Are motorhomes predominately owned by 'older' (retired?) people? (1 Viewer)

[mentaliss]

I'm just wondering, are most owners of motorhomes 'of a certain age' ? and if so are they retired?

Do younger people drive 'campervans' and older people drive 'coach built' or 'A Class' ?

Of course the answers will be biassed by the age of forum members.

For the sake of transparency I am asking the identical question on 'Wildcamping' and 'Facts'

Just curious.............. Oh and for starters I'm 55 with a Panel Van Conversion and about to stop work and set off on a grand adventure throughout Europe.

Chox

We bought a Mazda Bongo November 2011 and converted it to a MotorCaravan and duly registered it successfully as such with the DVLA.... toured Italy and Scilly last year and the chap didn't once miss a 'beat' ...but to the point of your question.. at the end of that tour, waiting for the Ferry my wife and I looked at each other and we knew we needed something bigger as I did get miffed having to get up in the middle of the night and to crawl out of the Bongo to go to the loo...so we purchased our Bolero November last year and at our age!!!!!! 60+ there is no comparison to the comfort and the relatively hassle free of a MotorHome, younger people like 'camping' and vehicles such as VW, Bongos, etc in many ways at their time of life suit their needs especially when they have a young family, mortgage, car...(I paid £5000 for my Bongo and spent another £5500 turning it into a decent Campervan/motorcaravan) We will always have fond memories of the Bongo but a MotorHome is for me at my age the only way to go if you want to seriously tour

 

[Daveo2006]

Both 46 and bought our 1st motorhome last year.Really enjoying the fact we can jump in and do the off when ever we like.Love feeling like the young ones on site and also love all the oldies bulls--t. Only kidding off course .

 

[jonandshell]

You oldies wouldn't have the mobile gin palaces you have now if it wasn't for Maggie Thatcher helping your house prices and pensions along!

Us younger 'uns mainly rely on cheap interest rates courtesy of Gordon Brown to buy ours!

Don't think you can hide in this thread to avoid the Thatcher debate!

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[jaykay]

Well, I'm without a motorhome for now, but as soon as I sell my house, were getting a nice one !
Oh I'm 42, married with two kids and had an old Talbot last year and loved it. It was just too old to trust goin any long distances and as we want to do France and Spain in the motorhome, have decided to downsize the house while were still young enough to enjoy it.

I fancy a Rapido with fixed bed and garage

 

[lorger]

I'm 45 and Lorraine is 44 and have been motorhoming for 5 years before this we camped owned folding camper and caravan, I do think it is the older generation that dominates motorhoming but have noticed a difference in the last year or so with more families joining in.

 

[adriacoral]

We are motorhomers and have been for last four years, we are 47 and 46 with 15 and 12 year old children/teenagers!! We get away every school hols and spend 5 weeks in europe every summer....we also had a vdub when we were in our 20's and after that caravans!when we retire we will have a v small little house or chalet and be off in our motorhome !!!!!!!!!!

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[cruiser]

cruiser

we had our first back in 1974. had this one from new.23 years now.a coachbuilt. now like popeye. i am old and grey now.but still going strong.:Cool:

 

[AMK]

Me and the wife are 44, bought our first MH last year after 15 years with a caravan. When the kids have gone so are we.

 

[Ridgeway]

42yrs old and got our first Ice cream van last year after 10yrs of tents and caravans. Growing up in the UK made us think that you could only own a MH if you were over 50. Moving to Switzerland in 2005 made us realize that many more families own MH's in Europe vs the UK but I think Holland is the same as the UK with many more caravaners there.

We live in a small village of 900 people and I have counted over 10 MH's in our village and all family owned.

Have not yet met a young UK family in a MH in Europe but regularly see older couples.

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[jeepmadmike]

We bought our first 6 years ago I was 34 and wife was 29

I did consider a self build but my business fills much of my time so buying was a quicker option

We have bought a bigger newer van now, but I don't think many of our friends would have 30k to spend on a toy.

We find it fantastic with our 2 kids, once they are all grown up we will be back to the 2 of us booking a flight and a car and having a holiday without any pre planning in a far flung country.

