These are quite common and simple rules, you will be able to follow them playfully. It’s nothing special, or something that limits you. You’ll gain respect from both caravanners and non-caravanners and you’ll make friends.
Post content:
- It doesn’t make a mess
- Used the toilet
- It doesn’t clog
- Don’t camp in the car park
- He doesn’t start a fire
It doesn’t make a mess
I find it a bit ridiculous to write this here, but it’s true. Amateur caravanners leave rubbish behind. Sometimes they put them in a plastic bag and think that someone will dust the bag after them. I don’t know who. The garbage bags are often blown around by the wind and all the plastic bottles are all over the place.
“The expert caravanner tries to leave the place he’s been to in better condition than it was before he got there”
He takes all his rubbish with him and dumps it nicely in the bin. Many times we have messed up the parking lot by the beach along with others. We were in a nicer parking lot and showed the locals that the caravanners were not the ones who made the mess.
Used the toilet
Amateur caravanners, or rather #vanlife-ers, think they don’t need a toilet
I’ll give you a math problem. Imagine there are 50 vans in a car park, with 2 people in it. How many white pieces of paper will be at the car park at the end of the season? The season usually lasts from May to the end of October, which is 6 months.
Now you know why sleeping in a caravan or van outside a campsite is banned in Portugal from January 2020. It looked awful there. The area around the beach was then regularly cleaned by local surfers and kids from surf clubs.
“The expert caravanner uses the toilet, leaves no landmines or any toilet paper behind the bushes”
A speciality of amateur caravanners is pouring out a toilet cassette somewhere in the woods. Such amateur caravanners should be retrained as experts as soon as possible and pour out the toilet cassette at the campsite, at the caravan service point or at least in the rest area toilets
If an expert caravanner needs a larger toilet, he or she will buy another toilet cassette for the reserve. The expert caravanner has the money for it, having already bought a huge 60k caravan. A spare toilet cassette costs up to €100, doesn’t smell and doesn’t spill.
It doesn’t clog
A caravan is a great means of transport. Especially in length. However, the amateur caravanner thinks that this entitles him to 4 parking spaces in the very first row of the car park overlooking the sea. Not so.
“The expert caravanner still parks so as not to cause a nuisance”
The expert caravanner tries to make sure that he takes up as few parking spaces as possible and does not overhang the pavement or cycle path with his rear end. The expert caravanner prefers to park at the rear of the car park where he will be less obtrusive than at the front.
Don’t camp in the car park
The amateur caravanner thinks the car park is a campsite. He puts up an awning, a table, chairs and a barbecue. An ordinary car park is for parking, the law defines it as such. Caravan parks have their own restrictions and rules. These rules are determined by the local law in that country.
The amateur caravanner hangs out his laundry around the caravan and leaves the garbage bag to stink up everyone around.
“An expert caravanner stands in a car park as if he were parking”
In most cases, a caravan parked like this can stay in the car park overnight and you can sleep, cook or eat in it.
If you want to eat your spaghetti and ketchup outdoors, use the rest area for that, or throw a blanket on the beach. Even a camping table and chairs OUTSIDE the RV site is usually defined by law as a picnic, i.e. not a campsite
The expert camper dries his wet laundry in the bathroom of the camper, uses the campsite or laundromat for laundry. That’s how any decent expert caravanner does it.
He doesn’t start a fire
The amateur caravanner fires up a barbecue half a metre from the next caravan in the caravan park, makes a bonfire in the evening in the beach car park and takes Instagram photos while doing so.
“The expert caravanner only uses the prepared fire pits for barbecues or open fires”
You might find this section a bit ridiculous, but we’ve experienced a two-metre-long bonfire set up by German #vannaifers right in the middle of a beach car park, or another German #vannaifer right next to our caravan firing up the grill so much that I had to parry so we didn’t burn down.
