It’s 2020 – When Will Motorhome Travel be Possible Again?
This post looks at how motorhome travel might start to open up again, allowing trips, holidays and tours in the UK and abroad, when COVID-19 restrictions start to ease. I’ve tried not to speculate too much. We’d be interested to hear your thoughts too – please pop a comment below and we’ll read them all.
As I type this we’re into week five of the UK’s COVID-19 lock-down, and all but essential travel is banned. Similar situations exist across Europe, and hundreds of thousands of motorhomes are sat unused on driveways and in storage locations. The travel plans of millions are on-hold and full-timers, who have no bricks-n-mortar home to move back into, have been forced to either rent a house or find a semi-permanent place to hole up.
The silent question on most of our lips is whether we and our loved ones will get through COVID-19 in one piece. This is the critical thing, but something we have only so much direct control over. Focusing on it too much, obsessing over the darkness can only serve to skyrocket our anxiety levels. For many of us thoughts of travel in the wider world will surface more and more as the weeks and months pass, if only to give ourselves hope and to stay on an even keel. This raises the question: when will motorhome travel be possible again? There is an obvious answer of course: no-one knows, I certainly have no idea, sorry! What we do know is that travel will, at some point in the future, start to resume, so we can at least start to think the problem through a little.
What’s Stopping Us All Travelling?
There are a series of challenges which prevent non-essential travel at the moment, even short distances within the UK:
- Primarily we’re all staying at home and socially distancing simply because it’s the right thing to do. By keeping ourselves away from others we deny the coronavirus the ability to jump between hosts. As it can’t live for more than a few days/weeks inside a single human, this gradually kills it off, and significantly reduces its ability to get into those most susceptible to it. As I’ve written before, we’re all weapons now, and it’s our duty to treat our bodies as such.
- The UK is currently in an ’emergency period’ as defined under the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020. This means, by law, the police have the power to make us stay at home unless we have a ‘reasonable excuse’ to be out. This ‘lock-down’ currently applies until 7 May 2020. At that point it might be extended a further three weeks or the lock-down conditions could be altered, and after that another 3 weeks and so on. At the time of writing it seems very unlikely there’ll be any significant relaxation on 7 May.
- The majority of UK campsites are closed (latest news: Camping and Caravanning Club, Caravan and Motorhome Club).
- Anyone travelling in a motorhome at the moment may attract unwanted attention, even if they’re using the van to do essential shopping or go to work.
- If we were to require hospitalisation, I would hazard a guess that most of us would prefer to be at a facility close to our homes and families.
- Among more rural communities there is an understandable reluctance to accept tourists who could become ill en-mass and overwhelm local health care facilities.
- For info, your insurance policy will still cover your van during COVID-19, even if you park it off-road and SORN it (some statements here: Safeguard, Comfort, Saga).
As an aside, if you are needing to use your motorhome for essential travel, then:
- Breakdown cover still appears to be operational assuming you have no symptoms and aren’t self-isolating (statements here: the AA, the RAC, Greenflag). With less people available to answer the phones they’re asking that you report incidents online where possible.
- Many garages will be closed, so if a roadside fix isn’t possible then recovery home may be the only option after which you’d need to get the van to a garage when they re-open.
- Six-month MOT exemptions apply from 30 March 2020, but the gov website says this is only for people to “continue to travel to work where this absolutely cannot be done from home, or shop for necessities”. Three-month extensions apply to lorries, buses and coaches, so this *might* apply to motorhomes over 3.5 tonnes? One of our tenants also told us she’s had to get an MOT anyway, despite being a key worker, as her last MOT had an advisory notice on it.
What About Travel Abroad?
Further challenges apply to taking your motorhome abroad for the time being:
- The UK foreign office has advised against all non-essential travel outside the UK, and advised all British nationals to return home.
- The EU Commission has restricted non-essential travel into the EU until at least 15 May 2020. Emmanuel Macron has suggested access could be restricted until September 2020.
