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I’m a fashion editor — but I loved our Clacton caravan holiday
Having worked for 15 years as a fashion editor and style content creator I am fortunate enough to have stayed in some incredible hotels because of my work. I have always loved the design and inspiration element of a boutique stay, but this spring I found myself on the most unfashionable holiday imaginable — a static caravan in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.
Not wanting the hassle or expense of an overseas holiday with two children aged under five, my husband and I looked into booking a UK mini-break for the May half-term. We’d hoped for a chic eco cabin by the sea, a cool coastal cottage with an Aga or a treehouse in a setting where the kids could run free, but finding somewhere design-led yet affordable on home shores is no easy feat.
After much fruitless research we decided to go for a seriously budget-friendly option for our bank holiday weekend — Parkdean Resorts Valley Farm Caravan Park in Clacton, a coastal resort best known for its traditional seaside appeal and a pier full of amusement arcades.
A helter-skelter ride on the pier in Clacton
DAVID ABRAMS/GETTY IMAGES
As well as the price, there was an element of nostalgia to the choice. I loved caravan holidays when I was young, and have fond memories of summers at my nan’s caravan in Shoeburyness, near Southend, where my sister and I would wake up early and go crabbing while the tide was out, then lose our minds on the penny coin-drop machines.
Would the thrill of eating fish and chips from the paper, while standing on the pier, hold the same joy for the next generation?
On the Friday we collected our eldest from school and our two-year-old from nursery and drove our car straight from north London to the Parkdean resort, one of the company’s 66 UK holiday parks and home to hundreds of caravans — one of which would be our holiday home.
The park was surprisingly well kept and looked a lot more professional than my nan’s site, where the “reception” comprised an elderly man sitting next to some postcards. This site had roads laid out in an organised one-way system, a hair salon, shops and an ice-cream parlour.
Alexandra on the beach in Clacton with her two children
Before we had children, my husband and I would have dropped our things, headed out for a walk and got a drink at a quiet bar as the sun went down. But at 8.30pm we were desperately trying to figure out how to make the bedroom darker than the thin curtains would allow (portable black-out blinds would have been handy), having already complained that the hob wasn’t working.
The kids were so overexcited by the bijou space that they refused to settle, jumping up and down on their tiny beds, falling out of them and screaming with delight until 10pm. The good news? It got better . . .
A caravan at the Parkdean resort
ALEXANDRA STEDMAN
We had chosen Clacton because it was the cheapest of the caravan options in Essex (£289 for the four of us for three nights), near the sea and not far from our home. But I was also keen to visit the place where my dad spent a lot of his childhood holidays, having seen photos of him in hand-knitted trunks on the pier and with my great uncle and grandad asleep on the beach in their full suits, as people seemed to do in the 1950s.
With the beach only a short walk away, on-site facilities including a kids’ playground and disco, plus activities from swimming and balance-bike sessions to crafts, I knew we wouldn’t be bored — I just feared that I might find the enforced fun rather painful as an adult. But we threw ourselves into it and soon forgot about the plaid curtains and dubious stains on the sofa.
I was dreading the prospect of slipping my pasty body into a swimsuit for its first outing of the year, but the heated outdoor pool — where my children’s confidence in the water grew tremendously — was an absolute highlight. It was free to swim, but the sessions were only 45 minutes long and the available slots filled up fast — unfortunately it seems that to really make the most of this type of get-away-from-it-all break you have to be glued to your keyboard before you go, booking activities.
After our first day on site we felt stir-crazy, so we ventured out to the beautifully soft sandy beach between Clacton and Holland-on-Sea, with pastel beach huts lining the shore.
Clacton ticks all the traditional seaside boxes: retro signs, helter-skelter, crazy golf, packed amusement arcades and a rollercoaster, all set to live music, with a great vibe on the beach — which was probably why my grandparents liked it (they had met at a holiday camp in the late 1940s, when caravan parks were the holiday destination du jour).
We ate ice creams from Beaches Café and rode a land train to the pier, where I dropped £30 on three rides for each of the kids. Tweens rode giant hungry hippos; little ones bumped into us with their ice lollies — the children loved it, but I needed to lie down.
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Back at the caravan we ate pizzas, soup and pasta in our little kitchenette, as the site’s restaurants looked pretty basic and overpriced.
Everyday basics such as loo roll, tea towels and bath towels aren’t provided (though were available in the on-site shop), so we’d packed a lot before we left — from camping chairs, toys and scooters to most of the contents of our fridge (we’re lost without mayonnaise), treating the caravan as a home from home. At the last minute I’d thrown in my pillow, which was a godsend — the beds didn’t feel like “holiday”.
Alexandra, right, on a caravan holiday as a child with her sister
ALEXANDRA STEDMAN
And once the children were tucked in, the paper-thin walls made it impossible to do anything undetected — we spent all three nights eating crisps on the sofa in silence, though there was a small joy in that too.
One difference with a holiday somewhere such as Turkey, for example, is that if you have a bad day you’ll still have a lovely view. In a caravan in Clacton when the whole family are fighting, you’re sitting in a camping chair looking into your neighbour’s bathroom.
We decided that, on the whole, caravan holidays are for the children’s enjoyment — I truly believe that this will be one of the holidays they will always remember. But once you’re too big to comfortably squeeze around the edges of the bed, the fun of nostalgia disappears. The caravan was clean, comfortable and let’s say “cosy”, but did everything really have to be beige? As a base it was great, but there’s definitely a gap in the market for stylish, design-led “boutique” (but budget) caravanning.
Still, we haven’t given up. Now that we’re seasoned caravanners we might opt for an even cheaper, no-thrills site next time. Maybe we’ll try Wales, where there’s a resort with a waterpark, or Cornwall for a surfing vibe. But it definitely won’t be our last caravan trip. Now I know that Nan was on to something.
Alexandra Stedman travelled independently. Seven nights’ self-catering for four from £419 (parkdeanresorts.co.uk)
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