An epic caravan holiday in England – our family road trip itinerary
In the summer of 2017 we took an amazing family road trip. In just over two weeks we covered 850 miles, put our legs down in four counties and had more family days out than I care to count. That’s not to mention pitching up at our first family festival. I think it was our best caravan holiday in England to date.
Here’s an overview of our road trip itinerary.
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Our caravan holiday in England
I realise caravan holidays are not everyone’s cup of tea. But there are so many things we love about hitching up our Tin Box and hitting the open road.
Touring caravans give you the comforts of home with all the excitement of camping. Sound like luxury tenting? Touring caravans are the original glamping!
Read our guide to caravanning with kids to find out our top tips for doing it yourself.
Here’s where we stayed and what we did during our family road trip with Tin Box in tow:
Destination one: Hampshire
The first leg of our staycation road trip was from our home in Devon to Hampshire. Our stay on the south coast was so I could spend a few days working for a client, as well as catching up with family and friends.
Where we stayed
We stayed at Scott’s Haven – a Caravan and Camping Club affiliated site on the edge of the historic market town of Wickham. This spacious site has caravan pitches and an open camping field. Electric points are available in each.
We arrived on the weekend of Wickham music festival so the owners said the site was quite full, although it didn’t feel crowded to us.
We were shown to the open field, which was perfect for letting the girls run around. Within a couple of nights the families attending the festival had left and we had this vast space to ourselves.
What to do in Hampshire with kids
While I was working, the girls and Mr Tin Box revisited some of our favourite local attractions including the national motor museum at Beaulieu in the New Forest and Manor Farm Country Park in Eastleigh.
Beaulieu is a haven for car fans and Mr Tin Box is the first to admit this day out was more for his benefit. However the girls still had fun despite it being a wet day.
By far their favourite day out with Daddy was to the farm. Here they fed animals, dressed up in the Victorian farm house and completed the pirate-themed children’s trail.
I’ve written about Manor Farm before so you can get more of an idea of what it’s all about.
We also visited Itchen Valley Country Park together to test out the Tree Top Junior Course at Go Ape. Tin Box Tot tackled the 20ft high course like a pro; fearlessly stepping off the platform to slide down the 105m zip wire and completing the rest of the course with just as much swagger.
Baby did much the same when we visited Go Ape with her as a three-year-old a few years later.
Destination two: Berkshire
The next stop on our caravan holiday in England was Iver near Windsor in Berkshire for two nights. We were joined here by Tin Box Nana, Grandad and the Tin Box cousins who stayed with us for the next week of our road trip.
Where we stayed
Our home for a couple of nights was a beautiful little Caravan and Motorhome Club Certified Location at Iver near Windsor. Home Cottage Farm‘s caravan field is set in among farm animal fields and woodland. Just up the lane, in between rickety farm buildings, there was a pick your own fruit farm.
As is the case with a lot of CLs, this site had basic amenities – water and waste disposal only. But it was a real gem for exploring Windsor, with only occasional noise from Heathrow flight path above and a gentle hum from the M25.
What to do in Berkshire with kids
We had one day to explore the local area. After toying with the idea of visiting Legoland Windsor we decided to go for some budget alternatives.
First we drove into Windsor to see the changing of the guard outside the Castle, and wander around the parks and riverside. It’s a beautiful town with so many sights that will make you want to pause and appreciate the view.
Here’s some more things to do in Windsor with kids.
Afterwards we drove a short distance to Cliveden – an estate managed by the National Trust.
The kids made dens, squealed their way down the play trail and were rewarded with a ice cream before we headed back to our caravans.
Sadly we didn’t have time to see the house or formal gardens which were the venue for many a society bash (and scandal) in the early 20th Century. It’s on our list of places to which we must return.
Destination three: Norfolk
After our short stay in Berkshire we hitched up again and travelled north to The Norfolk Broads. This was where we spent the main part of our caravan staycation.
Where we stayed
We put down our legs at Highgate Caravan Park in conjunction with a Caravan and Motorhome Club centre rally run by the West Hampshire Centre.
This campsite has two grass fields, a small toilet block, and electric hook ups. Just outside the gates there are miles of farm fields.
The farmers were busy at work during our stay bailing hay and bringing in their harvests. It was the perfect rural location for exploring North Norfolk and watching the Perseid meteor shower with hardly any light pollution.
What to do in Norfolk with kids
We got out and about in Norfolk but left feeling like we’d barely scratched the surface.
