We have officially turned our backs on the caravan and car combination, and we are now leaning heavily towards a coach conversion with the addition of a family car. The coach would provide much more generous living accommodation and the car would serve for accessing the tighter spots and small villages that we would want to explore.
We’ve taken into account the fact that the coach would only get about 10 mpg on good runs, and even less on urban drives. Given that we plan to travel very slowly, we wouldn’t be looking at moving the coach more than once per week, and no more than fifty or so miles at a time.
I have been reading up a lot on coach and bus conversions, and I’m more and more convinced that this is what we should have. We’d fit two or three solar panels to the roof, and water tanks and leisure batteries would easily fit in the under storage area, with plenty of space for bikes.
Our current car fits the bill well as the additional vehicle. It is incredibly economical and averages over 50mpg on a fast run! The insurance is cheap and the road tax doesn’t break the bank. It is also paid for in full (well, it will be before we start traveling) and five plus a dog fit comfortably inside. We’d also save on not buying a new car – this car is great but it wouldn’t be able to tow the size of caravan that we’d want/need.
It would also be easier to live with a coach conversion as we wouldn’t need to site and level it in the same way as a caravan, and we wouldn’t have the problem of leaving an unhitched caravan anywhere while we went off exploring.
We’ve priced up the coach purchase, conversion, and driving lessons/test that I would need, and it comes in at less than a new car and caravan. It seems to be a no-brainer really!
Not All Sunshine And Smiles 