Which Caravan Layout?

Introduction

If you’ve made that difficult decision to buy a caravan, it won’t take you too long to realise just how much choice you have and exactly which one would suit your needs. Well, I can’t answer that obviously, but I can give you a run down of the sort of layouts available. There really are more layouts than you can shake a stick at.

Buying a caravan might seem similar to buying a car, but there really are many differences and fore warned is fore armed.

It’s a good idea to know what you prefer before you speak to salesmen. Getting for correct layout for you is probably one of the most important and difficult decisions. For us it was relatively easy as there were a lot of layouts we either didn’t like or just wouldn’t work for us. We didn’t need bunk beds, we didn’t want a 6, 3 or 2 berth. We wanted a fixed bed with an end washroom. It’s maybe easier to rule things out you don’t need or don’t like, it worked for us.

How Many Berths? (Which Caravan Layout)

How many berth you want will go a long way to ruling out certain layouts. This will obviously be determined by the amount of people you will be sleeping. It could also be determined by the age of the people, you might have young children and bunk beds might suit, for example.

We’ve owned three caravans and each time we’ve gone for a fixed bed. That is, as the name suggests, a bed that stays up all the time. We like it as we don’t have to make up a bed when there’s just two of us, which these days is pretty much all the time. If we have other people staying we can make up the front sofas into a double bed, this suits us.

Bed Location (Which Caravan Layout)

Even if you decide on a fixed bed there’s still more choices to make. Island? Traverse? or side Double Bed?

Placement of the Washroom (Which Caravan Layout)

In a washroom, you’d have a toilet, sink and shower.  This can be one of a number of positions. At the rear, or in the middle. We like the washroom at the back, again it’s a personal choice thing.

Lounge Shape (Which Caravan Layout)

Lounges are important, it’s usually where you seat and watch TV, or even eat your meals (when it’s wet and cold outside!) Leg room on sofas are important to us as we like to stretch our legs out and watch TV.

You can get U shaped lounges, or ones with the centre chest of draws. We currently have a chest of draws and the storage comes in handy. However, it makes the double bed at the front a bit smaller that the U shaped lounge.

You can also get caravans with a side dinette, which is two chairs and a table which changed into a single bed, and sometimes bunk beds

We have a twin axle caravan mainly because we get longer sofa, oh and a bigger fridge..

Location of Fridge (Which Caravan Layout)

This might not bother you. In our previous caravan the fridge was immediately in front of you when you opened the door, which was fine. Our twin axle has a much larger fridge and is basically on the same side as the door, between the door and the fixed bed.

Example Layouts (Which Caravan Layout)

Here’s some example layouts which happen to be from Bailey’s website, other manufacturers have similar interior layouts. Be sure to check out Caravan Finder  which is a great resource for caravan layouts.

Two Berth

Three Berth

Four Berth