- Within the EU, individual countries have re-introduced border controls, preventing any kind of tourist traffic other than those returning home. For example, to travel to France at the moment you need to prove your main residence is in France, or you’re a health professional or cross-border worker or are transporting goods. The Eurotunnel and some ferry services are still operational, but you can’t use them to travel to France unless you can prove one of the above reasons to go.
- Travel insurance policies will very likely exclude ‘COVID-19-related events’ from claims as it’s a ‘known event’. Insure and Go wrote to us yesterday to tell us our travel insurance policy was about to auto-renew, and when it did it would no longer cover caused by or relating to coronavirus or any claims relating to any fear or threat concerning the virus. Cover would also no longer available for losses caused by insolvency of failure of any company which supply the following – flights, holiday accommodation (including hotels), car hire, coach, train or ferry tickets. As you might guess we logged onto their website and stopped the auto-renew. When we do come to buy travel insurance again, we’ll be looking very carefully at what it will cover.
What’s the Way Forwards?
Ju and I have had the great privilege of spending 55 months on the road these past years and we’ve had a blast. It seems we accidentally hit a ‘sweet spot’ in long-term touring, which looked about to be curtailed by the end of free movement, only for that minor bureaucratic problem to be blown out of the water by the COVID-19 torpedo. All that travel’s difficult to sum up in a single sentence: we lived a lifetime in those 55 months! While that doesn’t mean we’re done with travel, it does mean we’ve been immunised from the worst effects of no-travel fever. We’re all in different situations though; from those who’ve been in touch with us two in the past weeks, you range from folks who:
- have decided “stuff it!” and are planning to buy a motorhome once this is all over (we don’t blame you!)
- had just bought a motorhome but are unable to even collect it
- had a hard-earned holiday planned in the UK or abroad but are unable to go
- had the van sat on the drive ready to go, but have since SORNED it
- had completed the long preparation to tour abroad but were forced home within days or weeks of starting the adventure
- are longer-term travellers, faced with the dilemma of staying put abroad or returning to the UK
- have underlying conditions which mean you have to self-isolate for the foreseeable future
It seems to us that the way forwards for all of us will involve a good degree of patience. It seems likely UK holiday travel will become possible much more quickly than overseas tourism. The timing for this is anyone’s guess, maybe in the summer months? For those of us fortunate enough not to be in the at-risk groups, this seems to be the series of events which will signal tourism is again possible:
- we need to wait for the government to allow non-essential travel, at this point it will become legal to use our motorhome for tourism within the UK,
- at this same point we guess it will start to become a very personal decision on when/where to travel,
- the requirement to socially distance will likely remain in place for many months. On the face of it a motorhome is good place to practice this, especially for those who use all of their on-board facilities. However, while travel abroad is impossible, restricted or simply less desirable, sites could become uncomfortably busy,
- personally we’ll probably use the big UK camping clubs as a canary. Our feeling is these companies are relatively conservative, and will only re-open once the situation is considered relatively safe for their staff and customers. They may introduce on-site restrictions such as limited or no access to shared facilities like shower and toilet blocks,
- as we’ve long-term self-isolating family to think about, any trips Ju and I take will likely be for a few days at a time in the local area. Since this includes the magnificent Peak District National Park, we’re hardly deprived.
What About Going Outside the UK?
Extending this to touring abroad, these are the areas we’d be thinking about:
- we’d need to first wait for tourist access to the Schengen zone to become legal again,
- we’d also check that all borders within the Schengen zone which we wanted to cross are also legally open for tourist traffic (there’s an overview of all border controls on this website),
- before travelling abroad, we’d check the foreign office travel advice for the countries we plan to visit and carefully consider what it says. We wouldn’t travel anywhere while there’s an explicit statement saying not to,
- we’d also have to carefully consider the fact all travel insurance will exclude any issues with COVID-19.
