- Nov 19, 2019
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It is with a heavy heart that me, SWMBO and our ten year old son arrived back from our two week motorhome rental holiday last night. We hired Vanny from a lovely husband and wife operation in Lublin and set off into the unknown!!
After some huge doubts about the 7 meter length, within 30 minutes I thoroughly enjoying the driving experience. Sitting so high up with such a great view out was incredible and the slower driving pace gave me a chance to enjoy the sights with my family (rather than simply commenting mhmm, as we zip by at 150km/h when driving in the XC90). And boy, whoever the engineers were that designed that 2 litre Citroen/Fiat engine deserve a medal...what a simply fantastic motor...never lacking in power and torque for days on end.
We stayed in a mix of places...we used park4night extensively as it was so damn useful. SWMBO found a simply fantastic wild camp spot on an abandoned campsite literally a stones throw from the Elblag boat lifts as shown here. We also used campsites with and without EHU. We tripped the mains supply by using our hab air-con and luckily the other gentleman sharing that post was very understanding when we explained it was our first time ( once we had promised to not run it again that is!!) We discovered the joys of going to bed with 70% battery and waking up to see 100% again thanks to the wonders of a whacking great solar panel on the roof! We never left a window or hatch open for driving, thanks in part to the fantastic check-lists from this site that were kindly linked to me and only on our last day did we forget to latch shut a lonely cupboard door in the bathroom!
All in all, it was a fantastic and very rewarding experience and thank you to all of you who took the time out of your own lives to reassure me as the big day was getting closer and closer...you were all absolutely right!
Finally, the trip was also useful in terms of checking out layout, size etc. We realized a few things through the two weeks, some of which we thought we knew anyway and others that were a bit more suprising to us. We both feel that 7 metres is, for us, too big. Driving it was fine but we would want something more compact to get into some places where the 7m was a PITA to get. Solar is a MUST for what we want to do...no suprises for us there. Bunk-beds similarly are a must...we really don't want the hassle of making up either one or two beds before bed-time and bunk-beds also gave us the flexibility to stay up playing a board game or reading once our son had gone to bed. Lastly, we don't feel we want a new van...I would be too worried about scratching it or putting a small ding in it getting to a wild camping spot.
SO, if you have got this far...here's where I ask for a bit more advice. Looking at our budget (around 20k Euros) and our needs, we have narrowed the field to two main vans and once outlier possibility. The first is the Dethleffs A5880, the second is the Burstner A535 Active and the outlier is the Hobby Broken Link Removed. The hobby and the Burstner are double floor models,which is great as we would love to use the van to go snowboarding in the winter if possible...no idea if this is true for the Dethleffs?? What do you guys n gals think of these models/brands? Is there anything I still haven't considered?
As always, thanks for your time and for any advice you can offer me...I'll also drop some pictures of our travels into this thread once I can grab them off her phone!
After some huge doubts about the 7 meter length, within 30 minutes I thoroughly enjoying the driving experience. Sitting so high up with such a great view out was incredible and the slower driving pace gave me a chance to enjoy the sights with my family (rather than simply commenting mhmm, as we zip by at 150km/h when driving in the XC90). And boy, whoever the engineers were that designed that 2 litre Citroen/Fiat engine deserve a medal...what a simply fantastic motor...never lacking in power and torque for days on end.
We stayed in a mix of places...we used park4night extensively as it was so damn useful. SWMBO found a simply fantastic wild camp spot on an abandoned campsite literally a stones throw from the Elblag boat lifts as shown here. We also used campsites with and without EHU. We tripped the mains supply by using our hab air-con and luckily the other gentleman sharing that post was very understanding when we explained it was our first time ( once we had promised to not run it again that is!!) We discovered the joys of going to bed with 70% battery and waking up to see 100% again thanks to the wonders of a whacking great solar panel on the roof! We never left a window or hatch open for driving, thanks in part to the fantastic check-lists from this site that were kindly linked to me and only on our last day did we forget to latch shut a lonely cupboard door in the bathroom!
All in all, it was a fantastic and very rewarding experience and thank you to all of you who took the time out of your own lives to reassure me as the big day was getting closer and closer...you were all absolutely right!
Finally, the trip was also useful in terms of checking out layout, size etc. We realized a few things through the two weeks, some of which we thought we knew anyway and others that were a bit more suprising to us. We both feel that 7 metres is, for us, too big. Driving it was fine but we would want something more compact to get into some places where the 7m was a PITA to get. Solar is a MUST for what we want to do...no suprises for us there. Bunk-beds similarly are a must...we really don't want the hassle of making up either one or two beds before bed-time and bunk-beds also gave us the flexibility to stay up playing a board game or reading once our son had gone to bed. Lastly, we don't feel we want a new van...I would be too worried about scratching it or putting a small ding in it getting to a wild camping spot.
SO, if you have got this far...here's where I ask for a bit more advice. Looking at our budget (around 20k Euros) and our needs, we have narrowed the field to two main vans and once outlier possibility. The first is the Dethleffs A5880, the second is the Burstner A535 Active and the outlier is the Hobby Broken Link Removed. The hobby and the Burstner are double floor models,which is great as we would love to use the van to go snowboarding in the winter if possible...no idea if this is true for the Dethleffs?? What do you guys n gals think of these models/brands? Is there anything I still haven't considered?
As always, thanks for your time and for any advice you can offer me...I'll also drop some pictures of our travels into this thread once I can grab them off her phone!
