Special caution required when planning the caravan holiday tips

Caravan holiday tips

Venturing out onto the open road in your home on wheels is one of life’s great but simple pleasures. If this is your first time on this new adventure, read these tips before heading out on your caravanning experience so you can be sure of a safe and enjoyable journey.

Planning your trip

With lots to think about prior to leaving for your caravanning holiday, the first and most important tip is to invest in planning ahead, particularly if you’re visiting a distant destination.

Research the area you’re visiting and identify the best caravan sites in which to spend your holiday. Make sure the road to your destination is suitable for your towing vehicle and caravan type; some sites may only be accessible to 4x4s. Knowing the area means being equipped to prepare for any specific conditions you are likely to encounter – for example, the weather, and the available facilities and amenities at the caravan site. Use the internet to assess locations on the basis of feedback from others who have visited your prospective sites – some places are better than others.

Joining a caravan club can be enormously helpful, particularly with tips on great places to go and what to take with. Social media provides the ability to very quickly connect with like-minded people and online forums can provide instant insight and feedback to help deal with any issues, concerns or questions.

Draw up a menu for all the meals you’ll be eating while you’re away. Then you’ll know which ingredients you’ll need to purchase (and which can be sourced on-site) as well as where best to store them – for example, in a cooler box or freezer.

Write a checklist during your planning phase so that you don’;t leave anything behind. Must-have items include a fire extinguisher and a fully-stocked first aid kit.

Entertainment

Every caravan will need some form of entertainment in order to keep the kids busy – especially if it rains.  Consider packing some board games or other forms of entertainment, such as a small portable TV. A good bet is to bring a games console or DVD player with you. A docking station for music ensures that you can enjoy your favourite tunes – but be aware of others around you.  

Towing tips

• Make sure your caravan windows are closed, doors locked and gas and electricity turned off before you drive off.


• Take utmost care in attaching the caravan to the tow ball, including fastening the safety chain connecting the electrical socket and, on braked caravans, disconnecting the handbrake.


• Check that the taillights and indicators are working on the caravan.


• Don’t exceed the maximum towing capacity of the towing vehicle.


• Equipment such as water, food, camping gear, etc. will generally add another 300kg to the weight of the empty caravan. Typically, you do not want to overload the caravan; where possible, equipment should be transported in your car. If some gear is in the caravan, make sure it is loaded in accordance with manufacturer recommendations.


• Make sure your towing vehicle can handle the weight of caravan, equipment and supplies.

Caravan insurance

Despite the best precautions, accidents can happen, so another essential task before setting out on holiday is getting the insurance up to date. Make sure you have the appropriate cover for your car and caravan so you can enjoy the open road secure in the knowledge that your home-away-from-home is protected from the unexpected.

Caravan insurance covers:

• Theft and hijack


• Fire and explosion


• Accidental damage


• Storm, hail, flood or snow


• Liabilities caused to other parties

Importantly, make sure your caravan policy covers contents and accessories as well as the caravan itself. After all, no caravanning holiday is complete without camping tables, chairs, tents cutlery and crockery, and a range of electronic devices and personal property. If it’s in the caravan, it should be covered by the insurance policy for complete peace of mind; note only caravan items (including permanent fixtures and accessories such as air-conditioning units, fitted canopies and awnings) will be covered under the caravan policy. Other items will be covered by MiMovables or All Risk cover.

Also, check that your chosen insurance policy offers roadside assistance and emergency services; after all, caravanning explicitly requires being out on the road.

[By: Rory Judd, MiWay Head of Online Marketing]

MiWay is an Authorised Financial Services Provider (Licence no: 33970)

MiWay Insurance Limited (‘MiWay’) is a direct, short-term insurance company, offering customers a range of short-term insurance products including motor, household and homeowners insurance as well as add-on products such as warranty cover and liability cover. MiWay’;s shareholder is Santam, a blue-chip JSE-listed company.

