Caravanning on the Continent vs. the UK

[Lutz]

While away on a fairly typical campsite on the German North Sea coast last weekend, purely out of interest I thought I'd have a look to see what sort of cars and caravans were to be found there.

The site had 150 pitches, half of which were statics. Leaving the statics aside, just over half of the 75 other pitches were taken by motor homes, the remainder caravans and a handful of vacant pitches. Of the 30-odd touring caravans only one was a twin axle and only two caravans were towed by 4x4's (and the twin axle wasn't one of them).

Certainly a different picture to what I'm used to seeing in the UK.

 

[Robert_374242026]

Hello Lutz, I mentioned the same whilst in Saxony this April , and what they carry in the caravan, are Mercs' BMW Audi have that much power/good noseweight etc?.We have a Coachman 460/2 and i think we had the smallest unit on site and carried the least.

 

[joeby]

Thats very interesting that Lutz ,i worked in germany for over 3 years mainly in Detmold /Hamburg /Flensburg areas ,there were hardly any 4x4 about then ,but i did notice yours winters are more severe than ours, so you would think that the situation would be the other way around ,mind you it does not take long for them to spring into action to clear the snow ,not like here every thing comes to stand still ,i also noticed a lot of cars carried snow chains ,which are rarity here ,allthough i have just bought a twin axle myself to give us a bit more space when we spend a few months down in spain and the south of france at the end of the year

 

[Val & Frank]

Hi Lutz,

I remember the time before unification when the population in Western Germany could afford whatever they wanted looks like times have changed. You did swop the D-Mark for the Euro it looks like downhill ever since.

LOL Val & Frank very much --------))))))

 

[Lutz]

I think it's less a matter of cost but more a general apathy towards twin axles. Single axled caravans are getting bigger all the time. There are several models on the market weighing 1800kg but even these aren't normally towed by 4x4's over here. There is a tendancy to tow right on the legal limit. The first question a German caravanner will ask the car dealer when buying a new car is "How high is the maximum towload?". It is therefore not uncommon to see something like a top-of-the-range C-Class Mercedes towing a 1800kg caravan, despite a kerbweight of only 1600kg.