Returning to the UK While on a Motorhome Tour

This blog post looks at how we’ve returned home to the UK during a motorhome tour, without driving our van back. We’ve needed to do this only a couple of times in several years of touring, and both times for us were work opportunities (producing promotional videos, where we needed to be in the UK to record footage). The process hasn’t been stress-free, but it’s not been all that difficult either. Here’s how we did it.

[lwptoc]

1. Why Not Just Drive Home?

The first question for us has been whether we should just drive home. In our case, this didn’t make sense as:

• We were some distance from the UK. The first time we were in central Italy, and the second in the French Alps.
• We only needed to be home for a day.
• We didn’t need to take much stuff home.
• We’re not big into long drives. Fellow travellers sometimes cover huge distances across Europe in (relative to the UK) little time, using the continent’s often-empty (but sometimes toll) motorways. The drives can be all-day/all-night though, sometimes swapping drivers. We would do this if we had to, but avoid it when possible.

If we’d needed to be home for maybe a couple of weeks or more, we’d have thought about driving back. 

2. Where Do We Store the Motorhome?

Having decided not to drive home, we had to work out what to do with our motorhome. In our case, only one of us needed to be at home, which was useful as our insurance policy clearly stated we were uninsured if we left the van ‘unattended in a foreign country while you return to the UK’. Some people have reported their policy allowed them to leave the van in another country for 48 hours. With this in mind, the options we could see were:

• Leave the van unattended anyway, allowing us both to travel home. This wasn’t worth the risk for us. If we had opted to do it, we’d have made sure the van was stored somewhere as secure as possible. Some airports have secure parking, and some campsites offer ‘garage mort’ rates where you can leave your van mothballed for a lower rate. We didn’t spend much time looking into either of these, so can’t advise on how you’d find suitable places.
• One of us stay with the van on a campsite. This is the option we went for, using good-quality campsites both times, one to the north of Rome and one a few miles from Chambery. Ju stayed with the van and I felt happy she’d be safe and wouldn’t have to move the van. We’re currently on a site in the ACSI CampingCard scheme, which keeps the cost down.
• One of us stay with the van on an aire. A lower-cost option would be to keep the van on an aire, but as aires can’t be booked you can’t be 100% sure there’ll be space in them, and they don’t feel **quite** as safe as campsites to us. Many aires also have time restrictions on how many days you can stay, so you’d need to check you wouldn’t be forced to move (that wouldn’t be the end of the world if you can both comfortably drive the van).

3. How Do We Get Home?

If anything, the method for getting home was more of a problem of ‘too many options’ rather than too few. In the end we did it in two different ways, and each time we allowed roughly a day for travel each way. Everything was booked online (we have this Internet system in our van, using these SIM cards):

• Flying. In Rome I took a flight from Rome to Bristol. To get to the airport we walked to the nearest train station (we’d checked transport links when choosing our campsite) and took a train into Rome. Ju then went back to the van and I swapped to another train to the airport. From there I flew home, and used a hire car to drive from Bristol to Torquay. Getting home was the same thing in reverse.
• Train. From Chambery I took the train to London. We took a local bus from near the campsite to Chambery train station, then Ju returned to the campsite and I took a train to Paris Gard du Lyon, the RER (subway) to Gare du Nord, then the Eurostar train to London St Pancras, and from there I walked to the apartment. Door to door the journey was about eight hours (if you use Eurostar, remember you need to allow at least 30 minutes to go through security). I’m pretty rubbish at navigating public transport systems, so Googled how to make connections in advance; there are good explanations online for using RER line D across Paris, for example.

Another option would be to get a hire car and for one of us to drive it back home. That might make more sense if we needed to take more equipment than we could carry, for example. We’ve not seriously looked into this option, but we do know we’d need to make sure the hire car company was aware we were taking the car across at least one international border, and that the cost might go up accordingly.

4. What Do We Pack?

We don’t carry any ‘proper’ travel luggage with us in the van, but have learned from previous breakdowns and trips home that we need **some** kind of presentable bags so we’re not walking the streets with our gear in carrier bags! We have a couple of small rucksacks, but these have been enough for us. I travel light, with just:

• the filming kit, laptop, headphones and chargers/cables (wrapped in a bin bag, as heavy rain was forecast),
• a Kindle Paperwhite with some decent books ( I read The Simple Path to Wealth and Ultramarathon Man on this trip, both great books)
• a warm coat with hood,
• spare shirts,
• spare underwear and socks,
• food which can be eaten cold, with a plastic ‘spork’,
• deodorant, a toothbrush and toothpaste (shaving kit has been long abandoned),
• passport and driving license,
• smart phone with electronic tickets, travel itinerary and maps.me (for finding my way around without data),
• cash (euros and pounds) and cards.

If you are stopping in accommodation in the UK rather than at home or friends, it’s worth checking your room or apartment comes with both bedding and towels. Some of the cheaper options in London included neither.

5. Where Did We Stay in the UK?

In both cases for us I was going ‘home’ to the UK, but not to our home in the UK. On my first trip home we’d rented our entire house out, so I couldn’t have gone home anyway. These days we only rent out bedrooms, and keep a big one for ourselves, so we can go home anytime, but as the filming location was in London and we live in Nottingham, that didn’t make sense anyway.

On the first trip home I stayed in a hotel outside Torquay and used the hire car to get to the filming location. On the second trip, we booked an apartment through lastminute.com which was within walking distance of both St Pancras and the filming location. The apartment also had a fridge, hob, microwave, iron and ironing board (that was a blast from the past) and even a washing machine. Being London, It was a short walk to supermarkets to pick up food for self-catering.

The apartment worked well, the location was great, although the single-glazed windows meant it was noisy all night (I’ll take earplugs next time!). The accommodation scene in London has clearly moved on over the past few years and lots of non-traditional options are available. Ju’s used AirBnB in the past to go and watch a friend run the London Marathon, and found that worked well, but we couldn’t find anywhere close by and reasonably priced for my latest trip home. The apartment I booked had no reception and I had to get the keys from a nearby off-license. 

6. How Much Did it Cost?

On our first trip home, the client paid for the travel and UK accommodation costs up-front, so we don’t know how much it cost. On our second trip the apartment in London was £90 a night, and the train cost roughly £150 each way. We could possibly have reduced this latter cost by flying from Lyon and taking a train into London, but (a) I avoid flying whenever I can (it’s not my favourite mode of transport, purely a personal thing from a few years of being forced to regularly use it as part of my job), (b) Chambery is closer to the Alps and (c) the location of the campsite is much better here than the Lyon options. Also, we booked at short notice, just a few days before travelling, which reduced our flexibility and choice.

Any questions?

If you’ve any questions feel free to pop ’em in the comments section below and we’ll see them, no matter how long it’s been since we posted this. We’ll do our best to answer. Cheers, Jay