Try out a new touring hobby

Your caravan isn’t just for touring! There’s a whole load of activities you can take part in, once you have a base you can work from. Here’s our choice for starters:

ASTRONOMY Turn your caravan into an amateur observatory, especially if it has a large skylight in the roof which you could poke a telescope through. Just remember to wrap up warm!

BIRDWATCHING A fairly obvious choice, but if you position your caravan right, you could even turn it into a hide.

Our favourite spots are Rye Harbour in Sussex, where you should see spoonbills, great white egrets and possibly a glossy ibis, and Haggerston Castle in Northumberland, good for sea eagles, ospreys and possibly mergansers. Both of these have many caravan parks nearby. Try Loch Doon and Brunston in southern Scotland, too.

CINEMA With a little bit of ingenuity, and perhaps a bit of rewiring, it wouldn’t take much to turn your caravan into a small but comfortable cinema, which you can invite friends to.

CYCLING Bikes and caravans go together like peanut butter and jam. You can store your bike inside the van over the axle, or buy a bike rack. And you can even get special models, such as Swift’s Basecamp or Adria’s Action range, which are specifically designed to accommodate bikes. Even those models which aren’t designed for cyclists can still have external showers, where you can hose you and your muddy bike down.

DOG GROOMING Your caravan already has a well-equipped washroom, so why not expand it to become a mobile dog-grooming parlour?