Here’s the day trips that we squeezed into our six night stay:
Gorleston Beach
Gorleston was a short drive away and just to the south of Great Yarmouth itself. It is a two mile stretch of sugary yellow sand and a smattering of shingle shelving slowly into the sea.
The kids chased waves, dug holes and proclaimed it was the ‘best day ever’. Sometimes the simplest days out are the ones we remember most.
From an adult’s point of view this beach was a hit because the parking on the promenade was free and JayJays Beach Cafe half way along the boardwalk served the most delicious coffee and tray bakes.
Pettitts Animal Adventure Park
Pettitts is a typical small family theme park that’s ideal for kids aged under eight. There are fairground rides, a bouncy castle, petting farm, train rides, a large adventure play ground and family shows.
Tin Box Nana and I went there with the kids while Mr Tin Box and Grandad went for an all-together more grown-up tour of the Lotus factory just outside Norwich, apparently it was fascinating.
At Pettitts, we spent most of our time on the rides. We also had a nosy into a few of the animal enclosures dotted around the park including the red squirrels, owls and meerkats.
There’s plenty of shady spots to have a picnic and the food on sale in the cafes was reasonably priced. Theme parks aren’t my favourite but this one ticked all the boxes for the Tin Box girls, filling a fun day out with their cousins.
Whitlingham Country Park
Whitlingham Country Park is on the outskirts of Norwich. We went for a lakeside walk before having lunch with family close by.
As well as waterside and woodland walks the Park has an outdoor activity centre offering paddle boarding, sail boating and raft building.
We walked up past the Visitor Centre, which was serving delicious looking cakes, and meandered along the side of the Great Lake watching the watersports. If you have time there’s a two-mile circular walk around the water.
Bewilderwood
This was my favourite day out of the summer and a highlight of our caravan holiday in England. Bewilderwood near Norwich is curious, magical and a lot of fun! It’s a woodland adventure based on the children’s books of local author Tom Blofield.
The stories are brought to life with ginormous tree top playgrounds, zip wires, storytelling and a boggy boat ride in search of Mildred the tiara-wearing Crocklebog.
If you have children aged 0 to 12 and find yourselves in Norfolk you have to visit! The Tin Box girls and cousins had an epic day, as did all the adults. Here’s a video of our day:
Boating on the Norfolk Broads
We’d never been boating with our girls. But a trip to the Norfolk Broads wouldn’t be complete without giving it a go.
We chugged 25 miles around the Broads spotting wildlife, marvelling at interestingly shaped riverside abodes and exploring the only monastery not to be dissolved by King Henry VIII.
There’s 125 miles of waterways here and they were full of surprises.
Read more about our day on the Norfolk Boards with kids and watch the video below.
For more inspiration for road tripping in East Anglia take a look at the Mummytravels family travel blog. Cathy has managed to squeeze a lot of the region into just one weekend recently!
Fancy a trip across to the continent? Here’s our suggested European road trip itinerary.
Destination four: Cheshire
All too soon it was time to move on again. Our next stop was Just So Festival at Rode Hall in Cheshire.
This is a fantastical family festival full of colour and fun. We loved stories around the campfire, fairy crafts in the woods and ballet lessons in our wellies.
The girls were on the go from 7am until 9pm…or about 8pm when Baby crashed out in our camping trolley – a highly recommended piece of kit if you’re going to a festival with little people.
Destination five: Devon
From Cheshire we began the road trip home. This marked the end of our caravan holiday in England…but not our adventures. Devon really is a fantastic place to live and would be a top place to add to a holiday itinerary.
Here’s my guide to family holidays in Devon.
We finished our summer enjoying some great sights locally. So I couldn’t resist finishing off our summer holiday round up with a few peeks at what we did closer to home.
Dartmouth Regatta
The August Bank Holiday means only one thing in our home town of Dartmouth: the Royal Port of Dartmouth Regatta. We spent a day watching street entertainment, cheering on rowing crews, and marvelling at sailing boats and vintage steamers. Oh, and getting covered in paint in the children’s area.
The finale was the firework display on the Saturday night duing which we took up position on Jawbone Hill overlooking the River Dart. This has been our vantage point in subsequent years as the view is awesome.
Canonteign Falls
Then to finish off the weekend we visited Canonteign Falls on Dartmoor. It’s set in restored Victorian woodland gardens and is England’s highest man-made waterfall at 70 meters high.
This is somewhere we’ve been meaning to visit for ages and we were not disappointed by the great Devon views.
