E063 – Coming Up for the DH Podcast & Weekly News

Driving Horizons - Campervan & Travel

In this episode, I spend some time discussing what is coming up on the show over the next few weeks, and I drop in a recording of this week's news story.

This weeks news story includes a new Sat Nav / GPS from Garmin. I also chat about a ruling that affects insurance companies, and how they price things, and finally, I talk about a story where the DVLA are perhaps not being as clear as they could, and should be.

In the second part of the show, I go through some ideas I have for the Podcast, and what may be coming up over the next few weeks, and even months.

Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy this week's episode of the Driving Horizons Podcast.

Auto-Generated Transcript of the Show

It's Friday, the 11th of November. This is episode 63. And welcome back to Driving Horizon's

Hello. Hello. Hello. And a Good morning. A good afternoon and a good evening to whenever or wherever you are listening to this.

Welcome back to the podcast. And if you are new here, then welcome for the first time and if you are regular, then of course, welcome back. Driving Horizons is a podcast, website and YouTube channel all about camper van, life travel and generally seen as much of the UK in the world as we can. Bought you weekly by me Richard.

So sit back and let us get into this week's episode.

So welcome back to another show. And it is going to be a real quick one today. As you know, we are not travelling at the moment. But that is not going to stop me. So this week, I have not had much time to plan the podcast. And I've got loads of ideas that I want to do over the next few weeks.

So what I thought I would. Do today. Is a quick, a quick preview, if you like. Of what's coming up over or what's coming up on this podcast over the next few weeks. And as I am hoping, like I said last week, to be a regular feature. I will replay a recording of this week's news. Which has been taken from my camping and camper van news video that I released over on YouTube earlier this. Week.

And it is better to watch that on YouTube because you. See the screenshots and the items in the articles I'm talking about. And if you do want to, by all means listen to it here, it will give you the highlights, that's for sure.

But if you want to see it with all the screenshots, then head over to Driving Horizons dot com forward slash. YouTube. And you can watch it there with me going through the screenshots and talking in a bit more detail or showing you a bit more detail of what I'm talking about. So first up, we're going to play that segment from this week's Industry News, after which I will. Let you know. What exciting stuff we have coming up over the next few. Weeks. So here's that recording and I'll be right back.

This Weeks News

Hi, Richard here from Driving Horizons and it's time for the news roundup of all the stories in the camping and campervan world. That have caught my eye this week.

So welcome to this week's news. And I have three stories for you this week. And first up, and I am a little bit late to the party on this one, but Garmin Have released. A couple of new satnav’s or GPS’s Garmin Camper795 and the CamperCam795 The seven inch display should make it easy to see and read while driving. Plus, there are tons of features on these ones, things like. Road warnings, telling you all about steep. Grades, sharp bends and even weight limits. And there is also. An. Environmental zone, which is a. Feature that warned you. About certain restrictions, perhaps a low emission zone in a larger city, something like that that would normally be chargeable. But my favorite and possibly the most useful for me. Anyway, is when, especially if we ever. Bought a bigger van, is. The custom motorhome routine, which among other things, gives you the ability to load in the dimensions of your motorhome or caravan so that you don't find yourself going down small roads like this one in a huge van. A quick snapshot of their features. It is a seven inch screen. You can travel confidently along your chosen route after programing the size of. Your rig, and it gives you a warning. For steep curves, sharp bends, things like that. And it also discovers the best stops, the best spot. Sorry to stop along your route with the inbuilt Michelin Green Guide prices are around £390 for the camper795 or £500 for the camper cam 795. Which, from what I could see, the main difference is that the camper cam has a built in dashcam. And next up, if you are about to undertake a van conversion, then you probably know that you have to let the DVLA know. The primary use of the van has changed from a normal van to, say, a motorhome or a motor caravan, I think they call it. However, it may not be as simple as that. I found a story on Out and About Live where the DVLA has been criticized by the government ombudsman over camper van confusion. The story involves would be camper vanner informing the DVLA. They have converted their normal van to a camper van, only to be told by the DVLA that no they haven't. It was just now a van with windows What’s the different then. All vans have windows. Otherwise why would you need window wipers anyway? Having a vehicle. Registered as a van with windows rather than a motor caravan means the owner can face a number of issues, including higher fees on toll road. Costlier MOT’s, having to abide by different speed limits and not being allowed on some camping sites that don't allow commercial vehicles I guess After being rejected, they asked the DVLA for advice on what they had to do to to get it changed. And the answer was vague, suggesting that they add Awning rails or stickers to the exterior. So they did. And one of them added a big sticker that said camper van to four sides. I'm not sure that would work. And it seems the issue is they won't tell them exactly what they need to do to satisfy the requirements, because the two people involved said if they did, then they'd obviously do it and they would get reclassified. Now there are two separate complainants in this story and it would appear that David and Mary. May not be alone as the number of successful applicants to the DVLA for a change in body type to motor caravan dropped by 95% from almost 2500 to under 150 between January 2019 to January 2020. The DVLA eventually said this was due to making changes to the way they process applications after realizing in June 2019 they had not been applying their existing vehicle body type policy as originally intended. Now the Ombudsman found that not only communicating about this significant change in a clear way, in a timely way, it was a mistake and administration error and part of the DVLA. They also found guilty of not being transparent about what's required to register a vehicle as a camper van and its processes. And they recommend that they apologize to the complainants and give them £100 in recognition of their distress and confusion and frustration. But they should also create an action plan about how it intends to ensure the applicants have sufficiently detailed information available to them before undertaking a conversion about what elements constitute a vehicle, body or vehicle of body type motor caravan and what they need to do. And they also need to provide the Ombudsman with details of how it intends to make clear to customers the process involved in determining a body type and in particular making a decision on what body type to assign an application for a body type motor caravan. And at this point, I'm still not sure if David and Mary have managed to classify their camper van correctly. I hope you have guys if you're watching, which you probably aren’t. And the third article today is all about insurance, and it is a story that I found over on the Caravan and Motorhome Club websites excuse me is an older story, but I wasn't aware. So perhaps some of you are not aware of this either. Now we've all been frustrated when new customers and not just insurance get better deals than those that are renewing with their current provider. Well, the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA, have brought in their fair pricing initiative, which is aimed at not penalizing those loyal customers that do choose to renew. The FCA found that some existing customers that remained loyal were being punished as new customers were getting better deals, I guess to entice them into signing up with that new insurance company. But from the start of this year, 2022, see told you it was an older story and both new and existing customers must be offered the same price for the same cover, which is kind of a blow for insurance companies, because now that he's going to raise their new business prices or lower their renewal prices so that they match, that is what I have you for this week's Camping and Caravan News and the round up the things that caught my eye. And don't forget, if you did. Like this video, then give. It a thumbs up. And if I carry on getting likes and views, then I'll definitely spend the time to bring you the weekly news all about camping and camper vans. And finally, if. You haven't already. Why not subscribe to the channel that notification bell so that you can see all our future videos on travels, camper van, news and reviews and all things that we do here. If you click here, you will find last week's news video. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.

