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Caravanning or camping brings out the adventurous you from inside. Yeah it's true, but the question here is- Does being adventurous has to do anything with the age? No, it doesn’t. Being adventurous has nothing to do with the age, yet the demographics of caravanning people speak something else. Caravanning is as exciting as any other activity (or surely can get equally exciting), but it finds itself majorly taken up by the older people of the lot. Well, you do see a lot of families caravanning yet the facts support something else. Stats from one such Caravanning Club shows the average age of a caravanner with them is 55 years. Since the day caravanning found its place as an outdoor activity a strong perception has come along with it- caravanning is for older people.

Eyeing for younger people for caravanning some brands are ending up selling something entirely different from caravanning. They talk about mountain bikes, music festivals, surfing, but unfortunately this is not caravanning rather its a crossover. Well whatever the trend might be, numbers paint an entirely different picture. Statistics tells us some 40 years back in 1975 the part of the generation that touched 65 or over was a mere 14/100. Coming down 4 decades in 2015 the same figure went up by almost 4 making it 18 of 100. And so everyone’s awe this number will keep rising by the day.

In another 8 years it is expected to be 23.6% and by another 3 decades down it would touch 24.6%. That means in a period of 70 years (1975-2045) the perceived age group for caravanning would grow by 80%. Well, another survey tells us that around 70% of Uk’s household wealth is held by people who are 50 plus. And what could say as the cherry on the top is the fact that the old generation which holds the major household income also hold “all the time in the world” for caravanning as compared to their younger counterparts who are busy making money?

By the income ratio, even the present looks good for the industry. As all the above are facts and if that's happening in the future, why are the caravanning brands running after the youngsters?

Caravanning industry doesn’t need a new target market to grow rather the contemporary target market is growing.

Annexes

Awnings

The literal meaning of an awning is a canvas sheet which is extended on a frame that serves as a rooftop. Although an awning is more than a rooftop. It can be hooked to the ground just like a tent providing not only a rooftop but also a private space. Awning for a caravan exactly is the same with the only difference being it is attached to the caravan and be rolled out whenever required. Awnings are available in assorted shapes and sizes and also the material varies. A variant of an awning is a canopy which is smaller than an awning that serves just like a rooftop.

Sunscreens

Ever thought of camping at the coast? If not, then now is the time that you pack your bags, chuck off a tent, stuff in your boots and crocs and there you are, all good to go! When you consider camping at the coasts, you chip in a lot of fun that comes complementary with endless beach camping and water sports.

Unwind yourself at the beautiful coasts of Australia, fall asleep to the waves and wake up to the soothing tides. Experience this once and you will love it. If you still are not too sure about camping at the coasts, here are 6 reasons why you should go for it. Check them out:

Wake up and sleep Beside the Ocean

Explore the islands, fall in love with them and admire the scenery that no five star hotel can offer you with. As a caravanner, you get a benefit of falling asleep to the ocean tides and wake up to the surf waves. You get to choose your scenery and camp right there along with your caravan. Revitalize yourself along with your family and friends and serve a relief to yourself.

Entertaining Family Time

Kids and adults, everyone loves splashing into water. Coast caravanning is no less than a celebration and they turn out to be the bets getaways from your sedentary lifestyle.  Be it a romantic escape or a family time, coast caravanning is the best you can treat yourself with.

Oh, Fresh Catch

Who doesn’t love to dig in some fresh sea food and what more can you have than a fresh catch while coast caravanning. Make the most out of these caravanning treats and savor your taste buds with some fresh exotic sea food barbecued well. Salmon, Tuna or Sailfish, try your hands on fishing and catch your favorite fish to have it on your dinner plate.

The Marine Interactions and water birds

Watching exotic marine animals that include various breeds if turtles, sharks and whales is a visual pleasure. Marine aquariums can also be spotted at most of the coastlines where you’d be able to witness friendly sharks and whales. Places like Big Lagoon let you interact with marine animals as well. Likewise, you will find seabirds at the shoreline wetlands, and this is how you can spot the rarest of the birds easily. The birds include albatrosses, gannets and seagulls.

Conclusion

Make some beautiful sandcastles and give way to an ultimate caravanning trip by coast caravanning.

Travelling with family can be one heck of fun if done right! Especially, if you plan to go on a caravanning trip with your family, you are going to have a time of your life. It might sound like a holiday hell to you if you have never caravanned before with your family, but if we consider Australians, then they surely do prefer family over friends while going on caravanning trip!

