How I’m enjoying productive Motorhome (RV) holidays every year with my family

Back in 2019 we were tempted by our friends to rent a motorhome for a week and enjoy driving and camping with them in the beautiful country of Sweden. We loved it and after COVID, since 2022 we’ve been renting a motorhome every year for two weeks to visit Scandinavia. It’s become our family tradition. Here are my best tips and tricks when traveling with a family in a motorhome:

• The car doesn’t matter, the house does and it must be comfortable!
• Where to park and camp for the night?
• Which gadgets make life in motorhome easier?
• Which other accessories make a difference?
• Traveling with others can be double the fun!
• Why is a motorhome holiday a tradition for our family now?

The car doesn’t matter, the house does and it must be comfortable!

First off, a motorhome (in the USA they call it RV - Recreational Vehicle) to me is a car combined with a home. It’s not a car with a trailer. It’s a car that is also a home in one package. It’s usually around 7-8 meters long (23-26 feet) and sits and sleeps 5-7 people. As we are a family of 5 (me, my wife and our 3 daughters) we fit in there quite nicely.

We don’t own a motorhome ourselves. It doesn’t make financial sense for us to own one as we need it for just 2 weeks a year. That’s why we rent it every year. The cool thing about renting is that you get to choose and try different configurations of motorhomes to find the one that suits your family the most at the moment. Especially as our girls are 9, 13 and 16 now, so they keep growing and we need to keep changing our sleeping arrangements in the motorhome.

Here in Europe the car is usually based on a Fiat Ducato or Ford Transit and the house is made by one of these companies like: Sunlight, Benimar, RollerTeam, Dethleffs or others. The car part really doesn’t matter much as a motorhome holidays isn’t so much about driving it, it’s about living in it. That’s why the quality of the home has been our top priority when choosing the one for our holidays. In the last two years we’ve had a Benimar home and we loved it.

As we are a family of 5, our motorhome needs to have as much sleeping space as possible. We always go for the one that has a double bed on top of the driver cabin. This way we have two double beds (one in front and one in the back) and we convert the sofas and the table to the third bed.

When I say that the quality of the home matters, I also mean the number of drawers, cupboards and storage places, the quality of them and the placement of them in the cabin. The comfier the home the better the holiday experience.

An additional advantage of a motorhome compared to camping with a tent is that you don’t have to sleep in a sleeping bag. You can just take the same sheets and pillows you use at home and have almost as comfortable a sleep as you’d have at home.

Where to park and camp for the night?

Thanks to the power of apps and the Internet, you can easily find places to park your motorhome. We use the app Park4Night to find best parking spots, motorhome places or camping sites. Thanks to reviews and comments, you’ll easily know if the place you’re going to can fit your motorhome, if it’s allowed to stay overnight there, or which facilities are available. This app in invaluable. There are also dedicated apps on some markets. This year in Norway I’ve also used Campio to find camping places and directly book a place in advance.

Thanks to these apps I’ve managed to find great spots to park my 7-meter motorhome even in the centers of cities like Kopenhagen, Stockholm or Oslo. Of course, if you do that, you need to pay for the parking. Usually the app EasyPark does the job, but sometimes you need to download a local app to be able to pay. Now most apps support log in with Apple so I could quickly set up an account and pay for parking.

Which gadgets make life in motorhome easier?

A motorhome is mainly powered by gas which can be used for cooking, heating and charging the refrigerator. A gas stove should in theory be enough to prepare meals, boil water or make coffee. But in practice, it isn’t.

I love having a mega power bank with me. This year I got the DJI Power 1000 (Amazon link) which has 1kWh of power storage and can comfortably output 2200 Watts or more if needed. Having so much electricity is not only great for charging devices like iPhones or iPads, but it can power up electric home appliances like electric kettles or…

…Nespresso machine. Yep, this is the easiest way to prepare coffee in a motorhome. It’s clean and quick. A small Nespresso machine can be constantly plugged in to the power bank (here’s an example from Amazon). You just turn it on, put a coffee capsule in, hit one button and voila, you have your perfect cup of coffee.

Bluetooth speaker. When we’re on a longer drive, we like to listen to audiobooks and the problem with a motorhome is that its Bluetooth system only has speakers in a driver’s cabin so the passengers in the back cannot hear anything. So we use a Bluetooth speaker which we put between the cabin and the living area. We’ve used a JBL Clip 4 on this past trip but I just bought a bigger and louder one for next year - JBL Flip 7.

Which other accessories make a difference?

Big plastic transparent boxes for clothes. Don’t pack clothes in any kind of luggage container like a bag or suitcase. A transparent box is great as you’ll easily see in which part of it there are your pants, socks or t-shirts. This box can be placed in the storage compartment of the motorhome and you don’t have to take it out to find your clothes.

Board games are fun! When you’re on a motorhome vacation and you have so much spare time, it’s great to reconnect as a family by playing games together. Our favorite ones are “Ticket to Ride”, “Carcassonne” or “Codenames”. We also have a pack of cards handy at all times to play a short card game.

Zip ties are essential when things get broken or need fixing or… upgrading. I always take a pack of zip ties and on each vacation I’ve had a reason to use them.

Bikes are great for exploring the neighborhood or go shopping. Motorhomes usually have a dedicated bike rack at the back and we use it to pack 2 bikes on them. Yes, it’s not enough for everyone, but we have these bikes for commuting around the motorhome and there’s always someone eager to go for a ride and run an errand or explore the local area. It’s either me and my wife, or me with one of my bigger daughters, or them together. We use one very strong chain to tie the bikes together and so far nobody has stolen them from us.

Backpack for walking around (and riding a bike). Not just because I love backpacks and I usually travel backpack-only… when you park your motorhome and you are exploring the local area, usually you’re gonna be out for an entire day. Having a small backpack with a water bottle and some necessities is crucial so your both hands are free when you’re sightseeing.

Traveling with others can be double the fun!

Our first trip back in 2019 was with another family that were experienced motorhome people. This way they could show us the ropes and we could spend evenings with them parking both motorhomes side by side. It’s a great fun to share this kind of vacation together.

On the other hand, we also enjoy just traveling with one motorhome to really tighten the relationships in our family. Maybe a sweet spot is to spend a week with others and a week by ourselves?

Why is a motorhome holiday a tradition for our family now?

Traveling with a motorhome to me gives you all the benefits of camping like living closer to nature but offers you a higher quality of life by sleeping in almost a proper bed. And it gives you freedom to decide where to go. We appreciated it so much this year as we traveled on a ferry from Gdansk (Poland) to Stockholm (Sweden) and our original plan was to explore northern Sweden. However, as we saw a very positive weather forecast for Norway, we changed course and spent an unforgettable week driving and camping around the Trondheim Fjord with a perfect sunny weather.

Motorhome vacation also improves and strengthens family bonds. Our daughters get to hang out more with each other. We all learn to share daily chores. After all, we must stand each other in such a cramped and tiny home. We talk more, we laugh more and we get to enjoy each other’s company. I can’t wait for next year’s trip already!