Parking a motorhome

You will only encounter problems in this country, it is less of a problem on the Continent where the motorhome is king, not the caravan. The answer in this country is to pick your site with more care to make sure the sites are close to amenities and transport routes or tow a small car.

peedee

We changed from caravan to MH 5 years ago. We are more likely to visit sites that are nearer to villages or towns now, or nearer to areas of natural beauty where you can just walk off the site. Public transport or park & rides are an option, and research is needed in advance, pretty much always.  Some towns are MH friendly, some towns have dedicated parking, most don't, even some park and rides won't take motor-homes as they have height barriers, some car-park spaces are just way to small even for our van at 6.3m. At other times you may find a suitable corner where you can park the rear end overhanging grass, but you need to get there in good time to do so. In the end if a town isn't motorhome friendly enough, then we find another that is, but the key is research beforehand using local authority websites and google maps etc.. 

To a certain extent agree with some of PD’s posts. Buying a MH is about getting the size and layout that suits what you want to do. If you intend touring in UK, size is more critical. If you are happy using it as a caravan, dumping it on a Site, then you will need to consider how to get about around where you are pitched up.

If you like touring around in UK, hopping from place to place, visiting a variety of places from countryside, coast, and towns and cities, then slightly smaller is easier, but then you do gain in that you have all your comforts with you at all times. Something 6 metres, and you should be fine, we park up in towns and cities with no more effort than a bit of research as to local parking. 

It’s a personal opinion, but not using the four wheels on your lovely holiday home seems a bit strange to us. Yes MHs are easier to set up and drive than a car and van, but then you lose all that lovely freedom if you just bung it on a Site, attach an awning and go and queue in the rain for a bus! (Don’t forget your 😷😁)

We have had two motor caravansin in the past both a PVC   then had a Coachbiult if you want the same space as a caravan? 

If going abroad then yes go for it as PD says

In this country as we found,  and seems to be getting worse, parking anything bigger than a PVC has more drawbacks,with now the proliferation of height barriers (main reason it seems it to stop the increase in illegal parking of some LVs)

It can also mean "choosing" sites with more thought ,  as to nearby places that are not easily accessible ,hance it seems as noted sites with public transport close or within walking distance or have  cycles on board

We no longer tour "over there" and as TDL says once on site our  almost go any where"support vehicle" is parked alongside

We obviously visit very different places, and are willing to do much more research than you JV. Our average nights away in MH are in the 120 range, all in the UK and we tend to go out off site every day. Away from Clubland it is the norm. Our MH seldom spends more than two nights on the same spot, even if we do a one Site stay. It has wheels, we use them.......

All in UK....top of Long Mynd, country park near Humber Bridge, Under Pembroke Castle, beachside at Caerhays, Cornwall. Why would we leave it stuck on a Site?

Research is probably key to your question. There are also several options. We prefer to find sites that are either in walking distance or with good transport links. For example if you take the Club's site called Seacroft at Cromer. It is an easy walk into the town where , should you wish, you can take the train to Norwich or Wroxham. Alternatively there is an excellent bus service along the coast from immediately outside the site, so probably all the options you could wise for. It is a similar system overseas except campsites/Aires are usually served by better quality transport systems. If you want to visit a Country House or similar I find a phone call or email in advance of a visit will confirm if there is space for you to park usually works. The smaller the motorhome the easier it will be to park. Some PVC's don't have a much larger footprint than a large 4X4. It's going to become more difficult the larger the motorhome is. You need to keep an eye out for parking spaces as some councils will expect you to pay for two spaces if the size overflows. Some Councils can be a bit sniffy on exceeding the width of a parking space if you are parked alongside a kerb.

David

My advice is always to go for a van as small as you feel comfortable with. Ours is 6m and we would prefer 5 to 5.5m. Having said that, we have found very few places we've not been able to park and it's definitely easier than our previous 6.4m coachbuilt van.

Tourist attractions generally have spacious car parks and the NT had started creating spaces for Caravans/MHs. We have never yet had to use public transport and we don't use bikes but we also don’t do cities or Europe. It’s a rare day that finds us sat on site as we're normally out and about in the MH. 

The slim 6m PVC is about 0.5m too long to fit in a single Tesco parking bay. Our 6.4m coachbuilt needed 4 bays.

www.park-my-Motorhome.co.uk might help if you buy a larger vehicle 

We always tried to park on the perimiter of parking areas to nearly always enable rear to overhang

We only switched to a MH in March 2019. One of the reasons we changed was because we wanted to be able to tour more easily, particularly in France. Even with our caravan we preferred to either walk from the site or use public transport if available.

When we had the caravan we tended to go places for a week or more and use the car on a few of the days. Now we have a MH we move on much more frequently, typically 2 / 4 days.

In this country, as has been stated a bit more research is required. Our MH is a 6.94 metre coach built, here I prefer to park on site and use public transport for towns. Often National Trust and similar properties have suitable parking, although it is generally worth a phone call, as space is sometimes limited.

In France with the extensive Aire network and numerous small municipal campsites, it is fairly easy to find something within the towns, or close / adjacent to tourist attractions.

Typically we tend to restock / fuel on moving on days. There is not normally any problem getting into supermarket car parks. A few have bigger spaces. Otherwise we park at the far end of the car park. Farm shops also often have good parking and this can be checked on Google.