Do let me known if you have any questions about touring in a caravan. Or staycations in England and the destinations we visited. Comment below or contact me here.
You might also like to check up my big guide to family travel.
Disclosure: we were invited to review Go Ape and Just So Festival. We paid for the rest of our road trip and activities. All opinions are my own and those of my family.
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I loved following your road trip this summer, it looked amazing! So many fab places and great ideas for family days out. Other people have recommended Bewilderwood so that’s definitely on our list for our next trip to Norfolk! #MondayEscapes
Ah it looks like an epic summer, and the girls look to have had the best time, I love Bewilderwood its such a wonderful place to visit x
Bewilderwood was a highlight of our summer – we all loved it!
You’ve definitely had a summer to remember! We went on a road trip too, although only for 2 weeks and in a hire car, not a caravan. I remember visiting Bewilderwood the first year it opened when my two were small, they had a great time there too. #Mondayescapes
Christine @afamilyday recently posted…Our holiday explorations in and around Ardnamurchan, Lochaber
It’s a brilliant place! We all had such a great time
Wow what an adventure! I am absolutely exhausted just reading all about it;) Just So Festival looks awesome. (Your hubby looks a little embarrassed to be caught dancing!) I would love to visit the Norfolk Broads and explore by boat too. Your girls will remember this summer forever. Great family memories
It was a brilliant adventure and I do hope our girls remember some of it in years to come. They chatter daily about festivals and adventures in trees 🙂
Now that is a road trip. I’m always suprised people don’t do more of that sort of thing, especially if they have a caravan. I think caravans are fabulous for that sort of thing too. Very jealous all round.
Tee hee! We feel very lucky to be in a position to do this kind of trip. We’d love to do something much longer in the future though!
That really was an epic summer adventure. Windsor Castle is on my list and we were recently talking about visiting Norfolk so you’ve given us some great ideas. thank you. #Monday Escapes
Happy to have helped! I’d love to go back and do the Castle properly!
This looks like so much fun and loads of great family memories in the making. I went to Go Ape years ago, it is a lot of fun.
#MondayEscapes
Jules ( Bebevoyage.com) recently posted…Hotel Review – Villa Puri Purnama – Bali, Indonesia
Go Ape rocks! I can’t wait for our youngest to be able to have a go too!
Sounds incredible! Such a great variety of activities and places. A perfect road trip combo. I’ve never been to the Norfolk Broads! You’re reminded me that we must one day! #mondayescapes
It was a really fun day on the water. I’ll have to write about it soon!
I love this! I want to do a camper trip, but haven’t gotten up the nerve. Looks like so much fun! I really like the idea of not having to pack and unpack at each new destination, too.
Yes, that is a massive bonus!
Sounds brilliant, all our early childhood holidays were in a caravan. My parents even set up their own certified location sit when we left home! # MondayEscapes
Fab! This is one of Mr Tin Box’s retirement plans 🙂
I loved following your trip over the summer Claire, and what lovely memories for the girls. I would love a touring caravan one day to go off and explore more of the UK. The closest we have to come to one was hiring one for the weekend about 7 years ago x
Tracey Williams recently posted…Our little trip to Northumberland
It is a lovely way to do a bit of slow travel. Although I have to admit that out summer was jam-packed!
Looks like an amazing trip! We travel with a trailer in the US….I’d love to make it to England and rent one, but I’m not sure it would work well with all of our (4) kids…our trailer here is pretty huge! Aw, well–maybe after a couple of them leave home we can take the youngest 🙂
LOL! You can get caravans here that would take your whole family but they are pretty big and some of the roads in the UK’s more rural locations are a bit narrow! Likewise, we’d love to hire a trailer or RV in the US for a road trip! It’s on our long bucket list!
Wow, you guys squeezed one hell of a lot in during the summer. Nicely done! #MondayEscapes
Thanks! It was busy but so much fun!
Wow that really is an epic trip, I’d love to do something like this, it’s so great to explore our own country!
Yes, there’s so much at home that you can easily miss. A good balance of travel at home and away is so rewarding!
It sounds like you had a fun adventure. The Just So Festival sounds so fun for families. My kids would love it. #MondayEscapes
Allison recently posted…A Review of the Reunion House at Fort Worden State Park
It really was a highlight of our summer and a superb way to end out road trip 🙂
10 years ago I would have rolled my eyes at a caravan holiday and now I feel like I have some kind of caravan bug. I admire them on the motorway and dream of buying one 🙂 love your destinations and your epic road trip. We went to Devon for the first time ever and loved it so much!
