What’s the Longest Trip You've Ever Taken?

In 1990 we decided that we wanted to go to an area South East of Vienna near the border with Communist Hungary. This was for birdwatching and a cultural trip into Vienna.

We looked at the cost of a 3 week holiday. No cheap Easyjet type companies operating at that time and Austria wasn't in the EU at the time. How could we do it and more importantly how could we afford it? Buy a caravan! So we bought a second hand Swift Silhouette 2 berth and in May 1991 set off without a care in the world. Thinking back the thought of driving from North Wales to South of Vienna in 4 days including a day lost to a ferry would be headache inducing now but we were young and on an adventure. Mind you taking a wrong exit and ending up in Vienna in rush hour with a caravan behind you wasn't planned.

Did we enjoy it? You bet. The roads were awful and there wasn't a supermarket anywhere nearby. We also nearly got arrested by Austrian police. One of the areas was a nature area set between a small village and the river that constituted the border with Hungary. We were stopped coming back into the village by armed police. Binoculars and no passports (the campsite had kept them in those days) looked a bit suspicious. Fortunately they fell about laughing at my dreadful German accent and basic understanding of the language.

Vienna was great as was Brussels on the return leg.

We did the trip again in 2010 as a sort of anniversary. Austria had joined the EU by then. The roads were new as were the multiple shops but you know what? We preferred it more the first time.

Here really started our long distance adventures with a caravan. It's been great ever since.

In 1992 I had a six month paid sabbatical from work. We took the boys out of school from Whitsun to the end of August, so much of it was holidays anyway. In those days schools looked a little beyond attendance records and were happy with our proposal. Both boys had projects to do whilst away. We set off from Dover and down through France and Belgium to our first site at Bad Ems in Germany where we stayed a week right on the river. Our next stop was Staufen im Breisgau. We explored the Black Forest and took the train into Freiburg. We then moved into Austria which started a bit of a love affair with that country staying at Natterersee surrounded by mountains for the first time. Then onto Salzburg and Vienna. Then into Italy to Venice and Lake Garda followed by Florence, Sienna and Pisa before moving back into France where we stayed at a couple of sites on the Mediterranean. Next was Spain and a site near Barcelona. The idea was to attend some of the Olympic events but that proved difficult due to lack of ticket availability. We did hear a whisper that we might get a view of the rowing at Lake of Banyoles so we took a drive out. A lovely young lady explained to us, is the most perfect English, that if you turn up on the day there is free space around the the lake but away from the official stands. We were up very early and arrived at an empty car park, it was somewhat more chaotic when we came to leave! We saw Steve Redgrave win one of his many Olympic Gold Medals so it was worth the trip. We also visited Barcelona. Spain was our turn round point and we started heading north stopping at many places en route before the return journey via Calais and home. It was the longest trip we have undertaken, even to this day. I think we covered about 4000 miles  and I still have the diary I kept with all the costs involve and the then multitude of currencies we had to deal with. 

David 

Edit:- I thought I would add that the majority of the sites were booked through what used to be called the Club's Advance Booking Service. That might seem strange these days when we have things like  ACSI but back then, not only were we pretty inexperienced every country had its own currency prior to the Euro. Booking through the Club allowed us to pay in Sterling and removed the complication of paying for each site individually. I have also added a photo of the route we took.

The longest and a most interesting trip was in 2004. Our trip as far north as Norway's Lofoten Islands took 66 days via the Dover-Calais ferry through France and Belgium to Holland, Northern Germany, Denmark and Sweden, returning to England via Fjord Line's Bergen-Newcastle ferry. You can read about this >here.< I would love to do some of it again but sadly its a very long drive to get there and the Newcastle to Bergen ferry has not been in service for some years now.

peedee

When I retired in 2007, we went to North Cape, via Holland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and finally into Norway.

On our way back we came down the Norwegian coast, visited relatives, a detour to Lofoten, spent a few weeks with my family near Bodo,  continued south down the coast, saw more relatives, right to the most southern part, then headed inland and up to Oslo, to even more relatives.

