When you’re caravanning, although you hope there will be lots of opportunities to explore the great outdoors, there is often many times when you’re stuck indoors because of the beautiful rainy British weather. All that time spent in your tourer would make you go stir crazy if you didn’t have things to occupy yourself with, like television, board games and reading.
It’s the reading thing we wanted to focus on, not just because we’re avid readers here at Caravan Helper, but because there is a plethora of great caravan books available. Even if you’re not looking for something to pass the time while you’re stuck in those four walls, caravan books come in various forms and can often give you insight, advice and tips for enhancing your experience
Now, we realise there’s quite an extensive range of different books to choose from. Amazon is a great resource, for example, for caravan books. Free download is often offered when you purchase them, so you don’t need to worry about owning a physical copy, or at least have the option to refer to one or the other.
To help make it easier to find the right caravan and motorhome books that cover what you are interested in and want to know, we’ve highlighted some of the best below.
Table of Contents
Caravan Books (Some Choices)
The AA Caravan Camping Guide is the first book in our list, and this is one of the longest running publications of its kind, with updates released regularly. Most recently, in November last year, this, the 51st edition was released. As the self-explanatory name suggests, it’s a high quality and comprehensive showcase from the best locations to spend time camping and caravanning throughout the country.
As well as the larger holiday resorts where the whole family are catered for, it also lists those small and inconspicuous spots where you can go for a nice relaxing escape from busy city life. It doesn’t just give you the address and contact information for each site, though. It provides information about the facilities and any special amenities too.
The AA put a lot of time and effort into this book and each year it is released they professionally inspect each site featured.
The sites that receive top ratings are given the much-sought-after golden pennant award and every year there is an award ceremony held that honours the best sites for every region.
The name Rob McCabe may be familiar to many people reading this post – he’s now a freelance journalist, but has served as the editor for the magazines Caravan and Practical Caravan and served as the Production Editor for What Car? Although he works on a more freelance basis he still acts as the Road Testing Editor for the Camping and Caravan Club magazine and Chief Caravan Tester for Caravan Club. You get the point. When it comes to caravans, McCabe knows what he’s talking about.
As stated in the title, his goal for this book is to help all caravanners, whether you are a newbie or a seasoned veteran, get the most out of your tourer. The advice contained within covers all areas of caravanning, from the point of buying to the most basic repair and maintenance tasks, to driving, towing, camping and even spending time abroad in your caravan.
This is a superbly comprehensive book that’s been well received by the caravanning community, as well as many figureheads and experts too. Caravan Club Magazine approves and so does Jeremy Clarkson. So, it really must be good.
John Wickersham is the kind of caravanning expert, who, if you don’t already know him, you should learn about him. He has more than 40 years’ worth of experience caravanning and has written highly technical and informative articles for both The Caravan Club and The Camping and Caravan Club magazines. Not only that, but he’s written all of Haynes’ hugely successful caravanning and motor caravanning publications.
The first edition of Caravan Manual was published back in 1993 and since then, it has sold more than 75,000 copies across all three previous editions. The latest, the 4th, has been completely revised and features numerous new illustrations. The book continues to offer tips and advice regarding the maintenance of older caravan models, alongside information many of the more modern and newer models.
The book contains updated details regarding legal issues, using public weight bridges, caravan weights and computerized and electronic wiring for cars. Chapters related to caravan electrics, gas, body construction, running gear and chassis have all been considerably updated.
Simply put, you will find all the crucial details regarding maintenance and repairs for caravans you need to ensure you get the most out of your investment.
If you’re of a certain age, you’ll probably be familiar with the actor, comedian and writer Rowland Rivron. Well, he, along with his wife, Monica are both avid caravanners and she is a trained chef. Caravan Cookbook, therefore, is a cookbook dedicated to helping caravanners make easy and delicious food.
Food is one of the nicest parts of any break, but it can be a real chore and quite stressful trying to prepare and cook meals in the kind of confined space that most caravan kitchens are. It’s a full-on guide to getting the very best out of cooking and meals while on the road. There’s advice and tips regarding foraging for those local treats in markets and farm shops, relying on more natural and fresh ingredients.
Caravan Cookbook also highlights the kind of essentials you should always have in your caravan cupboards for those emergency situations where you’re in the middle of nowhere.
Tasty recipes for things like sesame salmon and edamame beans, cider chicken and sweets like ‘caravan’ crumble and honeycomb pudding served with lemon cream.
Most keen caravanners love documenting their travels and adventures. As well as a great way to remember their holidays and trips, a caravan logbook is also perfect for keeping track of the different caravan sites you visit, what you did there and how you would rate them. You can then use this as a reference for future trips.
From Travel Log, therefore, we have the Caravan and Motorhome Owners Travel Record Log and Journal. This is basically the caravan logbook to end all caravan logbooks. It offers space for 52 different trips with places to fill in the weather and pitch conditions, facilities, contact details, booking information and location you visit in the left hand page, with space on right hand page for star ratings for the sites and a journal about your experience.
That’s not all you get, though, as the first three pages of the book feature:
- A checklist of things you take with you on caravan, motorhome or camping holidays
- A memorandum including all your membership numbers and other important details and information.
- Your vehicle information including service renewal dates, tracking company, service agent and anything else relevant.
While the back page has a practical list of useful publications and websites.
Chris Haddon and Jane Field-Lewis, both fans of all things retro and themselves involved in restoration work of retro tourers, have put together this beautiful book that takes a look at some of the most aesthetically pleasing caravans from around the world, along with detailed style notes to help you achieve similar looks in your own vehicles.
Design themes covered by the book includes Recycled, Silver Bullets, Trailer Park Treasures, Old Retro and Country Cottage, with images and text about 40 different extraordinary and inspiring caravans.
This retro-designed notebook is the perfect companion to all your trips in your tourer. It features fully lined blank pages that you can use to take notes, journal, make plans, lists, whatever you need. You even use it as a makeshift scrapbook and fill it with photographs, logs and memories you want to keep of what happened on various trips around the country. At just 6 x 9-inches it’s the ideal size to just slip in a suitcase, your car glove compartment or just somewhere safe in your caravan.