So glad to hear you loved Devon! I feel a little bad for leaving it for a large part of the summer. There’s always so much happening!
Wow, that does sound like an epic trip! That’s what family travel is all about isn’t it? Quality family time and making memories that will last a lifetime. Looks like you succeeded on both fronts! #MondayEscapes
Lisa -FlipFlopGlobetrotters.com recently posted…Review: Manduca baby carrier
Thank you for saying. I do too. I’m loving looking back through all the pictures!
What a superb trip! I bet you need a holiday after this holiday. I love that all of your photos are bright and sunny – it has reminded me that we did have some sunshine this summer!
Sam | North East Family Fun Travel Blog recently posted…Star Wars : Where’s the Wookiee 2 Book Launch | We Play in Real Life at Plessey Woods
LOL, there was some and also rain! Although we did get pretty lucky. We’ve just had another weekend away to reacclimatise to being back at work and school!
Gosh you really did explore! We’ve just got back from a short trip to Norfolk…it was amazing. Can’t imagine why we hadn’t been before. Must head back and explore more at some point.
It’s a great part of the country, right? We’ll definitely be going back sometime to explore more.
This post has made me rather homesick! We’ve been saying that when we finally return to the UK, we must get a caravan. It’s the BEST way to get around the UK and you seem to have found some wonderful campsites! #MondayEscapes
Aww, you definitely should. It will be a lovely, relaxed way to get to know the UK again 🙂
I actually can’t believe how much you did and how you managed to pack clothes for all that time and still stay sane too. What an ‘epic’ trip!
We did one load of washing – the benefit of staying near family in the first week…Caravans also have A LOT of places to hide clothes 🙂
What a brilliant trip! The caravan gives you so much opportunity to explore. Thanks for the tip about the Lotus factory, that’s another great reason to visit Norfolk which I was unaware of! And I definitely want to visit Bewilderwood before my kids get much older.
Bewilder wood is brilliant. I’ll be writing about that separately and have a video to share too. Watch this space!
Youtube wouldn’t let me comment on your video for some reason, but how fantastic does Just So look?? The Whack-a-mole made me laugh. Tin Box Baby clearly has great comedy timing! Your road trip was truly epic, and I’ve loved following it over the summer.
Nell (Pigeon Pair and Me) recently posted…#CulturedKids September 2017
Thanks you! I’ll check whether I’ve done something to my video to stop comments.
Lovely to revisit this as part of #MondayEscapes x
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That really was an epic trip – and what a fab way to see so much of the UK. I loved seeing all your photos and updates but can’t quite believe it was only two weeks!
Cathy (Mummytravels) recently posted…UK days out for autumn
It did seem like a lot longer. It was so busy but a brilliant trip. I makes me want to set off again right now!
That really was epic – an amazing trip (and brilliantly planned and executed! I’m so impressed). We really enjoyed boating on the Norfolk Broads too, but the whole thing sounds fab!
Most of the planning happened over a glass of wine the night before 🙂 I think all the best trips are a bit organic like that!
Phew I’m exhausted just reading about your trip – it truly was an epic journey and you got to do so much. I love the idea of boating on the Norfolk Broads… We seriously need to do it!
Ting at MTM recently posted…Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in London
It was very chilled out. I’m not sure I’d want to do it for a week but the day was good fun – watching the world go by and picnicking on the water 🙂
Wow, what a brilliant road trip! So many great places for families. I might have to find a child to go and visit Bewilderwood! Looks like you were blessed with good weather too!
Trish recently posted…Graduation road trip: Blackaddie Country House Hotel
Yes, the vast majority of the days we had good weather, but we did get soaked to the skin a couple of times 🙂 It didn’t take the shine off though!
Most of the trip we were lucky with the weather but it did rain I promise you 🙂 Bewilderwood is amazing. I’m looking forward to sharing our video from the day. It’s definitely one for kids, parents and grandparents!
I love a Caravan holiday – have had several! Norfolk is one of my favourite areas of the UK. Thanks for the tips x
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We really enjoyed Norfolk and there’s so much we didn’t see. I’d love to go back and explore more of the coast.
Great, detailed blog Claire- full of useful hints and tips! I’ve not been in a caravan for about 20 years – but this has made me consider it!
Chris McGuire recently posted…HOY! HANDS OFF MY LYCRA!!!
They’ve come on quite a bit in that time. I remember my parent’s first caravan from about 30 years ago and they have come on so much in that time!