The above statement is not just a fact! Here are the reasons that justify the statement to the core! Have a look:

1. Packing

When you are caravanning with family, you can throw in anything you want, right from your favourite old denim, to your lost G.I. Joe. All of your bicycles can go in and your favourite magazines too. All, with out the fear of getting judged.

2. Pets 

You can carry your pets along, when you are travelling with your family. Had you been travelling with your friends, you’d be worried about your pet being left at home. You can carry all the edibles and eatables you’d want to feast on with your family and have a gala time caravanning outdoors, into the wild.

3. Kids And Nature

Your kids get know nature and environment closely. In the era of sedentary lifestyle, it is very important for you to teach your kids about the roots of existence, about the natural resources, nature, geography and surroundings.

4. A Pleasing Time

Because pizza places, museums and coffee shops are too mainstream! Take your family out on a caravanning trip and connect better. Feel the warmth and take back home some memories that city-lights cannot offer you! The great outdoors and and amazing campsite with open barbecue, what a mesmerizing sight! At such campsites, kids and other family members get to connect with people from different walks of life and encounter something interesting.

5. The Cost Cutting

Why search for expensive hotels and spend on flights when you can have an amazing road trip with your best people. Rather, chip in some money and have a comfortable and smooth caravan trip with your ones!

Most caravan parks and sites, these days have levelled grounds so that caravanners do not have to go through the hassles of adjusting the level of their RV. But you could come across some patches of ground that may not be very even. The best way to manage such situations is to always keep yourself prepared with the tools that are needed for the job.

Why Does the Caravan Need Levelling?

Caravans of all ages need to be placed on a levelled pitch for one crucial thing – comfort. These RVs can handle a variation of 10 degrees but anything more than that could cause numerous problems. In terms of comfort, you can imagine the difficulties that you would have if the caravan is tilted to one side. Things would be falling down. There could be damage to the internal systems due to excessive load being kept on one side. Electrical appliances such as fridge require a certain level angle for them to function properly. The list of problems just goes on and on. Moreover, with an uneven ground, you would not be able to set up your caravan awnings or annexes perfectly.

How Can You Adjust the Caravan’s Level?

There are loads of caravan levelling products out there in the market. Sometimes the users come up with their own custom tools. But it is just a matter of you preferences and expertise. But before you go about adjusting the level of the caravan, you need to get yourselves a contractors levelling tool. You need to place it inside the caravan (on the floor of the RV) and make sure that the bubble in the tool is in the right place. This is an easy and highly effective way of measuring the level of the vehicle.

Now, the most common way to adjust the level of the caravan is to use levelling blocks. You just place the blocks in front of the tyres of the side that you need to raise and simply drive the caravan on to it. This is good for people who have some experience in handling RVs and manoeuvring them around. Always remember to move in the forward direction when bring the caravan on to the levelling blocks. This will ensure that the breaks are active. When you reverse the vehicles, the breaks are not active and such conditions are not good for bringing the vehicle on to a ramp.

Such levelling blocks are good but they are often a bit narrow and are suitable for hard ground. But what about grassy areas and soft grounds? The sheer weight of the caravan could cause the block to push into the ground and this may affect the overall levelling. You need to use a block that has a wider surface area so that the weight is distributed more evenly across the block.

Some people may find this a bit difficult. For such people, the tyre jack tool is a good alternative. You just need to apply the handbrakes, fix the jack under the tyre and then crank the level to raise the level of the jack. With this, you can adjust the height of the required side as well. The only downside with this tool is that it takes a lot of time to get the caravan levelled. You need to keep cranking the jack till you get the required height.

So there you have it. Don’t forget to bring along your measuring tool and the levelling blocks / jacks on your trip so that you can get a good levelled RV irrespective of the ground conditions. However, it would be good to check out the place or at least find out about the ground’s conditions so that you have better resources with you for achieving a perfectly levelled position for the caravan.

I am sure most caravan owners (who installed roll-out awnings on their caravans) have faced the problem when the RV awning not retracting straight. While most of you might be thinking, the entire structure of the caravan rollout awning is the cause, your RV awning won’t roll-up, the issue might only be with the alignment and the position of the RV awning arms. Another reason could be due to the stretching of the fabric or missing a component. A thorough inspection would reveal the truth.

Now, the problem with the improper retraction of the awning is that there may be more than one scenario why the manual awning won't retract. Read the correct way to erect a caravan awning, if not already.

