Pack the Boards, Forget the Wardrobe: Taking Your Obsession on the Road

Ask anyone why they've hired a motorhome for a week in Fife or a fortnight in North Devon and you'll rarely hear 'because I fancied the van'. You'll hear about the golf, the waves, the bike trails. The motorhome is the enabler; the hobby is the point.

Which makes it slightly mad that most people spend hours choosing the van and about four minutes thinking about how the gear actually fits in it.

Measure the Obsession First

Before you book anything, get honest about your equipment. A set of golf clubs in a travel bag stands about 130cm tall. A shortboard is somewhere north of six feet. Two mountain bikes, with the pedals and front wheels off, still need a chunk of wall each.

Then measure the storage. Garage space in motorhomes varies wildly — a low-profile van might have a rear garage barely 30cm high, which is useless for anything with handlebars, while an over-cab 'luton' area swallows soft bags but not much else. Ask the hire company for the garage dimensions in writing. Any firm worth booking will answer without sighing.

Matching Van to Sport

Golf. The easiest of the lot. Club bags slide into most garages or even the wardrobe on some layouts, and golf trips tend to favour parkier, gentler campsites where a bigger van is no bother. The east coast of Scotland is the classic loop — St Andrews, Crail, Anstruther — with campsites close enough to the clubhouse that you can walk to the first tee with a bacon roll inside you.

Surfing. Wet, salty and sandy. Prioritise a van with a decent garage for boards and a good outdoor shower or at least a hook-up for a hose-down. North Devon's Croyde and Woolacombe campsites fill early in summer, so book pitches ahead even if you fancy yourself as spontaneous. A wetsuit drying on a campsite washing line at seven in the morning is one of life's small pleasures.

Cycling. The big one, because bikes need racks. Not every hire motorhome can take a towbar or rear-mounted cycle carrier, and clamping bikes to a reversing camera is a £1,000 mistake. Confirm the rack situation at booking, and ask whether the van's rear doors still open with the rack fitted — some don't. Once sorted, the options are glorious: the Loch Ness area for trail centres, the Yorkshire Dales for a proper leg workout, or a gentle coast-to-crawl along the C2C route with the van as your rolling B&B.

Fishing. Understated and brilliant. Rod tubes fit almost anywhere, and the best venues — the Tweed, the Wye, the lochs of the Scottish Highlands — happen to be surrounded by the kind of quiet riverside campsites that make motorhoming such a pleasure. Check the season dates before you go; salmon rivers are strict about it.

The Packing Rule Nobody Follows

Whatever the sport, resist the urge to bring 'just in case' gear. The third pair of trainers, the backup wetsuit, the 14 clubs when you play eight badly — leave them. Every kilo you don't pack is space for the wet kit, the post-round beers and the drying towel that will genuinely earn its place.

One more thing: soft kit bags beat hard cases. Roof boxes and rigid travel covers fight with every awkward corner in a garage, whereas a padded soft bag bends to the will of the van.

Routes Built Around One Thing

If you're struggling to plan, build the whole trip around the hobby and let everything else orbit it. Three nights near St Andrews, two at Gullane, a wildcard round in North Berwick, done. Or a Devon surf week with the van parked at one site and dawn patrols from the same pitch every morning — no packing down, no relocating, just waves and a kettle.

The open road, on your terms, usually means your terms involve a board, a bike or a bag of clubs. Pack for that, and the trip plans itself.