Then south into Sweden, ferry to Germany, and back to our homeward ferry  via  Berlin, other areas of Germany, and Holland.   About 3 months in all, and quite a few thousand miles.

I’ve hesitated to post here because so much of what I will write is repetition of other posts I’ve made but, who knows, it might inspire someone.

My experiences also don’t compare with some of the previous posts in terms of distance or duration of the trips but, even so, from the south coast of Cornwall to the north of Scotland and beyond is no mean feat.

We had often holidayed in Scotland but were usually constrained by the need to work or by family commitments so tended to stick to the Borders, Dumfries & Galloway or, at the furthest push, Oban and the fabulously sited North Ledaig. In 2008 we were free of all ties and made the swap from caravan to motorhome and headed off for an 8 week tour around Scotland. We visited familiar places and new ones and ventured to the far north for the first time. Then we travelled down the west coast staying again at old favourites while exploring new places like the Mull of Kintyre. It was a trip not without mishaps. We had made the classic mistake of buying a MH that was too big - yes, attempting to replicate the living space of a caravan. Because it was big, we towed a small car on a trailer but, during the trip, the trailer had to be welded 3 times, the under scuttle of the car had to be replaced as the trailer damaged it, then the (almost new) MH broke down climbing Rest and Be Thankful near Arrochar with the result that it was carried home to Cornwall towing the empty trailer while we and our dog crammed into the Ford Ka and drove home in one day. Not a journey I’d ever wish to repeat!

In 2014 with a more sensible size MH we did a comprehensive tour of northern Scotland it was the NC500 before anyone gave it a name. That trip uncovered the most scenic of places with beautiful beaches and started us thinking about the islands…..

2017 saw us head smartly to Dunnet Bay before catching the ferry to Orkney. That was a different world with the Italian Chapel and Churchill Barriers being memorable along with the Ring of Brodgar. After a few days we caught the overnight ferry to Lerwick in Shetland. A different world again with distinct Norwegian influences - the locals will tell you they are geographically closer to Bergen than to Edinburgh. We explored most of the Shetland Islands travelling as far north as Haroldswick on Unst. I thought Shetland was the most beautiful place rivalled only by the Outer Hebrides but that’s another story although just as memorable.

Every one of those trips to the far north was about 2500 miles, even the Shetland one as the ferry did a lot of the work. We took between 6 and 8 weeks for each of our adventures. Time to relax and enjoy the scenery without rushing. If anyone is contemplating a trip to the north of Scotland, the Northern Isles or the Western Isles, I say go for it and you won’t regret it but go prepared for all sorts of weather conditions.

We have done many memorable trips in our 44 years of owning a leisure vehicle. Our first caravan was an Eccles Topaz, it was a 3 come 4 berth with a canvas hammock. Second hand of course. We bought to explore southern England as at that time we lived in Aborfield. Shortly after buying it we took it to the New Forest for Whit weekend. Our friends lived on the Isle of White so we had a day out to see them. 

Just 2 months later we were posted back to Germany to Detmold. We ventured to Denmark to visit Legoland. The following summer saw us in Italy after spending some time in Bavaria and Austria.

While living in Germany we used to get away as often as we could but summer was always 3 weeks either in Italy or Spain. The boys loved camping and one they were old enough would prefer to sleep outside the caravan in a small tent.

Now that we are retired and have no constraints on our time we still travel to Spain, Portugal, France and many other European countries. These days it's no longer 2 long days drive to get there, more like 2 weeks or even longer.

The longest trip we have done so far was just over 12 weeks, 11 weeks of that abroad and the rest in the UK making our way to the port and back. 

We took the tunnel from Folkestone, drove across the north of France to the Alsace, ventured into Germany for some shopping then drove down the east of France along the Alps. Down to Provence then the med, along the foothills on the French side of the Pyrenees. Visited a few places like Cap Breton and Saint Jean de Luz. 

Next was the north coast of Spain, we intended to go all the way along but the terrible weather defeated us. We turned back and made for Burgos. After several days we were back on the med again where we enjoyed fantastic weather. We made it as far Murcia where we stayed 10 days before turning round working our way back up the med coast,then up through France back to Calais.

