring caravan in October 2017 at the NEC Show. It was delivered in April 2018 and off we went. We toured in it almost none stop until the pandemic brought lockdown in March 2020.

Here We Tow ; Motorhoming for the First Time — Anita’s Touring Park

There may be some of you reading this who are currently pondering whether to buy a caravan or a motorhome, or change from one to the other. In this blog we will share our experience so far with a motorhome in the hope it may help you in your decision.

Why would you buy a Motorhome?

We enjoyed touring in our caravan, it gave us plenty of space and we experienced no problems with it during our ownership. What we did find was we tended to stay on a site for a longer period of time. This was due to the amount of time and effort it took to take it away. We would have to drive to the storage yard, remove the security, legs up, towing mirrors on, hitch up and after at least half an hour we were ready to go. Don’t get me wrong, it is all part of the ownership experience. But imagine it is pouring with rain, freezing cold or you have three children in the back seat asking if you’re there yet. Towing is enjoyable, we loved towing, but with an 8ft wide van it is essential you plan your route. A large caravan limits where you can geographically reach. Some sites you cannot stay at due to pitch size and access to the site itself.

Once you arrive the caravan needs to be set up. You unhitch, level, security on, legs down, electric on, fill the Aquaroll, sort the waste, fill the toilet flush…well you get the idea. After all that, there is the awning to put up. That is another 45 minutes at least. By now, a few hours of your arrival on site has been spent setting up. Once on site and set up it is pretty much plain sailing, apart from topping up the water and emptying the waste. The benefit now is you have your car and a base to explore from.

We always found that the penultimate day we were starting to think about packing up. We would spend at least and hour taking down the awning and planning our route back to storage or on to the next site. We would always hope for dry weather to pack up in too. Packing up to go home would again be at least an hours work, emptying water and waste, taking off security, legs up, towing cover on, hitch up and so on. Once back at the storage yard it would be the same again with legs and security.

I know this sounds quite negative but we have to be realistic about the reality of a caravan holiday, and this is it. This is the least enjoyable part of ownership and what was pushing us away from caravan and towards a motorhome.

How is a Motorhome different?

A very good question and I can tell you, it is very different. What we liked about motorhoming was there seemed less faffing all round. Having now had three trips away with the Adria Matrix 520 ST we can say it is much easier.

Our motorhome is kept on the drive as it is small enough to drive to our home, unlike our caravan. We have saved on storage costs and we can check on it when we like. To go away we plug the motorhome in to our household electric a few hours to cool the fridge, you can do this on gas too for ease. We put our clothes in the cupboard, the food in the cold fridge and if we are going somewhere with no water we put some water in the on-board tank. That is it, we remove the steering wheel lock and we are off on our holiday. A motorhome is easy to drive on the roads, especially a small one like the 520 ST. The only consideration is the height, which is just under three meters. Once you arrive on-site you may need to level, switch off the engine, plug in the electric if needed and turn off the ignition. That is as hard as it is and that is what we have enjoyed about the motorhome. Once set up we have found it easy to get out for the day, to visit places and find parking. Granted, it takes more planning than a car would. You have to check for height restrictions in car parks and pack away the kettle and washing up before you drive away. (Consider checking out our Motorhome accessory video here)

A motorhome makes it easier to move on after a night or two, you can easily empty your waste on site and fill your water tank too. You can fit a roll out canopy to your motorhome if you want shade or protection from a shower. We have found the wind out canopy a great deal easier than putting up an awning.

A motorhome takes the worry and stress out of packing up and towing home.

Can you go off grid?

Just like a caravan, you can go off grid with a motorhome. By off grid I mean without electric and am not referring to wild camping.

Two of our trips away have been to certified sites in Somerset and Devon. We arrived on both sites with fresh water in the on board tank and that was it. We used our Safefill gas to run the fridge and this has proven cost effective. We used the gas hob for boiling water in the kettle and for cooking on the Cadac. The lights, toilet flush, water pump and electric bed all run through the 12v systems of the leisure battery. We have a 140 watt solar panel on the 520 ST which has kept the battery topped up at around 96% full charge. If you are considering a motorhome or caravan and want to off grid then a solar panel is a good investment. Our 520 ST shows battery levels on the control panel so you can monitor them. If you are considering a pub stop with a motorhome this is easy too, just make sure you have some water in your tank and your toilet cassette is set up for use.

Emptying your waste water off grid should be straightforward too. Most sites will have a disposal point. We have used the Colapz Flexi Pipes to empty our waste water tank when there wasn’t a drive over facility.
The most important thing to stress is that where ever you stop, make sure you dispose of any waste in a safe and considerate manner. That might even mean emptying your toilet cassette at home.

We never stayed off grid in our caravan as we did not have a solar panel. We did not feel comfortable not having EHU (electric hook up) as we would have been worrying about the battery drain.

We have found the motorhome has given us more freedom about where we stop and how we tour.

Is there enough space in a motorhome?

Having gone from an 8ft wide caravan to a 6 metre long motorhome the answer to the question is Yes! We worried about space but having used this motorhome it actually provides a good living space. Obviously, this will vary between different lengths and layouts. We find we have plenty of living space with the swivel chairs and sofa area. Due to having a drop down bed it means all the space is devoted to living space. The kitchen is well equipped and a good size too, with more worktop space than we have in the caravan. The storage space seems better planned too.

The compromise we have found is in the bathroom. The shower is within the toilet and washroom and the sink folds down. The bathroom has been the only part we have not liked in comparison to our caravan bathroom. A great benefit of many of the European motorhomes is that they have garages. Even our small 520 ST has an ample garage to store our Isabella table and chairs, Cadac, Colapz items, bottled water, dog food, tinned drinks and toilet rolls.

On an evening the drop down bed is easy to operate, there is floor space to get changed for bed too. The consideration of this layout though is with the bed in its lowest setting there is no where to sit for anyone not wanting to go to bed. In a morning it is one up all up but being early birds we have had no issue with this. A motorhome with a fixed bed or an A-Class with a cab bed would mean this was not an issue.

Is it right for you?

Only you know the answer to this question and it may be wise to rent a motorhome to try it. Motorhomes are expensive, if we were to buy one it would replace our main car due to the cost.

New Motorhomes for 2021

We have enjoyed motorhoming so far. It has given us the freedom our caravan couldn’t and it is much easier to get away. We have been fortunate to have a small motorhome which is easy to park and be accommodated where we have visited. If you had a larger motorhome I suspect it would take a bit more planning and I can see why people then take a small car. The small car is a whole different topic and one I won’t be going in to.
The motorhome is much easier to drive off in for a few nights. It is easy to set up and pack away and in bad weather it wins hands down.
Our time with the motorhome will tell us if it is right for us and how this drop down bed layout works compared to a fixed bed.

Private site – Higher Well Farm Holiday Park – Devon

Another benefit of the motorhome is how easy it is for a lady on her own. Don’t get me wrong, many ladies solo caravan. Speaking as a lady, I would be confident and happy to set off in a motorhome like the 520 ST. The tasks with the caravan that would have put me off are eliminated with the motorhome. This is something else to consider if you are a solo traveller.

If you are unsure about a motorhome or a caravan then hire is a good way to make sure you don’t make a costly mistake. Ask yourself how often you plan to get away. A caravan can be left sat for a few months at a time in storage between trips. A motorhome won’t benefit from that, just like a car. A motorhome will incur costs such as vehicle excise licence, servicing and MOT, and the insurance may be more too.

The best leisure vehicle for you is the one that meets your needs. Hopefully this blog may have offered an in sight in to our first motorhome experience and the comparison we have made so far.