We must have heard that 9 out of 10 times when we told friends and family that we had bought a motorhome. At 34, with a wife and two young children (one and three years old) and so many people saying it ? I started to wonder if they were right.

I will never forgot the excitement I felt as a 10 year old child when we hired a motorhome for the first time in 1983. We hired it from a local garage. It was a creamy coloured Ford Dormobile with an overcab bed. The feeling of utter excitement I felt as a 10 year old getting into it for the first time and setting off from Somerset to Scotland, still comes back to me every single time I get into our motorhome even now – some 24 years later.

It’s difficult to say what it is. It feels like the start of an adventure. You load your stuff in, bedding, food, snacks, clothes, games, books, dog etc and off you go – nothing can stop you – you can go where you want when you want. The feeling of freedom cannot be matched. You have everything with you that you need and feel that you could go anywhere, stop anywhere, sleep anywhere – do anything!

The journey is part of the adventure. Sat up high you feel like you are someone special – you see things you can’t from a car, you feel a different person sat up there – you start to have a holiday from yourself. You stop when you feel like it, have a bite to eat, a sit down, a read, a snooze or a ‘wee stop’ – only a few of these you can do in a car without making a mess!

So are motorhomes just for old folk? Well no, I don’t think so. Ok, so having two young children in the space of most peoples study at home may not seem like a fun day out for everyone – however, what about all the good things that having your home with you brings. What about being able cook a meal at any time when people get hungry. Make a cup of tea when you feel like it (ok so maybe I am old before my time!). But, we can park at the beach and always have a change of clothes nearby for small children falling in the sea, more towels, more toys… home is just across from the beach in the car park.

Then there are those times when nothing comes close to having a home on wheels. Would a hotel be able to give you a room five yards from the waters edge of Lake Windemere, parked under the dappled shade of some trees, with your very own piece of lake side to watch the sunset by… drinking a glass of wine or an ice cold bottle of beer. The next morning, you pull the curtains to see the sunrise over the lake, and settle down with a cup of coffee and egg, bacon and toast – whilst you lazily watch the lake gradually come to life with fisherman arriving and boats taking to the lake. The children are happy, you are happy – happy holidays.

Ok, so there are some downsides. There’s no getting away from the fact that motorhome cassette toilets are always going to smell like motorhome toilets! Campsite toilet blocks can sometimes be an adventure all of their own too, especially with young children.

Sometimes on crowded campsites you feel like you are lined up like cattle in a cowshed all pointing in the same direction, everyone sitting in their own little white aluminium box slowly getting colder and damper as the night draws in. But then the little orange glows start to appear in the caravans and motorhome windows and a quiet descends on the campsite as people start to settle down for the evening. Curtains shut, TVs go on, games get played, books get read, puzzles get pieced together, couples talk to each other, children play and families eat, sleep and laugh together. Family memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life get made in these white boxes on wheels and that’s why motorhomes are not just for old folk.

Paul Chorley is a motorhome enthusiast and Managing Director of www.searchMOTORHOME.com a website for finding used motorhomes for sale on the internet.