- if we were heading to France, we’d have a browse around the Le Monde du Camping Car (French for ‘Motorhome World’) website (there’s an English version of the site here). This would help us to understand the law in France and whether any campsites and aires are likely to be open (there’s likely to be a patchy re-opening of aires as many are under local municipal control), and whether French motorhomes are starting to use them,
- the current news from France is that travel up to 100km from home will be allowed for those living in France from 11 May, but it’s not clear if overnight motorhome stays will be legal at that stage. Even if they are, Le Monde du Camping Car implies (quite correctly I think) that the most ‘prudent’ and ‘honorable’ thing to do is to stay put and wait before engaging in tourism,
- we’d also need to be aware of any need to wear a face mask/gloves, or any other new legal requirements, and any need for quarantine upon returning to the UK. Ju and I have already spent 2 weeks in full isolation after returning from Spain, it wasn’t a big problem for us but it’s not pleasant either,
- if taking a pet dog, we’d make sure we knew of a few vets abroad that were accepting UK dogs for the worming treatment required under the Pet Passport scheme. We might pre-book an appointment for peace of mind.
Summing Up
In times like this, tourism can only be seen as a luxury. But for many of us, it’s also a release from day-to-day life, and for others a dream, a significant life goal to tour a continent. For others it’s not so much tourism as travel: the very real need to go and see friends and loved ones. At the time of writing though, the overwhelmingly ethical thing to do is nothing. For the greater good of our loved ones and our communities, we need to do the right thing and live within the lock-down rules, grateful for our health.
That won’t be the case for ever though, and it’s equally important that we stay hopeful. The restrictions we’ve living with will ease slowly (more slowly for those at-risk), but they will ease. As Ju and I can attest, it’s a beautiful world out there, one well worth waiting for. Stay sane folks, stay hopeful.
A parting shot: now’s a great time to think about your life goals and how you might achieve them. While we’re unable to physically move around a great deal, we can move freely inside our heads. If the pandemic’s pushed you to think about shifting your focus from work to travel, it might take a few months to engineer such a change, to research your ideal vehicle, to arrange your finances (here’s how we did this), to read up on destinations (we tend to use Lonely Planet) and pore over maps (there’s a good selection here!). Now’s the perfect time to start.
Cheers, Jay
Campsites may be ok for Motorhomes as we will not need to use toilet Blocks. We automatically self isolate at black and grey dump sites😁. Aires may be a problem as they tuck you in cheek by jowl so care required there. Wild camping may have issues depending solely on the local population. We may be a long time waiting for continental travel and Susan will have to (Suck it Up for Chunnel travel as ferries ⛴ will be a risk. Here’s hoping for vaccination certificates.
I was thinking the same thing John until I read the WHO are against issuing certificates, at least for now. Cheers, take care of yourselves, Jay https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19
I work at an airport and our upper management are very pessimistic regarding a return to tourist travel anytime soon.
Ok, I know you aren’t going to get a motorhome on to an aircraft but it’ll be the same for Chunnel and Ferry traffic.
The general feeling is that we are many months away from anything approaching normality.
I am in the category of ‘used to be a motorhomer’ and will be again when this is over providing I can afford it.
Thanks for the info Del. Take care, Jay
Happy to hear you are both safe and well. We are in the tin can on a CL site near my mum’s house still. The owner allowed us to stay, despite sites everywhere closing, on the grounds we had nowhere else to go!! Although beyond basic, it is safe, in the country and just 3 miles from my mums, so we can do her shopping and care for her while she is in isolation(87 years old).
We are resigned to staying until France opens its borders, but it is tough! Whilst we are used to spending lots of time together in the van, at least it is normally in the context of moving to new places! The las 3 days of poor weather nearly sent me crazy and we had to go out to the Asian store for some not really essential food shopping, just to get out of a 5m x 2m space!
It was just a blip though! Otherwise learning Spanish and furthering our French with Duolingo, reading, crocheting, thinking about France….
Actually started couch to 5k, but I became over-enthusiastic and pulled a muscle in my lower leg and so am in recovery mode….probably explains my blip this week! That will teach a 64 year old to start running after 40 years, thinking she is still a young ‘un. Back to it, more sensibly after the weekend.
We have had contact with most of our French neighbours, which is wonderful and when we can get back there, we will probably stay at Sauvagnac until December 31st, when Biris will cause us to return here again!
