Changing Caravan Layout

Author:

CaravanVlogger

Published:

5 November 2020

Updated:

28 January 2024

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Table Of Contents

Let’s face a fact. People that vlog about caravans love Bailey, don’t they. We’ll in a bid to rid myself of that stigma and to be a bit different I’m moving away from Bailey. As you’ll no doubt gather, that is a completely ridiculous thing to say I am joking, but it is also partly true. I am looking at other makes.

I’d just like to say here, I don’t dislike Bailey and if they ever want to make me a Brand Ambassador, I’d certainly think about it 🙂 You do have to keep your options open and there’s no point in burning any bridges. haha

Being serious now, if I may. We’ve had our Cartagena for about 3 years and we’ve come to realise our layout just isn’t working for us. Now, of course, I could, rejig the layout myself, get out my saw, move the bed here and the bathroom there, however, if you’ve ever watched my vlogs you’ll know by now I’m not very good with practical stuff.

So what’s going on at CaravanVlogger Towers? Well, we’re looking to change the layout, which of course means we’re looking to change the caravan. We want to just change the layout and caravan with as little outlay as possible, but here’s the thing. If, for example, I wanted a Pamplona, which is basically our caravan but with island bed / centre washroom it could cost us 2-3k just to get the same year. There’s no way I’m doing that, swapping for basically the same caravan and it costing me money to do so. If I wanted for not spend any money and just swap, I’d have to get something 2 years older. That’s how dealers make money. They buy from you and sell on for more money than they bought it for, it’s called Capitalism.

Layout Change

We all know you can’t change a layout of a caravan like you can move the furniture around your house, so it’s a replacement that’s needed. We’d like a rear island bed and a middle washroom. The reason being the transverse bed is a pain to get around when it’s not in “day mode”. By that I mean when you need a pee at 3 am, it’s a bit of an obstacle course. We had the same issue with our Sterling Eccles, it was a “french bed” so someone slept against a wall. So the transverse isn’t as bad as that as if you’re determined, or willed on by a full bladder, you could squeeze past, it’s preferable to climbing over someone.

Caravan Interiors

I’ve had a look at a couple of Swift caravans, just to see how they fare with the Bailey. I’ll just say here, I’m really not a fanboy of Bailey. So with Swift caravans I was especially interested in looking at the “Elegance” range. It seemed fitting for an International Vlogger I felt. “Elegance” it sounded quality, it sounded premium, it sounded expensive! I’d spent a couple of weeks reading up on reviews and you know what I think about reviews. With this information fresh in my head I went off to see this “Elegance” Reviews and opinions had really lifted my expectations. The interior was going to be luxurious and well, not to put too fine a point on it, damn well elegant!

During the same visit, I planned to look at the Challenger, which Swift market as somewhat down a peg or two from the Elegance.

Looking at the outside of the Elegance, all looked good. I walked up to open the handle and alarm bells were ringing, it felt very cheap. On the inside things didn’t improve. Once I’d got over my initial shock, I realised that actually, things were normal, the finish wasn’t particularly bad, but it wasn’t as good as I had built it up in my head. That’s the price you pay for watching wall to wall reviews of a caravan done by dealers / sellers who only want to portray the good things.

I moved on to the Challenger, with my expectations reset, and I was happy with the interior. What I have to remember is that caravans are all chipboard and plastic, there’s nothing “quality” about most caravans. Let’s be honest, they’re all pretty poor, considering how much they cost, even used. I know most of it is to keep the weight down, it seems anything light must be cheap looking, even if it isn’t actually cheap.

That aside, I was now happy that the Elegance, in my opinion, wasn’t worth the extra outlay. It’s true there’s a lot more different with the Elegance than just the interior. This also flies in the face of what I said when buying the Unicorn over the Phoenix. I did a vlog explaining why the Unicorn was worth £5,000 more than the Phoenix. So what’s changed? Probably in these uncertain times, we all need to be a bit more sensible.

Lack of Stock

We’re after a specific model, which doesn’t help in the search. Added to that we now have a tighter budget than I’d hoped for AND we obviously have a caravan that we need to “get rid of”, by that I mean sell. I’ve been looking on caravanfinder, ebay and autotrader. We are hours from any decent-sized dealer and if I’m honest, caravan dealers aren’t the best at keeping their website up to date with stock. I’ve seen a few for sale on Facebook, but I checked and doubled checked one I liked the look of and I traced the seller back to being a traveller. So, you do have to be careful.

What Next?

With my dreams reset and facing the harsh reality that our budget isn’t what I’d like it to be, I needed to rethink things. Our plans have changed a bit due to the latest lockdown restrictions. Ideally what we’d do is sell our caravan privately, this would probably get us the best return, rather than part ex. This would allow us to spring at a moments notice to snap up the latest bargains. However, stocks are low and when demand picks up in the spring, will there be enough to choose from? Supply and demand, if the supply is low and demand is high this means prices are high too.