Going on holidays used to mean cramming the family into tiny little single-axle vans, with cramped living arrangements, and barely enough room to hold a cat, let alone swing it. But things have certainly changed over the last few decades. Motorhomes and campervans are now like boutique guesthouses on wheels, and they still come with a different view outside the windows each and every single day.
Reason #1 – Freedom, baby
Whether you call it spontaneity, independence, or whatever else you like, freedom has to be at the top of this list. Having a motorhome sitting in your driveway or somewhere else close by means you can head off into the sunset whenever you feel like it.
Owning your own motorhome immediately removes a wide variety of barriers when it comes to travelling, such as pre-booking reservations at swanky hotels or sticking to rigid tour packages like with traditional holidays. That’s why motorhomes are perfectly suited for independent people who value the great outdoors.
Even organising your road trip can be a lot more fun with a motorhome or caravan in tow, because you can decide to stop off anywhere you like on the way. If you don’t love the feel of a site when you arrive, you can keep travelling and find another one. Or alternatively, when you fall in love with a site that you’ve only booked for a couple of nights, you can always extend your stay for as long as you like.
Reason #2 – Accommodation affordability
One of the major costs within most travel budgets is the high price you always need to pay for accommodation. Accommodation can be quite expensive on a per night basis at the best of times, but even more so when you’re planning on a longer holiday for a week or even longer. When you book a resort holiday for you and your family, you’ll usually have to pay a premium price because they’ll include everything in the cost. The beautiful location, the luxurious suites, the classy food, the day to day activities… you’ll probably be paying for all of it, whether you’re using everything or not.
Owning a motorhome can save you so much on accommodation costs. Compare the cost of staying in a resort for a week, to camping in your motorhome, and they honestly don’t even come close. Renting a site for your motorhome is way more affordable than staying at a hotel or in a guesthouse with your whole family. Sure, buying a motorhome will require more of an initial investment. But once you own one, you can reduce the ongoing costs of accommodation in the long run.
Motorhomes and campervans in particular are also a much more cost-effective option compared to buying your own static holiday home. That’s because there is much less upkeep required than the general maintenance needed with a house. Nobody wants to spend the first few days of their holidays fixing things around their holiday home.
Besides, a holiday home isn’t mobile, so you’re always going to holiday in the same place. When you own a motorhome, you’ll always experience fresh, unique, and exciting destinations every time that you go away, instead of the exact same view every single time.
Reason #3 – Get back to nature
Ask yourself honestly when the last time was that you spent some quality time in the great outdoors, whether taking a hike, swimming in the ocean or simply laying back in the tall grass and admiring a night sky filled with bright and shining stars. There is so much beauty in nature, but unfortunately we hardly ever seem to have the opportunity to fully appreciate it.
Even when you’re staying in a hotel in a beautiful location, you’ll usually still have to trek a short while before you’re surrounded by nature. And in some of the larger hotels, it’ll take you half an hour or more to get a lift down to the lobby, make your way past the reception, and take whatever transport you have to before you’re even close to something natural. Compare that to a motorhome, and you’ll often be surrounded by nature the very moment you open the door.
Roadtrips in your motorhome also offer the perfect time to really enjoy your holiday in nature by disconnecting from all technology. Make it a family rule to keep all electronic gadgets at home, or at the very least, only allow them while driving between camping grounds or at certain times each day. Without the usual digital distractions, it will encourage everyone to use the time wisely by being active outside with the family, or just sitting back and relaxing in ways that many of us seem to have forgotten. Even on rainy days, you can enjoy a good old board game instead of searching for a Wi-Fi connection to watch Netflix… again.
Reason #4 – More family time
Just like camping in a tent, a motorhome holiday can be a fun, family activity that you can all enjoy together. Simply chuck a few changes of clothes into the motorhome, pile the family unit or even the extended family into the tow car, and then just hit the road, Jack. Whenever the majority votes on stopping for the night, find the closest caravan park and pull up stumps for the night or longer. The most important thing is that you’re making these decisions together as a family.
Holidaying together gives you all the opportunity to spend some truly quality time together as family and friends. No matter where you end up parking for the night, you can focus on those you care about the most while creating some wonderful memories. Road Trips can not only foster better communication with each other, but they can also help strengthen family bonds. Whether you prefer playing beach cricket together, cooking a barbeque together, exploring the local hiking trails together, rock-climbing and abseiling together, or simply sitting around the campfire in the evenings having a drink and a chat together, the most important thing is doing everything together.
And let’s not forget your little fur family either. There are plenty of pet-friendly campsites these days, so you don’t need to leave your furry best friends behind. Not only can your little fuzzball accompany your family on your holiday away, but they can also work out as the best little hot water bottles when temperatures start to drop. Just make sure that you always plan ahead by making sure wherever you want to stay is going to love your furry family member as much as you.
Reason #5 – Increased flexibility
When you’re holidaying in a motorhome, you have the flexibility of travelling almost anywhere you like and at any time that you want. A motorhome will provide you with the ultimate autonomy, from each day’s itinerary to your final destination, without the extra hassle of booking flights and each night’s accommodation in advance. You can play it by ear and freely explore the route so that whenever you need to take a break from driving, you can call it a day pretty much anywhere that you all agree on.
Finding the right camping grounds can often be hit and miss, but that’s half the fun. If you don’t fall in love with the view outside your window when you wake up in the morning, you can simply move on. That’s the beauty of holidaying in your own motorhome… the scenery always changes as you travel, so you never have to organise a specific itinerary in advance. Just pack your things each day and hit the open road.
Plus there’s no need to unpack. While living out of a backpack or a suitcase might suit younger travellers and backpackers from overseas, it’s never as fun as it seems. That’s because unpacking, then packing, and then unpacking again gets tiring really quickly. It always gives you the feeling of reduced flexibility that only comes with staying in temporary accommodation, so you can never really relax. Alternatively when you’re travelling the country in your own motorhome, not only are you always sleeping in your own comfortable bed each night, but you’re also under your own linen and blankets. You know where everything is, so you can always find it easily, giving you more time to enjoy your holiday.
Reason #6 – Environmentally friendly
No matter what type of motorhome you own, you can be assured that your family will definitely generate much less CO2 emissions compared with travelling by plane. Cutting your air travel is easily one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and with so much of our beautiful country to see, there’s always plenty of incentive to stay here and enjoy a little slice of it.
Owning your own motorhome also encourages minimalism and having less stuff, because space becomes one of your most precious resources. We can all demonise plastic straws and fossil fuels as much as we like, but the truth remains that over-consumption is also one of the largest contributing factors to global warming. And having a smaller living area also means less waste, because when you aren’t buying all this extra stuff, you’re also not generating the waste that comes with it.
Many motorhome parks and camping grounds are also adopting recycling programs and choosing to go green in other ways too. Solar power, for example, has become increasingly common on motorhomes as well as in parks themselves. And while a motorhome will obviously consume fuel, they do help reduce the consumption of one of our most precious resources in the world… water. Whether you’re hitting the road for a weekend or a week, when water is limited, you’re going to use it much more sparingly compared to when you’re at home. Besides, there’s no lawn to maintain and there are much fewer dishes or clothes to wash.
Final thoughts
As you can see, there’s plenty of benefits and very few downsides to owning your own motorhome. So if you want to spend some quality time with your loved ones while being constantly surrounded by nature, it makes sense to buy a motorhome for yourself. You have the freedom to stop wherever you like; and you get to meet new friends while you’re on the road, without making any compromises on convenience or comfort with a motorhome.
