Hi, I'm just a few short years older than you and did exactly the same thing getting our first caravan 4 years ago, best thing we ever did, more comfort as years advance is welcome but main reason we did it was so we could go more often, not that we use ours in weather like this but now we start using it around march/April depending on the weather and can comfortably go away thru to September/October with the tent the season due to temperatures is so much shorter, mind you I still sometimes wish we had the tent as there is deff something about tents that I love, hope you enjoy your van. BP