2020 What A Year

It Wasn’t All Bad

We welcomed 2020 in with a stay at Caravan and Motorhome’s club site Longleat. The journey there was a nightmare and took 7 hours, we vowed never to go again. We’ve actually vowed never to go again before though. Traffic was a nightmare. I did meet a few subscribers, which is always great. It’s the weirdest thing, someone knowing you, but you don’t have a clue who they are. There were also some other vloggers there, just be chance who we briefly met at a NYE get together.

We came back early January and of course soon after that were were plunged into a lockdown, so no caravanning for the short to medium term.

First Trip of 2020

On July 4th, we were set free and went to NormanHurst Court near Hastings. Due to covid we had to book a specific pitch. We got there and someone had parked their car on our pitch. Not a great start. We set up in the rain, but it was good to be out. Of course it was a bit of a downer as we were meant to be in the South of France. Naturally 10 degrees and raining wasn’t a good day for July.

We never really got into our stride on this break. Not sure if it was all the Covid stuff, or the fact that 3 or 4 families had come together and were gathering in groups of 10+ people, which really made us nervous. They were BBQing in big groups the pitch next to ours. 

They were apparently in the same “bubble” an excuse I’d hear many times during the year.

Hastings was miserable, cold, wet and windy and of course every ten minutes one of us would say “we should be in France now”. We stuck it out for two weeks and as with Longleat we vowed never to go again!

Cornwall

In August we went to Cornwall and Devon. Our first stop was Threwethett Farm where we met Ian,Clare and Mike of “For The Love Of Caravans”. This is a unique site with absolutely stunning views. 

For The Love Of Caravans had a new (to them) caravan. It’s a rather nice Swift Challenger. they also had a really nice Kampa awning, which made us realise how old and shabby our own awning had become. 

Back to the Challenger for a minute. We looked inside and were both impressed with the quality of the Challenger when we compared it to our Unicorn.If was the same layout as our Cartagena, but everything seemed to be finished better somehow. We both felt it independently and it was hard to put our finger on it. Of course the seed was planted. We’d already fallen out of love with the layout and this on top of everything was the straw that broke to camel’s back.

We did however find a gem of a site, probably one of my personal favourites. Godrevy Park. You might have noticed I don’t recommend many sites! This isn’t because I’m miserable, honestly. I like many many sites, but love very few…

New Year New Caravan

Those of you that follow our channel will know we’ve ordered a new caravan for the coming season. If you don’t know what we have got, check out our video above

CaravanVlogger Facts & Figures

It’s been a good year for both our YouTube channel and website. I thought you might be interested in some facts and figures.

Our website had over 35,000 visitors, with 65,000 page views!
Our YouTube channel had over 271,000 views, this is absolutely massive for us. That equated to 21,000 hours of watch time. Again a truly staggering number. 

We increased the number of subs by about 1,800 

Top 5 viewed vlogs

1. Thetford toilet – 23k
2. Jockey wheel – 19k
3. Fill the water  – 16k
4. How not to move a caravan – 9.9k
5. Twin Axle 2 or 4 movers – 8.4k

Whilst on the CaravanVlogger subject, during lockdown I also took the opportunity to completely re-design the website. If I’m honest the website is a hobby and I like to tinker. Of course, what I need to bear in mind is that it’s well used by caravanners and not just my toy. With that in mind I’ve also moved the website to a more stable and faster hosting company. I also introduced a specific Amazon Affiliate store as part of the website where you can purchase any number of Amazon products. If you purchase this way, it doesn’t cost you more, but we get a tiny percentage which does help pay the hosting fees. So thank you. If you have any feedback on the website, what you like, or dislike I’d really like to hear from you. there’s a “Contact Us” link under the “Home” menu.   

And Finally….

Last but not least, I’ve created a private Facebook group. Feel free to join by clicking the below