Cause #1

One of the possible causes may be that the awning’s position, where it attaches to the coach via the awning rail, has moved. Ideally, during installation, the awning should be fitted perfectly with both arms being positioned parallel with the awning fabric stretching between these arms. You need to ensure, this is evenly spread out, as the slightest variation could cause uneven retraction.

Solution: This would call for the RV awning arm repair. Realign the RV awning arms and make sure they stay in their position. If it needs replacing, then get that done at the earliest.

Cause #2

Another reason your awning is not retracting well could be the screws on the awning chord. You also need to check the awning chord that is placed along with the screws on the awning rail. This chord should not move, you need to keep it intact in its position. If you are experiencing retraction issues, then it is possible that the screws have come loose.

Solution: How to fix the awning in this case? Check the screws and make sure the chord is positioned correctly.

Cause #3

Check the awning arms and their movement. These arms should be perfectly parallel to each other and they should be perpendicular to the caravan. Their movement should be unrestricted and should have perfect alignment of all the components. Failure to keep these things in check will result in the rollout awning from being retracted smoothly.

Solution: To troubleshoot retractable awning arm repair you could use lubrication to make the movement smooth. In case of a structural defect that may be hindering the smooth movement, you need to get it repaired or replaced (in the worst case).

Cause #4

The third possibility of a bad retraction could be the fabric of the caravan awnings has over-stretched, either due to manual force or due to the weight of the water accumulated on it. The stretching of the RV awning fabric causes the retraction to be uneven as the length of the fabric gets distorted.

Solution: The only RV awning troubleshoot option you are left with is to replace the fabric completely.

So you have bought your very own caravan or you could have even acquired it on rental. You may also have finished storing your things in it and filling it up with supplies. But hold on a second! Do you know how to hitch a caravan to a car? Is your method the correct approach? It is interesting to know that most caravan owners are not aware of the correct way to attach or detach a caravan to the towing vehicle. Using the wrong technique could not only increase the risk to the components but if the hitching is not a good fit, then the connection could separate during transit. You would not want that to happen, do you?

Before you learn how to hitch the caravan to your towing vehicle, you need to understand the basic construction of the caravan. The towing mechanism comprises a protruding section in the front end of the caravan which has a jockey wheel (for providing support when the caravan is not attached and also for adjusting the height of the posterior section during hitching), a tow ball and holding components. If the bearings or the ball becomes smooth or it has a fresh layer of paint on it, then use something to scrape it and make it rough for better friction.

Follow these steps to hitch the caravan safely and effectively onto a towing vehicle. Use precaution at all times and keep an eye out for anything that does not seem right.

• Lower the jockey wheel and make sure you open it up just a tad bit more so that the locking joint comes above the tow ball. When the components are in position, the jockey wheel can be pulled up to ensure that the joint is fixed properly.
• Slowly back up the towing vehicle to the caravan. Make sure that you keep the windows of the car open so that the driver can hear your instructions clearly. The last thing that you would want is for the car to back up in the wrong manner and hit the caravan’s front which would damage both the car and the caravan.
• Before you actually hitch the caravan to the car, you need to attach the breakaway cable. The breakaway cable is a safety device that prevents the car from moving away from the caravan. The cable applies the brakes if the vehicle moves out of control.
• With the cable in place, you need to position the fixing joint above the tow ball and then lower the height of the caravan by pulling the jockey wheel up. The contraption should produce a clicking sound as soon as the tow ball is positioned perfectly in the hitch head. Juts give it a tug to make sure that it has a perfect fit.
• When the tow ball has been securely held in place, apply the lock to strength the bond.
• After this, apply the hitch head stabilizer. This can be done by pushing down on it and this activates the two lateral pads that are placed on it.
• Now wind up the jockey wheel completely till it is position in the provided groove. Once it is free, pull it up and bring it to the travelling position. Hold the wheel in place by applying the provided clamp. This will keep the wheel nice and secure in position and the tight grip will prevent it from wriggling around during transit.
• With the mechanical connections done properly, it is time to connect the electrical components. Connect the electric cable protruding from the caravan to the socket on the car. This socket should be present next to the tow ball section. As a safety precaution, you may twist the electric cable so that it does not dangle between the car and the caravan.
• The last thing that you need to do is to take the hand-break off and you are ready to go.

Following these steps could save you a lot of hassles and you would also prevent damage to the caravan or the car. After all, no one likes to bring along a baggage of issues when out on a holiday!