Caravan Club and cyclists with tents!

[AndrewLee]

Does anyone have experience of camping at a Caravan Club Site? They have plenty of sites with plenty of pitches for tents - but they say you have to have a caravan to use the site or pay an £8 a night supplement! I'm planning to attend a couple of training events over the summer travelling by bike and these are the only convenient sites. They say they are allied with SUSTRANS - seems strange to me. Any ideas anyone?

[vernon]

The clue is probably in the name: Caravan Club i.e. focussed on caravans. If they do a surcharge it's probably to recoup the 'loss' of revenue that they'd get from a caravan.

Have you looked at The Camping and Caravan Club? Their sites definitely accommodate campers. The main sites are cheap the certified ones are not so cheap. I used one on the leeds/liverpoll canal that charged £14 for one person for the night. It was very basic and didn't even supply toilet roll in the toilets.

[horizon]

It gets complicated because

(a) Caravan Club club sites (their own) don't generally accept tents (I don't know about this supplement) but about 75 out of 204 do.
(b) Their affilliated sites (and other ordinary caravan sites) have their own reasons for not accepting tents but could so if they wished. Many do but lots don't.
(c) Their certificated sites technically cannot accept tents as they have signed up under a DEFRA caravan exemption. I have actually been turned away from a Caravan Club certificated site and did look into this. Unless I am wrong it is a very peculiar system whereby Caravan Club cert'd sites cannot accept tents but Camping and Caravan Club cert'd sites can accept either. There are about 2500 CC certificated sites but most are very basic. Many certificated sites totally lack facilities - OK for caravans but not OK for cyclists.

BTW there are lots of parts of the country without campsites - it is not as easy as it looks to find one.

As regards the Sustrans link that is explained because it is for caravan users going on day rides - not cycle tourers.

[John in Leeds]

You might give this a try http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/

I use Camping and Caravaning Club certificated sites regularly but generally ring beforehand to enquire if they do have a toilet available.

[LANDSURFER74]

Join the Caravan & Camping club; "The friendly club" , you will always be welcome at their huge number of sites. forget the Caravan Club, they dont want cyclists and tents cluttering up their sites!!

[horizon]

these are the only convenient sites

This is the OP's problem.

[mark a.]

I've camped a couple of times at Caravan Club sites, but only next to the inlaws' caravan. We wouldn't have been able to camp there otherwise.

Cyclists themselves aren't a problem: the Club doesn't mind bikes, in my experience. It's just that there aren't too many people who can pull a caravan with their bike!

As already mentioned, the Caravan and Camping Club do allow tents, but that's not very helpful if there aren't any around your route.

[stephenjubb]

you will have no problems with the caravanning club sites or afiliated sites as long as they take tents, some do, some do not. The caravan certified sites do not - but not a problem as you have to be a member for these sites.

They arn't too dear.

Edinburgh Caravan Club £11 p.n.
Wick Carvan Club £8 p.n.
Woodhall Spa Caravan Club £10 p.n.

More expensive than the carvanning and camping club, but not bad considering private campsites in cornwall last year in june cost me £15 p.n. and that was out of peak season.

[stephenjubb]

forogt to say the ones I have stayed on have been excellent with polite friendly staff

[jan19]

As campers, we regularly use the Camping and Caravan Club sites (going to one this very week...) We've always found them very accomodating to use, often finding us lovely nooks and cranies on the site which would not be suitable for caravans, but are great spots to pitch a tent. We've even been to one site where the staff took the trouble to find the best place on the site to be out of the wind as very high ones were forecast. Talking to one of their staff last year, he said they rarely, if ever turn campers away even if they're tecnically "full" for caravans, and they never ever turn a backpacker away - they'll always find a spot for them.

Not the cheapest, but always very high standard sites.

Jan

[AndrewLee]

Thanks to Horizon! I am well aware that the C&CC have excellent sites -my problem is that I'm riding down to Croydon and then Brighton to do some training courses over the summer and the ONLY convenient sites I have found are CC sites. They have a pricing structure which surcharges £8 per night for non members - I wondered if anyone was a member of the CC and could tell me if membership allows you to turn up having forgotten the car & caravan, or if anyone had found that there is some flexibility for cyclists. Not got too helpful response from the CC itself. Alternatively anyone got any suggestions for sites in riding distance of South Croydon or Central Brighton?

BTW wasn't one of the organisations originally an offshoot of the CTC originally?

Thanks for the interest folks!

[andrew_s]

BTW wasn't one of the organisations originally an offshoot of the CTC originally?

The C&CC was originally founded as the Asociation of Cycle Campers, by Tomas Hiram Holding, who was also involved in setting up what became the CTC

[rickwiggans]

"Forgetting" your caravan is a non-starter. As stated above, some caravan club sites accept tents - in which case no problem. Some don't - which means they don't. Simple. One of the reason some don't, is that not all have them have grassed areas. Not sure what the issue is with a non-member supplement - pretty reasonable to charge non-members more. Whether the actual amount is reasonable depends on your view point I suppose. Do you know that the sites you want to stay at take tent. If not, tell me which they are and I can find out for you.

[stephenjubb]

-my problem is that I'm riding down to Croydon and then Brighton to do some training courses over the summer and the ONLY convenient sites I have found are CC sites. They have a pricing structure which surcharges £8 per night for non members - I wondered if anyone was a member of the CC and could tell me if membership allows you to turn up having forgotten the car & caravan!

They take tents, so you can turn up, I have done it myself, want a price ring them 01273 626546 and tell them it will be just you and a tent.

They do take tents as can be seen by the tent symbol here for the brighton site

http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/caravanclu ... csid=21975

[simonhill]

Why not contact the Caravan Club and or the sites directly??? Surely they will give you the definitive answer rather than all the 'views' and 'opinions' (possibly 100% accurate) from the above posts.