Advanced options
The fixed costs are the story: storage, insurance and the annual service run GBP 600-1,000 before a single night away, so the per-night price falls fast with use: the 5-nights-a-year caravan is dear, the 40-nights one is nearly free. Excludes the van itself and towing fuel (~25% more than solo). Club memberships (~GBP 60/yr) unlock the cheap CL/CS five-van sites: the best-kept secret in the hobby.
What The Caravan Pitch Cost Calculator Works Out
- Pitch fees per year: nights away multiplied by the nightly pitch rate. Certificated five-van CL and CS sites run GBP 15 to GBP 25 a night, the clubs' full-facility sites GBP 28 to GBP 38 with hook-up, and entertainment-complex holiday parks GBP 40 plus in season.
- Cost per night away: pitch fees plus the fixed costs, spread over your nights. Storage runs GBP 300 to GBP 600 a year, insurance and the annual damp-and-gas service GBP 300 to GBP 400 more, so GBP 600 to GBP 1,000 precedes the first pitch fee and the per-night price falls fast with use.
- vs a family hotel stay: what the same nights would cost in a GBP 120-a-night family room, minus the caravan's costs. The kitchen deletes restaurant bills and the dog travels free, which understates the caravan's case; the towing days are travel rather than holiday, which overstates it.
- Hotel comparison and club membership (advanced): change the hotel rate to your real alternative, and add the GBP 50 to GBP 70 club membership that unlocks the cheap certificated-location networks, thousands of small farm-and-paddock sites that are both the cheap nights and the scenic ones.
- Custom pitch rate (advanced): override the three dropdown bands with the rate your usual sites actually charge.
- Towing fuel (advanced): towing miles at your car's mpg reduced by about 25%, at the pump price you enter. The 85% weight-matching guideline governs outfit choice and the licence rules by test date decide who tows what.
- Depreciation (advanced): purchase price minus expected resale, divided by the years you will keep it. The van's own depreciation is steepest in years one to three and gentle thereafter, which the second-hand market prices efficiently.
- True cost per night (advanced): pitches, fixed costs, membership, towing fuel and depreciation together, divided by nights away: the honest number to set against the hotel.
- Break-even nights (advanced): the nights a year at which the caravan's all-in cost equals the hotel's. The hobby's folklore puts it around 20 to 30 nights; below it, rental and static options carry the same holidays without the fixed costs.
- Usage table (advanced): the all-in cost, per-night price and hotel saving at 5 to 60 nights a year, which is the utilisation curve the whole hobby's economics rests on.