Also view: Towing a Trailer Safely

Special caution required when planning the caravan holiday tips

Perilous Journey: Taking the Lambo Caravan to Pebble Beach

Factors were going wonderful . . . till a tire blew, an oil pump failed, a tree fell on the auto, and I was hit by a runaway Ferrari.

If you haven’t driven an antique vehicle to the Monterey weekend, you’ve missed half the fun of going. Parking rules look to unwind as valets stand aside for vintage automobiles. The cops normally just give you a wave. You can park on lawns and sidewalks and drip oil onto Venetian tile and no one will yell at you. Thousands of people you’ve by no means met will see your automobile and feel its owner is cool, even if at that extremely moment you are someplace else dribbling shrimp cocktail down a silk shirt.

The last time I drove my 1970 Lamborghini Espada to Monterey, I had to replace all 6 Weber carburetors on the lawn at the Concorso Italiano. After I got house, I had to pull out the engine and rebuild it. I also rebuilt the suspension and brakes and replaced the radiator and rewired the cooling fans and replaced the exhaust system. I rebuilt some other stuff, as well, that I can’t even bear in mind the particulars of now.

3 years later, the green Espada was prepared to return. A group of 3 Espadas and a single 1967 400GT were to join me in a huge, merry, 60-cylinder convoy. 4 automobiles met on Wednesday morning, which was lost to a final-minute job replacing the 2 power brake boosters on my car, which were leaking hydraulic fluid profusely. Luckily, my pal Bob Huber, a fellow Espada owner who rebuilt his blue Series III Espada from a full wreck, had a spare pair. The only problem, he said, was that they didn’t work extremely effectively. And as soon as the brakes have been applied, at times they didn’t release. But otherwise, they had been fantastic. And they didn’t leak, so in they went.

We departed Los Angeles in standard L.A. targeted traffic about 2:00 pm on Wednesday, headed north. Things had been going swimmingly and we created a fabulous sight, buzzing the left lane as 4 spaceships from Planet Awesome. Then, just north of the seaside city of Oxnard, it all started to fall apart. Very first, the white Espada S1 of Mike Trivich blew a tire. The group got broken up in visitors trying to circle back in answer to his distress call. As we assisted Mike (he lucked out and was capable to get a replacement tube and tire in an hour), Jack Riddell in his 260,000-mile-plus 400GT called. It was both overheating and spewing oil.

(Final year, you need to know, Jack rebuilt the engine right after it dropped a valve seat and blew a fist-sized hole in the cylinder head and piston. He has owned the automobile since 1972 and driven it to the Pebble Beach weekend 34 instances.)

We mustered our 3 Espadas and drove up the road to meet Jack, who had landed in a gas station parking lot near Santa Barbara. It looked as if the Exxon Valdez had run aground in his parking space. Right after an hour of diagnosis, it was determined that the oil-pump pulley seal had failed catastrophically, and there was no way to continue on. 4 hours later, the tow truck dropped the automobile nearby at a friend’s house, Jack and his gear piled into one particular of the spacious, wagonlike Espadas (which is THE Italian exotic to have in such situations), and we continued on in the encroaching darkness. At our Pismo Beach layover, we realized it had taken 9 hours to cover about 200 miles.

The subsequent morning we arose and the (now-4) Espadas continued on with out difficulty. I was proud of the green gal. The rebuilt V-12 ran strong and flawlessly and—except for a noisy, poor bearing in the transmission—was each and every bit the smooth, comfy touring automobile that in 1970 price the equivalent of 4 Corvettes.

Then we got to Monterey. If you can picture Beijing traffic, but with Benzes, Bentleys, and Bugattis, you have Monterey during Pebble Beach weekend. Even though we waited in a line of vehicles on a narrow side street in Carmel, exactly where I’m fairly positive 18-wheelers are banned from narrow side streets by about 17 laws, such a massive rig suddenly appeared, going about 50 mph. It sheared off the reduced third of the canopy of the tree directly overhanging my vehicle, and all of a sudden my poor Espada was in a monsoon of pine cones, moss, twigs, and numerous massive branches, which crashed onto the roof and hood and poured via my open windows.

