Put your thinking hats on...!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tonks]

My first trip abroad in a motorhome was in New Zealand. I'd been there for work, and just before I flew home I booked a motorhome from Christchurch on a 'standby rate' and toured the South Island for a week. I wish I could find the photos! It was in 2000.
My first trip abroad with my own van was to the Netherlands in 2018 for Dordt in Stoom (the Dordrecht Steam Festival), although my first 'ferry trip' with it was to Jersey in 2016!

 

[John Barrett]

2004 after having caravans for years decided to hire a 6 birth Maui Motorhome in New Zealand and travel both North and South Islands for a month, never driven one before but loved every minute of it and NZ was fantastic. Brakes failed on the van but fixed pronto, and we met some lovely people and drank some tasty wines in the Marborough region. I was flying single engined fixed wing then and was offered a flight in a Harvard at Wanaka and that was spectacular. The owner would'nt take a cash off me , RESULT.

Our first MH trip was in 2003. We made a virtually identical trip to yours which included five days in Wanaka attending a family wedding!

 

[Wagoneer]

1973 - 1978, toured extensively around South Africa & Namibia in a VW type 2 + small frame tent. Returned to UK in 1978 and bought a VW Devon conversion. Been vanning ever since.

 

[nicholsong]

Some you make me feel like a novice, although I have been MHoming for 12+years.

My excuse for late starting? - I was sailing from early '70s and with my own boat from 1987 until 2017.

I think that has been a good life balance: sailing in more active years and MHoming in later years.

Geoff

 

[busby]

1978 in a Cortina Estate and a trailer tent, wife and two kids aged five and two. Harwich to Gothenburg and up the west coast into Norway for five weeks. Spooky at times, parked up in a lay bye one night, we walked back in the dark to a toilet we'd passed a 100 yards back only to hear someone cough as we approached, we all ran back to the tent like idiots. Other loos we tried were bottomless pits so we had to hang on to the kids in case they fell in. Another time we pitched up in a lay bye only to wake up to the sound of machinery around us, highways maintenance had cut all the grass verge around us. Loos apart we had a great time but when we asked the kids what they enjoyed best on the holiday imagining the scenery and waterfalls and mountains only to discover it was thegg playground and swings on some site we had stayed.

That just reminded me that back in the 80s we did 10 days in Sweden camping..Six adults two teenage kids in an ex British Rail 12 seater Commer Minibus.Bright yellow with blue bottom half and roof.Looked like the Swedish flag..Travelled Hull to Gothenburg,,,very expensive in Sweden back then.Good holiday though.BUSBY.

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[wasp]

1977 Felixstowe to Zeebrugge. We went to DeHaan in Belgium with a Triumph 2000 estate and a tent. Year after in a Transit camper. Since then several times in different motor homes campers and last time was in the Fleetwood when we went to Disneyland Paris.

 

[L' Hobo]

In the mid 60's, I was tasked, by the RFA (part of the Merchant Navy, my employer at the time) to safeguard a young man who had never been abroad before, to see that he came to no harm. (to this day, I do not know why) on a 3 month 'jolly' into Europe.
We caught a ferry to La Havre and hitch-hiked to Evreux (I think) and spent the night at the, nearly empty, local Youth Hostel.

We had been given a budget of £300, a reasonable amount in those days, and I had bought some provisions for the evening meal.
He couldn't cook, so while I had a sh*t & shower, he looked after our rucksacks. When I was finished, I started cooking while he had a S/Shower.

There was a row of 3 showers and 3 old pedestal toilets (the old fashion 'hole in the ground type' where one had to stand on a couple of raised foot places as if one squatted behind a hedge). There was an awful scream..........he had mixed up the toilets and the showers and had slipped off the pedestals.

Next morning, after we had negotiate a 2 man tent off a couple of English guy's who was returning from Morocco, we walked into Rouen, by which time,(after refusing to go to any of the roadside pissoirs), he was bursting for a pee.

I knew there was a toilet in the square in front of the the Cathedral, as I had, a couple of years previously, once joined a ship in Rouen, so is was where we made for. By this time he was walking nearly crossed legged.

We arrived and a market was being held BUT the pissoir was standing, up, on it's large granite blocks, in the corner of the square.

Off he scampers, nearly pi**ing himself, BUT just before he gets there, an old lady with heavily laden bags, sits on these granite blocks for a rest.

The pleading look on his face as he implored me for help, still haunts me to this day!

There is much more to this story because we finally made it to the Med for a few weeks but that was my first, shoreside, adventure in the early 70's with a tent and a VERY, unworldly, companion!

 

[John Barrett]

1977 Felixstowe to Zeebrugge. We went to DeHaan in Belgium with a Triumph 2000 estate and a tent. Year after in a Transit camper. Since then several times in different motor homes campers and last time was in the Fleetwood when we went to Disneyland Paris.

