Forget campervans! Just get a boat

An open river, no schedule, and your bed on board: rent a riverboat for a free-flow adventure, says Anna Selby

Back in the old days staycationing was not a word, it was just what you did. And family holidays in caravans were a favourite. A warmer and drier step up from a tent, caravans were your home from home for a week or more. These days, now we’re all back to staycationing, the next step up from a caravan – or today’s trendier alternative, a campervan – is a boat. And boats have some obvious advantages.

Instead of a parking on site, you’re out on the river, free to move (albeit very slowly) on the open water. You still have “neighbours” but they are part of a community of like-minded river-lovers. You still have your home from home and it’s every bit as sleek, classy and precious – as I discovered at the boatyard of Thames-based rental company Le Boat on a cool May morning when I was about to be left in charge of an object worth more than £300,000. I was entranced, but also nervous at the prospect of navigating roughly 25 miles of Thames as it wiggles in an U-bend between Benson and Henley.

My husband, Philip, volunteered to become Captain Philip (I’d do the leaping off with a rope) and after a brief practice session with ever-encouraging instructor Ollie (“Oh, everyone oversteers initially”), we were off on our own and heading for our first lock.

Locks on the Thames are fully automated and the lock-keepers are a saintly bunch – calm, patient and used to dealing with total novices. “Don’t you worry,” said my first such saint as he helped me tie up the boat, bouncing wildly against the lock sides (to be fair, we were a tight fit), “just take it slow. These things are like dodgems.”

Then, with a friendly wave and advice to look out for the swarms of mayflies, he let us out of the lock and we began our unsteady journey. Unsure of timings, we had planned a short leg for our first day, and one rewarded by dinner – because it is surely no small delight to step off your boat and into a riverside pub.

We passed bijou boathouses and vast mansions, weeping willows and lily pads, pairs of geese and swans, swallows swooping over the water and the occasional vivid flash of a kingfisher. Yes, I thought, this is the life.

Suddenly, the river was full of rowers – the Oxford Brookes University Boat Club – with all their single sculls and double sculls, eights and coaches with megaphones – were out on the river. We slowed almost to a standstill and wove our way tentatively.

A couple of hours later we had reached our destination, the wonderfully named Beetle and Wedge at Moulsford on a stretch of the river immortalised not just in The Wind in the Willows but also in Three Men in a Boat. We found it easily – but where to park (sorry, moor)?

The obvious answer was to tie up temporarily and ask at the pub, but no sooner had I got the first rope round a bollard when a man marched out to me – not quite with a shotgun – yelling: “Get off my lawn!” Fortunately, there was a sanctioned mooring close by and, irate neighbours and rowers now firmly behind us, we settled in for our first – mercifully tranquil – evening by the riverside.

The next morning, we had a plan. We were going to head for Henley. Standing on the riverbank, I watched the morning traffic: geese and swans, dog walkers and paddleboarders, one madman swimming (May, you will recall, was freezing). It was serenity itself, and we were filled with optimism for the day ahead.

Then the heavens opened. When this happens on a boat – certainly on our boat – there really isn’t anywhere to hide, and if you are unfortunate enough to be at the helm, you are also sitting outside. By the time we reached our second lock, it was raining so hard that we missed it completely and went down a side stream – lucky, then, that the boat (named, somewhat ironically in our case, Elegance) had bow thrusters, allowing it to pirouette midstream. Handy.

It was time for an executive decision. Hardly able to see 20ft ahead of us, cold and damp, we were now definitely in Jerome K Jerome territory, and – having crawled only halfway around that wriggling U-bend – Henley was off the cards.

Grateful that we didn’t have to put up a tent in the rain, we found a convenient local mooring and spent a pleasant day doing very little.

Our third and final day dawned somewhat brighter, and, as we pottered downstream in the direction of Reading, our failure to get as far as we had planned suddenly revealed its silver lining: a blissfully short journey back to Benson the following morning. So, relaxed and (finally) dry, we cruised onwards, that evening’s delightful riverside pub, the Leatherne Bottel, foremost in our minds.

Here they had a mooring for us and as we arrived the sun made a final glorious appearance. We sat, basking in its warmth as it set across the fields over the river – peace and well-being restored as quickly as they had been snatched, as it can only be on the water.

A four-night cruise on the Thames during the 2021 boating season, starting and finishing at Le Boat’s base in Benson, on board a Capri sleeping up to four people, costs from £479 per boat or £120pp (023 9280 9124; leboat.co.uk)