In my rage and misery, I yelled out of the window, “Thanks, you (delete) (delete) (delete) hole (delete) (delete) (oh, boy, delete) you mother (delete)!” It took 10 minutes to clean off the car and survey the damage, which, thankfully, was restricted to a couple of new scratches in the original Verde Pallido paint.

---

---

Later, following I parked my Espada at the hotel, a silver Ferrari 575M parked straight across from me. How good, I believed. I’ve often liked the 575, drove 1 when they have been new. Quick and comfortable, it was type of a 2-seat Espada. When I came out later, the 575 had rolled down the incline into my car, at which point I realized that the 575M is a miserable steaming pile owned exclusively by douchebags who do not use their parking brakes. The harm was a mark on my irreplaceable stainless-steel bumper, which is now also slightly bent. I took a image of the scene and the license plate, stuck a big rock beneath the Fazz’s tire, rolled the Espada back so its transmission and rather weak parking brake wasn’t also holding back 2 tons of Maranello scrap steel, and left a tersely worded note asking the owner to please be a stand-up guy and contact me.

I’m still waiting . . .

Perilous Journey: Taking the Lambo Caravan to Pebble Beach

Caravan insurance – all you need to have to know

You can always tell when summer season has lastly arrived – there’s a proliferation of caravans on motorways and trunk roads.

If you occur to be stuck behind one particular as opposed to actually towing one particular, there’s a very good reason why it’s going at that speed.

Automobiles towing caravans (or trailers, for that matter) are restricted to 50mph on a single carriageway and 60mph on a dual carriageway or a motorway. And as with any speed limit, that is a ceiling, not a target – many caravans will be towed at considerably lower speeds, specially in inclement climate.

So be patient!

Tour de force

There are about 500,000 touring caravans on UK highways, plus a expanding number of motorhomes.

And if you have spent a number of thousands of pounds on a tourer (a standard price tag for a decent new model is £9,000), it makes sense to arrange suitable insurance coverage in case something goes wrong.

Back to basics

The initial question that crops up with caravan insurance coverage is generally – is it mandatory to have insurance coverage in spot?

The fundamental guidelines are that any self-propelled automobile should be insured to a minimum of third celebration cover. So a touring caravan doesn’t by itself want insurance coverage, but a motorhome does.

But that’s only component of the issue. If a caravan is being towed, it becomes a risky proposition – you can very easily think about the problems it may well cause in a pile-up or if it became detached.

A lot of men and women work on the basis that their vehicle insurance will offer cover for their caravan, but don’t go out on the road with out confirming the particulars:

• Do not assume your vehicle insurance covers you for towing a caravan


• If it does, verify if there is a size/weight restriction


• If you have a tow-bar fitted or have an current one strengthened, check with the insurer to see whether or not this counts as a ‘modification’. Altering the original specification of a car may attract an added premium, and the premium may possibly be declared void if you have an accident but didn’t tell the insurer about the perform you’d had completed


• Check what level of cover you have – it will probably be third party cover, taking care of your legal liabilities to other individuals, but not defending you against harm to your own car. You might be capable to improve this level of cover by paying much more


• Believe about the replacement automobile section of your auto insurance, if it has one: will the replacement auto be up to the job of towing your caravan?

Specialist cover

Even if your automobile policy covers you for towing, it won’t cover you for theft of or from your ’van, and other associated risks. For that you need to have a specialist caravan insurance coverage policy.

Theft is a typical difficulty – about 4,000 caravans are stolen every year. Then there’s the threat of weather harm, vandalism or even fire. And if you do not have insurance in location, you could end up with a large bill.

A number of insurers supply caravan and trailer cover, and it’s worth seeking at the functions of the policy as effectively as the premium. You may think a low-cost program is a great deal, until you make a claim and realise the limitations of the cover.

Storm and theft

A caravan policy will cover theft and attempted theft, as nicely as storm, flood, fire and accidental harm. You must also make sure you have public liability insurance coverage of at least £2m.