We will of course, self isolate for 2 weeks when we first arrive there…roll on open borders!
Stay well and stay safe. Love from us both. Xxx
Hi Lorraine.
Most folks would immediately reject the idea of spending even a single day in such a small space! It’s testament to how mentally tough you guys are that you’re able to survive as a couple in such a confined area, particularly when the weather’s poor and the pressure-cooking commences (we know this feeling, **shudder** :-)). We salute you and everyone who’s out there living through this in their van. Ju and I are cop-outs, we’re in a 6m by 4m space here with a luxury mezzanine and wet-room – we’re having a game of badminton in here later on :-). Seriously, all power to you two.
It would be great to hear you’ve not given up on C25K, but if it makes you feel any better professional opinion is often against those schedules which push people to quickly start running relatively long distances: as folks tend to get injured, as has sadly happened to you. I’m no pro, so can’t comment (but I will anyway), other than to say take it easy and think more about consistency than distance. In my (completely amateur) opinion, being able to run for half a mile to a mile every other day, skipping a day if you’re feeling too tired or achy, stopping for a few days if you’ve any sharp pain at all, is a far better option for a few weeks (or even months) before trying to put in a full 3 mile stint. We’ve seen a few folks starting up with running these past few weeks and it gives me a great feeling of optimism: the health benefits are huge for you guys. P.S. I’m only 47, but I feel like I’m 64 compared to how I used to run when I was 26!
As I understand it, the French borders are open for those returning home, but I guess that applies only to those with French residency, hence you’re being stuck here in Blighty? Is there anyone else who can take care of your Mum once the borders re-open to non-residents? Fortunately for us our parents are self-sufficient other than needing shopping doing, but we’re expecting we’ll need to do that for them for a fair few months to come (assuming they don’t go mad and run howling naked through the streets to Morrisons before this is all over).
Great to hear from you. Take it as easy as you can, here’s hoping for better weather. Jay
Thanks for the running advice! Yes we became reresident of the UK in 2015 for family reasons. Hence France is a second home. My brother will take over on mum duty when we do get back. Xxx
Thorough and well-thought out information, as usual. We especially appreciate the links you provided. Even though we are locked down in France, we still don’t really understand all the details when new announcements are made because we don’t speak the language. Lots of nuances lost in translation. In any case, we are in a red area, so many not get much freedom on May 11, but we’re fine with that. We are happy to stay put and do our part until we can move about somewhat safely. I suppose “safely” will be up to us no matter what the authorities say. We’re game. Glad to see you are using your time wisely, and are learning new things. I fell down a You Tube rabbit hole and am still there. Oh, well. :)
Thanks Linda and hey, we’ve been down that rabbit hole too!!! On a slightly more useful note we’ve discovered our local library has online eBooks, magazines and audio books. My mum’s enjoying the audio books while I’ve enjoyed reading running magazines, all up-to-date and free, we just needed our library card numbers and PIN codes. Note sure if your US libraries offer that kind of service though? Cheers, take care, Jay
Yes, these restrictions will not last forever and pretty soon governments will want to get their economies up and running again, and in 12 months time we will ll be recounting our Covid-19 stories as we get on with life again.
We had returned from Morocco (with our caravan) and were just settled in Portugal (Albufeira in The Algarve) when the lockdown in Europe occurred. We had to immediately leave the site we were on and head for Calais. We did the journey in 4 days ‘wild camping’ to truck stops as all campsites were closed. We than had to tow from Folkestone to our home in the Scottish Highlands in just 2 days. We towed our caravan (an 8 meter long twin axle) 2,103 miles in just 6 days!
Now we are safely home and planning our trip to Morocco next year. this time however we are making a flexible plan. Instead of the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao or Santander, the drive down to Algeciras, which we have to book 6 months in advance because we need a pet friendly cabin for our wee dog, we are planning to use Euro-tunnel to cross into France and drive down from there. We know that we can get a Euro-tunnel booking with just a couple of days notice so we can set off from home whenever we want to.
