Buying our Cozy Caravan

If you’re not European, camping in Europe can be a huge challenge. Of course, you can grab a backpack and a pup tent, buy a Eurail pass, and rough it. In fact, I did that in my 20s and loved it. But I’m a wee bit older now and want to have a comfy bed, a coffee maker, and a few other necessary essentials.

Train travel is exciting, but sleeping in a different bed every night doesn’t promote good sleep.

In my last blog, I wrote about how difficult it was to buy a car without being a resident. As a few people have pointed out, you’d probably have the same problem in any country, including the U.S. Everyone wants you to have an address: the tax man, the insurance guy, etc. Read my last blog (below) to discover how we were able to buy a car after all.          

The only other recourse you have if you want to camp in Europe in comfort is to rent an RV, which can be quite expensive, or import a car from the U.S. and buy a camper here in Europe, also an expensive proposition. But when there’s a will, there’s a way, as they say.     

Now that we finally have our shiny red late-model Mazda CX5, we need a camper. Due to the pulling power of the Mazda, the camper needs to be small and lightweight. Other than that we aren’t too picky. We’re staying with our friends, the Van Der Veens, in Noord Holland, and William checked the neighborhood online marketplace and found a camper that fit our needs.           

Here’s the CARAVAN without any of the bells and whistles.

It’s an Elddis, a British-made camper touted as the camper’s camper. We pretty much took one look at it, haggled over the price, and bought it. The Elddis is about 12 feet long—quite compact, but it has lots of windows and all the necessary components: fridge, stove, sink, toilet, nice cupboards, and best of all a gorgeous voortent.

What’s a voortent? It’s something we’ve never seen in the states when we’ve camped. But here in Europe, voortents are practically a standard piece of equipment if you have a caravan (which is what they call campers or travel trailers here in Europe).            

Here’s the caravan with the voortent attached. The front panels are not attached.

Essentially, the voortent connects to your caravan with a slider thingy, doubling your “indoor” space. It has removable side and front panels, so when the weather’s good, you open up the sides and have a canopy to provide shade. When it rains or it’s chilly, you close up the voortent and have a cozy sitting area.

It’s where we eat all our meals, sit and relax with a glass of wine in the evening, and basically enjoy the view. But I’m getting ahead of myself.      

We originally plan to “camp” in William and Maria’s driveway while we outfit the caravan since, except for the voortent, there’s nothing inside. But Peter and I were exposed to Covid during a visit with friends in Germany and don’t want to take the chance of infecting our friends.

We miss the blooming tulips but the crown of holland, as this region is called, still offers picturesque scenery and lots of fresh air.

We find a cute campground close by in Breezand, Camping de Tulpenweide—or Camping Tulip Fields, owned by a young couple named Ferdy and Tanja. The tulips have already bloomed, but we love the location close to the beaches of North Holland and surrounded by pasturelands and beautiful farms.

But we need a million things like bedding, dishes, and clothespins. Our list is growing by the second. So we hop in the car and head for a nearby shopping center. It’s amazing how much stuff you need to camp in style. 

The best part of camping is eating outside. Here we found a shady spot at Camping de Tulpenweide after our busy day of shopping.

So You Want To Go Camping in Europe

So you want to go camping through Europe? But you don’t want to backpack with a tent. Creature comforts are important, right? Yes, yes, and double yes. I mean one of the best things about camping in a trailer or motor home is you get to travel but you also can sleep in your own bed every night. As someone who has trouble sleeping on strange beds, this is huge.

DON’Y YOU JUST LOVE THAT FIRST SIP OF COFFEE IN THE MORNING AFTER WAKING UP IN YOUR OWN BED?

So I’m married to a Dutch guy, and you’d think that being able to camp in Europe wouldn’t be a big deal. We’ll just buy a car and a camper (known as a caravan in Europe). Sounds easy. Well, the first problem is you can’t buy anything—a car, a camper, or a motor home—in the Netherlands without an address. Makes sense, I guess.

WHEN YOU SELL YOUR HOUSE, FINDING AN ADDRESS CAN BE A PROBLEM, ESPECIALLY IN EUROPE WHEN YOU WANT TO BUY A CAR!

But Peter and I decide we’re going to find a loophole. We arrive in Europe in late May and start shopping for a car. We need a car first since my brother and his wife are arriving a week later and have never been to Europe. Our plan is to show them the Netherlands and Germany before driving to southern Sweden, where another brother lives, and enjoying a week of Scandinavian summer

WE COULD WALK THROUGH EUROPE, BUT THAT WOULD TAKE A WHILE AND PETER’S KNEES WOULD COMPLAIN!

Did I mention we don’t have a Plan B if a loophole fails to materialize?

We find a car I love, a red Mazda CX-5—my favorite color. The price is right, and it can pull a small camper - yay! Then Jelmer, our car salesman, says, “What’s your address?” Hmm, we say we live in the U.S. but want to do some traveling in Europe by camper. Jelmer says, “But I can’t sell you the car unless you have a Dutch address.”

Oh, crap. So we spend a few days trying to find a loophole, and there is not one to be found. We start thinking we’ll have to give up on our plans and buy pricey train passes or something when at the last minute a Dutch friend does the most amazing thing and says we can buy the car using his name and address and insurance. Wow. We are forever grateful.

FINALLY, THE PROUD OWNERS OF OUR MAZDA CX-5!

So the first thing we learn in our effort to get this dream of camping in Europe off the ground is it pays to have friends with Dutch addresses.

As an aside, we camped in Europe for seven months in the late 1990s with our three kids in tow. We pulled a 30-ft. caravan with our GMC Suburban, imported from the U.S., and traveled through the Netherlands, Germany Switzerland, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and back to NL. I wrote a book about it. In a way, this trip is Part 2.

Next we look for a camper. Stay tuned.