Further positive aspects

You can then typically add a number of additional advantages, though you may well have to pay an added premium.

European cover is often incorporated as common up to a certain number of days. You can enhance the cover period if you are arranging an substantial trip on the Continent. Or you can add worldwide insurance coverage if you are travelling additional afield.

Buddies and loved ones

Do your friends and loved ones sometimes make use of your caravan? If so, you should discover out whether they are automatically covered on your policy and upgrade your plan advantages if required.

Loss of use

Some insurers cover loss of use if, for instance, you have to cancel a trip following flood damage to your caravan. It can be a useful advantage, but verify the restrictions. Most policies will pay out only up to a certain amount a day for a limited quantity of days.

Contents cover

Several of the a lot more basic plans do not consist of the caravan contents or gear, which indicates costly kit such as your awning would not be insured. The level of contents cover also varies from insurer to insurer, with some firms refusing to insure valuables.

New for old

If your caravan is up to 5 or sometimes 10 years old, the policy will possibly provide cover on a ‘new for old’ basis.

In other words, if the caravan is written off or stolen and not recovered, you’ll be in a position to claim for a new one particular.

Older vehicles have a tendency to be insured at their market value, so the insurer will spend out the going rate at the time of the incident. You can often arrange an agreed worth with the insurer if you caravan is difficult to value, but agreed value policies are significantly less typical and usually much more high-priced.

Policy exclusions

Caravan and trailer insurance coverage does not usually cover business use or permanent residence. Some insurers also exclude loss or damage from any web site that was not authorized.

If you’ve got a static caravan, you will need a separate, specialist policy that offers additional cover and does not consist of what might be termed ‘road risks’. But you will require to arrange cover if you move the vehicle to another site.

No claims

If you are worried about the cost of caravan cover, feel carefully just before you make a claim. Most insurers enable you to create up a no claims discount, just as you would on a car insurance coverage policy – even though this will most likely only go up to 45% – 50%.

You may also be capable to enhance the excess in return for a lower premium.

Road security

Safety must be a leading priority when you are on the road. Safety measures can obviously support to minimize accidents, but they can also support to reduce premiums as several insurers provide discounts if you fit authorized safety devices.

Mirrors and cameras

By law, any individual towing a caravan have to be capable to see 20 metres behind them and 4 metres either side, which generally involves fitting towing mirrors. And what about a camera? Cameras are not a legal requirement but they can be particularly useful in heavy traffic or when altering lanes.

Learn to manoeuvre

Stabilisers that assist stop the caravan from snaking from side to side can enhance road security. In addition, some owners enrol on manoeuvring courses to increase their skills.

Flat tyres

It’s worth considering ‘run flat’ or safety tyres. You may also want to set up a tyre pressure monitoring program that is ISO 21750 compliant.

Caravan safety

It’s vital to maintain your caravan safe. You may also find that some security measures are a situation of your policy.

Many firms, for example, insist on wheel and hitch locks.

It may well also be a situation of your insurance coverage that your caravan is registered with the Caravan Registration and Identification Scheme (CRiS), which acts as a central database for touring caravans.

Most insurers provide some sort of discount for security devices, though the size of the discount will vary. The insurer may possibly also waive the excess if your security is of a high adequate normal.

Alarms and immobilisers

Alarms and immobilisers are pretty common. A tracking device can also assist to recover a stolen caravan. Then there are wheel locks, which deter thieves and make it hard to tow away the caravan.

You can also match hitch locks that avert a thief from hitching the caravan to yet another automobile without having your consent.

Ground anchors

Ground anchors fix the caravan to the ground and are excellent if you are leaving the caravan at house even though you are away.

Alternatively, a safety post cemented into the ground can protect your caravan from thieves. Or, you could retailer your caravan at a unique site, preferably run by the Caravan Storage Web site Owners’ Association (CSSOA).

You need to then benefit from additional safety such as CCTV cameras or on-website employees. Your insurer would also most likely waive any excess if the caravan was broken or stolen from a CSSOA site.

Caravan insurance – all you need to have to know