We are ready for the off and looking forward to a bright travelling with our caravan future. Stay safe, stay well, stay positive.
KH
Hi Keith
Sheesh, what a journey that must have been. If you were anything like us it felt like a race against time too – partly helped by keeping us going – partly didn’t help by stressing us out the whole time. Worth it for the end result of feeling (relatively) safe and stable though.
I like your approach to go via France and stay flexible. I was getting a little tired of crossing France to get to Spain, but having driven across it in two days (I know lots of others do this all the time, but it had always taken us at least 10 days), I’m seeing the journey with different eyes now. It’s great being sat in your van with your pooch on the tunnel too – no stress, dog happy, short crossing, no worries about sea-sickness, perfect.
Thanks for your message and for telling us about your plans – helps to start getting our heads into a similar place and think of the future.
Cheers, Jay
We were planning a year in the USA, Canada shipping van over and then either sailing or flying over with our dog. We have a booking to sail over in December, this hasn’t been cancelled, so we are working on the assumption we can still go in December, if that situation changes our cruise company will update us, they have been brilliant providing information and regular updates even though our crossing is months away. They are better placed than us to know what’s going to happen we will follow their lead. They are only going to allow us on board if travel from Southampton is allowed and entry into New York is also allowed and that is as much as we need to know. Of course all other plans such as getting visa interviews will probably be last minute, it will work out. Personally don’t think the lockdown will last much longer, no government is going to destroy their economy my hope is there are plans going on in the background to isolate fully those at risk, those known persons who require shielding. The rest of us then won’t need to be quarantined, and we live our lives at our own risk. It’s the logical thing to do. There will most likely even be some who the government believe should be shielded who disagree and also choose to live their lives as they see fit, it remains to be seen if they will be forced to shield or not. Our years of traveling in Europe were coming to an end due to Brexit, we had already decided USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand were our future plans and now believe they will work out best, rather than several countries in Europe, should there be any 2nd, 3rd, 4th waves, only have to worry about the country we will be in, and fortunately they also speak English. Hope you manage to get back out too maybe see you over the pond one day.
Understood and sounds like a good plan – December’s a long way away still and the whole situation should become clearer and clearer in the coming months as research takes place, contact tracing starts, more lessons are learned about public behaviour and the like. Best wishes to you guys, finger’s crossed it all comes good, cheers, Jay
Hi Juls and Jay,
In these uncertain times you produce another thought provoking edition. Maybe I am being a little too pessimistic but my biggest fear is what sort of reception motor homers will receive as we “freely” travel around Europe. It is very clear that everybody is going to suffer from the economic fall out of this pandemic. I wonder whether a fleet of motor homes might now been seen as an easy source of money, food and other goodies. Like yourselves I consider myself to be in a very enviable position with both our free time and finances and wonder whether flaunting it in the face of more unfortunate people might not go down well. I certainly hope that my fears will be unjustified, but i think my first trip back to Europe will be one of trepidation. Stay safe and will maybe see you on the road one day. best regards Carl.
Hi Carl
That’s an interesting perspective fella but I **hope** a little too pessimistic as you say?
When we set out for our first long tour back in 2011 unemployment in Spain was running very high, especially among the youth, and we imagined a similar situation at the time, nervous of crossing the border from France into a deprived, semi-starving land. Same feeling when we found ourselves driving about in a luxury vehicle in a country where people walk/save up to try and buy a push bike/cram 7 into inter-town taxis (Morocco). Same when we drove off the ferry into an African country in a post-revolution state of emergency (Tunisia). Sicily has always been skint. Greece was in the throws of financial crisis. Same when we crossed from Romania into a country poorer than we could possibly have imagined in Europe (Ukraine). The people in all of these countries were welcoming and kind and we weren’t threatened.
My thinking was more nerves of how ‘potential virus carriers’ are perceived once a country has brought their own COVID-19 system under relative control, if the travellers are arriving from a country where the situation is known to be much worse. I don’t think there’ll be an increase in petty crime in terms of theft, but I don’t know when we’ll start to be welcomed back into each country in Europe.
Cheers, Jay