Since then we have successfully visited the Pico's and driven all the way across the north coast of Spain, down into Portugal and back into Spain along the Algarve. 

Our longest trip was 4,600 MLS.

There are still so many places to visit, I just hope we continue to be able to do this for as long as we can.

Around 1972 we took our caravan, along with OH's Swedish penpal and her husband, in their hired caravan, all the way up through Sweden and part of Finland, over the Arctic Circle, to as far as we could go north with the van and then had a ferry ride to the North Cape for a day. We returned down through Norway and along the Silver Road back into Sweden. The trip lasted three and a half weeks and we did roughly 3,500 mls.

Longest trip we have done was in summer 2014. We took the van on the ferry to Bilbao and then spent an excellent 6 weeks travelling back up through France staying in the Pyrenees for a week then a few days in Bordeaux are then Navarre then a week in Brittany and finally a week in Normandy before coming back to the UK and spent a week making our way back from Portsmouth to home. Excellent trip and we had lovely weather the whole time. Not taken the van abroad since but not ruling out doing it again 

The furthest that we ever got with our own caravan was a round trip in Iceland, but of course that included a long ferry crossing. That was almost 25 years ago and back then much of the ring road around the island was gravel. It was a big adventure, but the car suffered from so much stone chip damage that it should have had a respray when we got back. As it was, I sold it.

The biggest mileage that we ever did with the same caravan was to follow the entire coast of the Iberian peninsula, taking in all of Spain and Portugal. On reflection now I wonder how I managed to do that in the 4 weeks that I had available at the time.

The longest trip in a rented motorhome was across Canada, from the most westerly point on Vancouver Island to St John's in Newfoundland, a total of over 14,000 km including a couple of detours crossing into the USA and back again. It was probably also the most memorable trip.

We have done 2 long trips, the first in 2017 for 4 months and the 2nd in 2018 for 6 months. Each trip involved over 10,000 miles and over 40 campsites - mad!  We tend to drift and never book ahead but read the guidebooks and listen to other campers which means that we have been to places that we probably would never have found otherwise.

In 2017, we went up into Sweden, across to Finland and then down through the Baltic States to Sicily.  As you can imagine, there were many memorable moments.  However, the ones that stand out were: Lake Vattern in Sweden with its stunning views and sunsets where we stalled for a week waiting for a pitch to become vacant in Stockholm, Tallinn for architecture, culture & food, Florence for everything (can't ever go past without stopping), Sorrento and the whole of that area, Palermo and, in particular, the Palatine Chapel and finally, slightly bizarrely, an extraordinary wonderful dinner of fresh fish in the restaurant of probably one of the most rundown campsites we visited - it was between the Amalfi coast and the ferry to Sicily. It was so good that we stopped there on the way back!  On both occasions, there were no more than 4 other campers there.

In 2018, we were invited to a wedding in Toledo in October so this was a good excuse to visit Spain which we had really, other than 'bucket & spade' holidays in the Bay of Rosas more years ago than I care to remember, never explored tending to Italy instead.  We went down the Portuguese side of Spain, crossed over into Morocco and came back up the Mediterranean side.  Again there were many memorable moments.  However the top ones were: The Mesquita in Cordoba, the Alcazar in Seville, the scenery as we drove over the Atlas mountains down to the Sahara, the campsite and the bazaar - blatantly tourist orientated but noisy, colourful, exotic and fun - in Marrakesh, the stunningly colourful blue town of Chefchaouen, the Christmas 'sound & light' show in Malaga, Javea where we stalled for 3 weeks and the La Sagrada Famillia in Barcelona.  Sadly, I had flu when we were in Granada so my wife and my sister-in-law, who had come to join us for Christmas, went to Alhambra and said that it was also stunning.  I know that for a lot of you this is not spectacular but we have never explored Spain so, as a result of this trip, we will go back and dig a bit deeper.

We have been a bit constrained first by Covid and second by new knees but hope to start touring again in May - at the moment no idea where!