The Mitchells go on tour…Guest Post

In my former life, before I became a wife to Ben and a mum to Katie, I spent two years travelling overseas; India, Malaysia and New Zealand, but one of my very best experiences was touring the east coast of Australia in a camper van.

Campervan love

I was telling my husband all about it (he tolerates my backpacking nostalgia very well!) over a glass of wine, and a few days later he came home from work, put a Haven brochure in front of me and suggested that we tour the east coast of the UK in his mum and dad’s caravan.

I’ve never really thought about touring the UK before. In fact I’d kind of assumed that now I’m a mum, those days of slinging on a backpack were behind me, but when I looked into it I got really excited about the prospect.

Katie is nearly three and we’ve never taken her on a proper holiday yet. I know she probably won’t remember it, but I love the fact that we’ll be introducing her to mobile holidays, to new cities, coastlines and experiences from a young age – one thing I wish for her more than anything is that when she’s older, she’ll have enough confidence and wanderlust to head out into the world. I want her to have lots of adventures that she can tell me about when I really am too old for a backpack!

There’s a choice of Haven campsites all over the UK but there’s something poignant about doing an east coast trip. Ben’s parents live near Newcastle, so we’re driving up to spend a few days with them and get some caravan tuition before heading to our first overnight stop at the Haggerston Castle campsite.

I used to live for planning trips like this; days here, nights there, this monument, that beach, and booking this trip has brought back a lot of happy memories. I can’t wait to see what happens when we embark on the actual journey itself!

Because we’re taking our own caravan, we can stay for just one night if we like at each campsite. I called their helpline and explained what we wanted and the lady I spoke to was really helpful organising what they call the touring holiday at Haven.

Haven offers some great touring facilities

Each park has plenty for us to do. They run clubs for little ones called ‘Little Cubs’ which are perfect for Katie; I can take her there while Ben gets in a round of golf or just has a lie-in – we’ll be taking this in turns though, some of the parks have spas on them.

I picked up a cheap copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Great Britain from Amazon, and on top of all the fun we’ll get to have beside the seaside at each caravan park, we’ll be able to drive along the North Northumberland Heritage Coast which is dotted with castles and considered one of the most scenic drives in the country. Then, we’re planning to head inland to see some of the great British countryside as well.

All of these things will be a brand new experience for us, but especially for Katie. Besides the beaches, boat trips and picnics in the countryside, she absolutely loves animals and we can take her to Hardy’s Animal Farm or a Seal Sanctuary in Skegness or even go on a Safari style trip around the Africa Alive zoo in Lowestoft.

I’m not sure yet how we’re going to cram everything we want to see into a couple of weeks.
What’s so great about it, is that now we’ve sorted our accommodation, I’ve got peace of mind that Katie will be safe and anything she might need is catered for, but between our overnight stops, we can go anywhere we please and have a little family adventure every day.

This post is a guest post, written by another mummy and contains supported links.