I’ve always had a bit of a thing for old-fashioned caravans. Not the modern ones that are basically like tiny houses, (although I do like those too), but the little ones, where you have to clear away the dinner things before you can turn the table into a bed, and a night time wee involves getting dressed and walking across a field.

I’ve always felt that a retro caravan held a promise of adventure, and an air of mystery. I can remember being quite small and going to play with a friend one weekend. I can’t remember who the friend was, or what the context of the visit might have been, but I do remember that said friend had an old caravan at the bottom of their garden. You could only get to it by what, at the time, felt like a trek through miles of undergrowth, but I suspect that in reality was just having to push a few branches out of the way and then, as if by magic, there it was.

The caravan wasn’t used anymore for holidays, and instead had become a sort of secret play room.* You could sit down around the wobbly formica table top to plan adventures, Secret Seven style, and all of a sudden I wanted, more than anything, to have an abandoned caravan of my very own. I would decorate it exactly how I wanted, and fill it with spy equipment. Nobody would be allowed in unless they knew the top secret password, and from my caravan of mystery I would solve crimes that had kept the police baffled for decades.

It’s no wonder then that I loved our weekend at Mad Dogs and Vintage Vans, in the beautiful Wye Valley. View Post