I spent a month in a caravan with my dad — here’s how it went (2024)

‘We’ve got a problem,” my dad says. I ignore him. The sun is shining and we have the entire campsite to ourselves. I gallop back to the car to pull the caravan round to our lovely courtyard pitch next door to an old farmhouse, which is surrounded by crop fields beside the fast-flowing L’Esves River in the southern reaches of the Loire Valley. Nothing can break my mood: after a freezing February night in Pas-de-Calais where the campsite lavatory block was out of order, I am thrilled to finally have a little luxury. Hot showers are waiting.

“The jockey wheel is damaged,” he says. Oh. Perhaps there is something that can dampen my newfound high. We’re two days and 500 miles into a 4,500-mile road trip and we’ve already broken the caravan. It’s not the end of the world — we can still drive it, it’ll just be harder to park — but it’s also not the most auspicious start to what could turn out to be a challenging journey: four weeks in a tiny, ancient caravan with my dad and my dog. He’s not the person I thought I’d be spending my early thirties travelling with, but thanks to my perpetual singledom and the career and familial responsibilities all my friends insist on having, there’s no one else who is brave (or perhaps stupid) enough to join me on this mission.

After several minutes of debating how we can fix it (we can’t) and a discussion with the campsite receptionist about where we might get it repaired (everywhere is closed), we resolve to worry about it another day and instead walk into quaint little Ligueil for a cold beer. If there’s one thing my dad and I have in common — one thing that will no doubt be deployed in any awkward or stressful situation over the next month — it’s our love of strong, punchy beers.

Until the past few years I wouldn’t have said my father and I were particularly close. We have plenty of shared interests — lamenting the poor editorial choices on Radio 4’s news programmes, the aforementioned beer, generous amounts of almost any food — but we’ve not had the kind of relationship where I’d tell him anything. There are limits on what a daughter should share with her father, after all. But limits are there to be tested, and no doubt sharing a tiny caravan on this trip would test both of ours.

We haven’t really travelled together much before now, either. Apart from my childhood family holidays where my brother and I were dragged between old churches and vast, housing estate-like campsites in France and Spain, and more recently the occasional work trip where Dad might join me for a night or two, we’ve never spent this much time in such close quarters. And the quarters really are close: my 1996 Eriba Familia measures just two metres by four inside.

But this trip felt necessary — for me, certainly, but perhaps for Dad too. In 2022 my mum died, aged 58. She was my best friend and my go-to travel partner who followed me around the world from Kenya to India to the windy hills of Wales whenever I asked her. When cancer ripped through her body and took her life just eight months after diagnosis, an enormous black hole opened up in mine, and travel never felt the same. No matter where I went in those first months and years after her death, it always felt a little empty. Everything seemed futile.

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There’s nothing quite like the death of one parent to remind you of the mortality of the other, so with some persuading and perhaps only a little emotional blackmail (“Mum never got to have this experience, so we should do this in her honour”) I convinced my dad it was his turn. I would be spending several months on the road researching a dog-friendly travel guide, so he had to step up as my travel buddy before it was too late. He dutifully booked a month off work and we hit the road with the caravan hooked up and the dog in the boot.

A day later, in San Sebastian, in Spain, our broken jockey wheel woes are resolved thanks to a kindly campsite maintenance man, so we trot off into town to celebrate with more beer and, this time, our first taste of pintxos. These small Spanish snacks are the reason we’ve driven three days from home, and we spend our entire weekend in the city hopping from bar to bar, tasting sea urchins, barbecued pork ribs and zingy chorizo. We spend hours on the city’s beaches laughing as the dog gets facefuls of sand while chasing a ball, and we drink far more beer than we should and have to walk it off up Mount Urgull, which gives us a glorious outlook across the city and a chance to sober up before driving back to the campsite.

At our next stop, Lavra in Portugal, the beer is swapped for wine as we strike out from our coastal campsite for a guided minibus tour of the Douro’s dog-friendly vineyards. Arty, my Manchester terrier, snoozes on the warm patio as we sit on a terrace overlooking the vines at Croft, near the riverside town of Pinhao. Feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin and watching my dad sample their various ports, I am vindicated: this was definitely necessary, and I swear it’s got nothing to do with the wine I’ve drunk.

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We quickly get into the swing of things and it begins to feel as though I’m travelling with a good friend — although I have to keep correcting people when they mortifyingly refer to my dad as my husband. The days — and destinations — fly by and we manage to avoid any more caravan catastrophes, though I do spend three days in bed in Andalusia after giving myself chicken-related food poisoning. Dad reverts to parent mode, bringing me fresh oranges and offering sympathy.

By the time we get to Barcelona I’m ready for a break from the four walls of the caravan, so we check into the Nobu hotel for a spot of luxury. Our room has some serious city views and they’ve even provided a bed for the dog, but our bar for luxury is low right now — we’re thrilled just to have an en suite bathroom and a smart TV.

The whole trip is remarkably drama-free, and it’s only in our final few days, back in France, that any tension arises. “Left, left, left! No! Right! I mean right! Keep right!” I shout at Dad as we try to manoeuvre our new temporary home, a live-aboard fibreglass boat, past a large maintenance vessel on the Canal du Rhône à Sète. Of all the moments to get your left and right mixed up, the point when you’re drifting towards a shallow, rocky riverbed is not the one. But that’s what happens after three weeks of poor sleep in a small caravan. Things get a little fuzzy.

Once clear of the imminently closing floodgates after a nail-biting 45-minute overtake in our Le Boat rental (which we were delighted to discover has the luxury of two separate bedrooms and a bathroom), we both let out a sigh of relief. On our final night of the trip the winds are up at 50mph and there’s rain lashing the windows. The grimness out there reflects the mood inside: we’re both filled with regret about the experience coming to a close.

While it’s certainly been very different from travelling with my mum, my dad has proved himself a worthy co-adventurer nonetheless. I tell him how pleasantly surprised I am that we’ve survived, and even thrived, on this trip together as we share our final beer overlooking a marsh full of flamingos in the Camargue. But a day later, after he’s flown home and I’m back in the caravan alone, I realise I needn’t have worried.

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Of course we’d be fine: he’s the very reason I crave this kind of travel. With a mother who hiked to Everest base camp aged 60 and spent her retirement on round-the-world trips with Thomas Cook, Dad got the bug and joined the merchant navy at 18. These days he lives on a narrowboat and spends his summers as a nomad on the Thames. My drive to keep moving was most probably a gift from him. So cheers, Dad. Where’s next?
Lottie Gross was a guest of the Caravan and Motorhome Club, which has campsite pitches across the UK and Europe from £15 (caravanclub.co.uk); Explore Iberia, which has private Douro Valley tours from £90pp (exploreiberia.pt); Nobu Hotel in Barcelona, which has B&B doubles from £159 (barcelona.nobuhotels.com); and Le Boat, which has seven nights’ self-catering for five on a Horizon 1 in the Camargue from £2,689 (leboat.co.uk)

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