Hi. We have a Heritage 560-4. Which one do you have?
John

 

[sonny]

2009 Australia touring for more than 90 days

 

[acropolis22]

We bought our very first motorhome in February 2013 and 4 weeks later set off to drive to Crete with 2 dogs. When I think back we really had no idea what we were doing and hadn't spent any time getting to know the van or how things worked. As it turned out everything went really well apart from the cooker door falling off on the way back. Since then we've done it a few more times in various vans, once travelling via Albania. View attachment 552582

Ha! We did something similar in 2003. Imported a new LHD Hymer from Germany. Set off to Crete via Scandinavia, Poland, and Central Europe a few weeks later. Absolutely no idea what we were doing. . But we survived and enjoyed every minute. Stayed in Crete for 17 years, restored several old stone houses, ended up building a new villa. (The old houses never had room for a pool...). Didn't have time for moho trips so we sold the Hymer. Now we're back in the UK, and back in the game with a Pilote. Bit cooler here. After Xmas we'll be heading to the south for some sunshine.

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[The Dudess]

Ha! We did something similar in 2003. Imported a new LHD Hymer from Germany. Set off to Crete via Scandinavia, Poland, and Central Europe a few weeks later. Absolutely no idea what we were doing. . But we survived and enjoyed every minute. Stayed in Crete for 17 years, restored several old stone houses, ended up building a new villa. (The old houses never had room for a pool...). Didn't have time for moho trips so we sold the Hymer. Now we're back in the UK, and back in the game with a Pilote. Bit cooler here. After Xmas we'll be heading to the south for some sunshine.

Blimey! Incredibly similar to our life. We moved to Crete in 2001, bought some land, built a villa. Sold it in 2012 and with the proceeds got into motor homing but Crete is always calling us so we go back as often as we can and are in the process of buying a very small apartment there. Our base is Makry Gialos in the south east - where were you based?

 

[olley]

1987 went to Spain in our Mitsubishi camper, came back through France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and home. Took 5 weeks.
Best weather was in Switzerland.

 

[Brains]

Summer of 1988.
In a 1972 T2 VW campervan that cost me £400, drove to Austria and back in 2 weeks.

We had a top speed of 63mph and a cruising speed of about 50mph which meant on over 1,000 miles of West German autobahn the only vehicles we ever overtook were the Trabants, loaded with 6 people and all their worldly goods that were escaping from the collapsing East Germany via Hunguary to West Germany.

 

[Jamesh]

October 1987 hurricane camper sands.
Our frame tent blew away, so me and siblings slept in uncles mercedes camper whilst parents slept in car.
I remember buying up all the washing line to try and stop it blowing away! Epic fail!!

Cheers James

 

[Odd-no-more]

We toured Europe on motorbikes and by car for many years, our first trip with a camper was in 2011 in a Mazda Bongo, we still had the Harley on a trailer on that trip. That was the year our friends bought a campsite in France, when we heard the sale had gone through (there had been several delays) we cancelled our booked site and stayed with them, we arrived just before their furniture van, that was lucky as it got stuck in the drive and took an hour of cutting tree branches to free off.

We had a very good stay but although we have been back to France we haven't made it back to their site yet, but hope to as soon as we can travel abroad again (family commitments)

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[panda]

Sitting looking at some old photo`s bought back memory`s....

Think back what was your first trip abroad in a Motorhome/RV/5th wheel or Towing a caravan... ????

Ours was back in the early 2000`s....

Dover to Calais then a drive to Belgium for a week or two then back to Zeebrugge to UK..

In a Yank RV....

What I remember it was a good intro to foreign travel in a motorhome.... at the time we lived up near Jim...

After that it was at least twice a year to Europe.. and most were a few months in the winter, usual haunts.. with some great "Funsters" met en-route, and some good Rally`s.....

What was your first time and where..????

Ours was in 1998,in an old Talisman,which,as I remember,was a B reg. We went to Eire,Lismore,county Waterford where my parents came from,and toured around for 10days reminiscing about my childhood holidays there! Even though we've travelled,over the last 25 years to Europe,this was the best trip ever! And I videoed a caeligh band which dedicated a song to my mother'Danny Boy' and I showed it to her before she died

 

[bilM]

Our first trip Key West to Houston 2007

 

[acropolis22]

Blimey! Incredibly similar to our life. We moved to Crete in 2001, bought some land, built a villa. Sold it in 2012 and with the proceeds got into motor homing but Crete is always calling us so we go back as often as we can and are in the process of buying a very small apartment there. Our base is Makry Gialos in the south east - where were you based?

We were in Milatos on the North East coast. Stayed in Makry Gialos once. Unfortunately, that few days there was a dreadful hot southerly wind that cooked us from the inside out. . Nice place though.