It's not hard to see why most younger ones don't have a MH due to the cost, but I now a guy who spent 25k on a old t5 to make it a camper

 

[Minxy]

We started with motorhomes/campers in 1996 at the ages of 33 and 38.

Our campers:

1. Spring/summer 1996 - Commer Autosleeper pop-top (reg 1970) - wonderful but small! [me 33, hubby 38]

2. 31 August 1997 (the day Princess Di died ) - Ex-ambulance (reg 1985) which I converted over winter with help of hubby, frist trip in it was to a microcar gathering in Germany in April 1998!!! [me 34, hubby 39]

3. May 1999 - used Elddis Autoquest 320 (reg 1991) [me 36, hubby 41]

4. 11 September 2001 (yes really! ) - new Swift Suntor 590RS [me 38, hubby 43]

5. April 2003 - new Rapido 709F [me 40, hubby 45]

6. February 2007 - new Rimor Sailer 645TC (2006 model) [me 44, hubby 49]

7. April 2010 - new Chausson Flash 04 [me 47, hubby 52]

8. August 2012 - used Autocruise Accent (reg June 2012) [me 49, hubby 54]

There are actually a couple of reasons why we actually got into motorhomes, the first was because we were then members of the Micro Maniacs Microcar Club and owned a Bond minicar so used to go to their weekend gatherings/rallies etc but always stayed in B&Bs, which apart from being expensive, meant we also missed out on the 'fun' on the site with the rest of the micro nuts. :Sad: We did dally with camping in a tent on site for a short while but I got fed up of freezing all the time :shout: so in the end we decided to see if we could find a nice cheap camper which we could then use to tow the Bond, it took a while but eventually we were lucky enough to get our Commer Autosleeper from an estate sale at a fixed price to the first person to get there and say they wanted it ... unfortunately a chap had got there before us, but as he seemed to only be interested in mooching round an old camper and didn't say he wanted it when asked by the seller, we snapped it up! :thumb: It needed a lot of work but was great and did us proud on some great outings, even going up to Scotland towing the Bond!

The other reason is the dogs - when we went away for a weekend to the rallies my Father in Law would stay at our house and look after some of dogs, and we'd take a couple with us (we had 5 .... twice!!! :Blush: ), so having a camper of some sort was much better as we didn't have to leave them in the car overnight when we stayed in a B&B. We lost 1 dog leaving us with 4, then around Easter 2001 we lost 2 more dogs in the space of 15 days (horrible just doesn't cover how that felt, one pined for the other and suffered major strokes). As we were suddenly down to 2 dogs this meant we no longer had to have a 'dog sitter' so had more freedom - bitter-sweet situation though. We found during that summer that we were able to use our existing motorhome much more so decided to get a new one as a 20th wedding anniversary present (hence the Swift Suntor).

Since then we've just gradually worked our way along the motorhome 'road' to what we have now.

 

[DesRes]

We started out when I bought a Mazda panel van and converted it to be comfortable. That was in the early 90's and my wife and I were both in out mid 20's. Due to my job of working away on ships I have always had decent times at home with plenty of long breaks to do something with. We took that van on a two month tour of Europe one year.
That certainly gave us the bug so after a couple of years we traded that for a brand new Mazda panel van and I spent some time doing it up nicely. We had everything in it and toured extensively for 10 years with that. Once our daughter was born things were getting a bit tight for space and even putting a high-top on the van did not resolve matters.
I was made a decent offer for my conversion and so we moved on to the first coachbuilt, Mobilvetta 57S, six berth. Ran that for ten years and it did us well, though not without incident, too many of them to be honest.
We're both now 50, I can say that now since Mrs DesRes was 50 yesterday! Daughter is 16, still coming away with us so I bought another six berth just last year.
I cannot see us doing anything different in the future. It's a way of life. Flying used to be quite good fun but is now horrendous and I only ever intend to fly again with work.
It's been said in earlier posts, I can see us growing to be part of the greyhead contingent but I do remember when we were the new kids on the block, camped on a beach in Morocco when there were no campsites.
Heading off today! First trip away this year. Only heading to York for the rest of the week but hey....

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