Plan the whole budget

The advertised price is the part you can see. The rest arrives during the first year, and people who sell after one summer almost always do so because of the costs they never wrote down.

At purchase

• Transport, if the vehicle is abroad. Germany and the Netherlands have Europe's best used market, and the drive home costs money.
• Registration: type approval for imported vehicles, plus registration fees.
• The first service. On a ten-year-old vehicle, budget for it from the start: seals, battery, possibly tyres.

Every year

• Third-party insurance — required for a towed caravan as well, as a trailer.
• Comprehensive cover, optional, but the interior is the expensive part: one hailstorm can exceed the cost of bodywork.
• Roadworthiness testing: every two years for trailers under 3,500 kg, annually above.
• Road tax, charged for the combination at the appropriate class.
• Winterising: draining the water system, and covered parking if you have it.

What it really drinks

A 2.3-litre Ducato-based motorhome realistically returns 10–12 l/100 km, not the 8 on the data sheet. A car and caravan adds 3–5 litres to the car's normal figure, depending on height and speed. Over a 3,000 km holiday, the gap between estimate and reality is a few hundred lei.

Pitches

A good Romanian campsite charges 100–180 lei a night for two people with a vehicle and electricity. In western Europe, €25–40. Motorhome stopovers are far cheaper, but not all have a hook-up — and without one, battery capacity suddenly becomes the evening's main topic.

One simple rule

Set aside 10% of the purchase price for the first year. If you do not spend it, you have a tyre fund — and on a caravan tyres are replaced by age, not mileage: rubber cracks standing still.