We’ve travelled over 2500 miles already in our new Carthago liner-for-two since delivery day in early April 2019 from Camper UK in Lincoln. We did an early vlog of our initial impressions of our new motorhome, this provides further information after nearly four months living in our liner-for-two.
While we have a rough route of where we are going overall, we don’t plan ahead too much, that allows maximum flexibility, sometimes we decide in the morning whether or not to move on that day. We generally stay at least two nights in each place, sometimes one night is enough depending on the size of the place.
Since April we have been in the UK and France, we mix aires (France) / Britstops (UK) with campsites. We make sure we always make use of the local amenities especially the cafes or bars and we sometimes visit the cathedrals and tourist attractions. In France we particularly like the views across to Mont St Michel, the Bayeux tapestry in Bayeux, St Malo and the Champagne region. There is more detail about our journey in the travel section of our blog.
After a few weeks back in the UK we are now in France again from where we plan to go to Germany and then the Netherlands before returning to UK in the autumn. We had hoped to visit Austria too but that will now have to wait for another year...
DRIVING THE LINER-FOR-TWO
When driving, there’s excellent visibility assisted by the huge front windscreen, big mirrors and rear camera, the engine and gear box feel smooth, overall it’s very responsive and provides an easy and quiet drive.... and girls can drive it too!!
LIVING IN THE LINER-FOR-TWO
First thing to say, we are loving living full-time in our liner-for-two. So what is so good about it?
BEDROOM
We had a fixed bed in our last motorhome and thought the liner-for two drop down bed might feel like a compromise but it doesn’t! One of our main criteria was a big comfortable double bed, this bed is wider than our king size at home and we sleep in it very well even with the cut out at the bottom...and thank you to our friend Sally for the beautiful bunting 😊. Any orders can be taken through our website email address.
We are middle-aged and not super fit but it’s easy to access the bed with the assistance of the couple of steps (that helpfully also provide excellent storage for our some of our shoes!).
We’ve been asked if the bedroom area is claustrophobic, the answer for us is definitely not, there’s enough head room to easily sit up, as “demonstrated” below...
....and we went for the bigger skylight to maximise light entry in addition to the small window at each side. We always leave the bed down once parked up. When preparing to travel we just remove main bedding items before raising it, so bed set up on arrival at the other end just takes a couple of minutes. We have a second TV and dual satellite system in the bedroom which means no arguments about what to watch on TV when the weather is poor!
So the loss of a fixed bed is not an issue and more than worth it for the benefit of the lovely rear end lounge.
REAR-END LOUNGE
We’ve comfortably party-ed in our lounge a few times...
...and it’s great for relaxing and “working”. We are still amazed by the size of the TV each time we slide it out from it’s hiding place in the cupboard below.
KITCHEN
In the kitchen area as with most motorhomes you can either wash up or cook but you struggle to do both at the same time, so keeping up with the washing-up is key!
We had a small oven fitted in the tech tower above the fridge freezer and put a microwave in one of the cupboards above the cooker. So we are as well equipped as we are at home! We are now increasingly using the barbecue as the weather has warmed up... forecast to tip 40C later this week here in France!! As we haven’t got air-conditioning apart from in the driving cab that may be a discussion for next week! 🥵
SHOWER
We’ve made plenty of use of the shower when on aires and Brit Stops (but no action shot included 😉). The water heats up quickly and access is easy so that’s another tick on our must-have list.
STORAGE
There’s plenty of storage, the double flooring acts as a great cellar and the large “garage“ area is ideal for housing our two e-bikes - see more about our fun with our e-bikes in our interview with Rutland Cycling https://youtu.be/TwS-2w26m8U
We found a place for everything but it took a while to remember where that place was 🤔 and we soon learnt that even when living full-time in your motorhome you don’t need half the stuff you think you do. We‘ve now offloaded a fair few unused items back into our home in the couple of times we’ve briefly returned (clearing up at home will have to be a job for the winter!!)... this has obviously helped our payload which we found we’ve had to watch carefully. We decided to add full air suspension to increase our payload to 4.8 tonnes (maximum allowed for our vehicle) to help accommodate all we wanted to travel with. Thank you to SAP who we chose to fit this for us. We are pleased with the air suspension, it’s also given us an even smoother ride, help with levelling up when we park up and tilts the motorhome to speed up emptying the grey water.
LIVING THE DREAM 😊
We think we are extremely lucky to own a liner-for-two and to have the opportunity to travel around UK and beyond... we really feel we are living the dream at the moment!