So there we go. That is this week's news and one of the stories there about the DVLA.

There were a couple of comments on my YouTube channel, which I'm going to go through in next week's news. And I've also reached out to three or four van conversion companies to see to try and get their thoughts and their experiences on if they register with the DVLA or is that down to the people they sell it onto when they change the logbook to do it?

So I'm trying to understand that in case that might prove helpful for other people. So stay tuned for that next week.

So like I said earlier, I am just going to real quickly. Run through the things that are coming up on the podcast over the next few weeks. I have 13. Weeks worth of ideas and all. Of them take a little bit of work. To do before I can actually record it. So I'm hoping to be able to find the time over the next few weeks to do that as well as maintain the website, as well as record videos and edit videos and publish videos and do my day job to pay the bills.

So I'm and also practice stop sign all the time, which is the hardest part. Okay.

So I have like say 13 things that are coming up and I don't know what order they're going to be coming out in. I am going to read them out in the order they're on my list, which may not be the actual order that they are released in. So don't expect to see the first one. I'm making sure next week, but don't expect to see the last one I mention in 13 weeks time either. And also other ideas might come up other things through the podcast that I want to do.

So here we go. Okay, so I am going to we went in. A summer earlier in the year actually it wasn't quite the summer, I don't think. I think it was more spring time to a national park in Devon.

And we did a amazing walk around Ludford Gorge and I have a quick video on that. That was part of our vlog series when we went to Devon, and I think that it deserves an amazing it's an amazing place. It deserves probably a bit more time. So I am going to go through that trip. It is not boring as it sounds, I promise, because it was. A stunning. Place and I'm not going to spoil it now.

But that's one thing that's coming up.

As a creator of these podcasts, I also listen to podcasts, so I have a number of podcasts that I listen to as regularly as I can. And I'm going to let you know where they. Are and I am going to link to those in the show notes and things like that so that I can send to you.

So the you may be me may be able to discover them and you may enjoy them as well and see if there's something you'd like to add to your podcast. Your podcast list.

I have an idea that I want to share about our campsite wishlist. So these are campsites that I've seen over the years when we've been looking at doing trips and things and that kind of campsites that I really want to visit and I'll tell you why I want to visit them and where they are and things like that, and what appeals about those campsites. To me.

We are also. Members of the Caravan and Motorhome Club site and also the Camping and Caravan Club site. And I want to do a comparison on those too, because some people will do I join a website?

Should I join, show, join this one, show, join one at all and then have a comparison as to who may help people in making a decision. So but before I do that, I'll only say that one caravan and camping club site.

So I'd like to stay a couple more to get a flavor rather than just base my findings on that one campsite. I'd like to stay two or three more so that I have a fair reflection of the state of loads of caravan in my time campsites with not many camping and caravan campsites. So I'd like to I'd like to do that as well.

I'm not sure if this one would actually materialize. It depends on how long it takes me to get it together because we did our ten day trip around on or around the whole of Wales, but we saw lots of things in Wales in the summer and there are a few things that we would have done differently. I'm not sure if that's going to justify a whole podcast or not, but I will go through some ideas or some things that I think that had we done it differently, we may have had a better time and maybe experienced more or experienced different things rather than how we did it.

So that's our favorite cooking gear. We do lots of cooking while we're out camping in the van.

We have a amazing connect stove that I've talked about on here before, I think, but there's loads of cooking gear that we have that makes it easy, quick and convenient to cook inside or outside of the van. So I'd like to share that with you guys. This next one will also turn into a video. I've just got to find the time to do it.

We have a Volkswagen, California, which we love, but there are also some little niggles that. Perhaps we don't love. As much. I don't want to say hate, but I want to share those with use that I was thinking of buying a particular 2015 VW California. It might help those in making a decision or looking out for some of the things that we've noticed over the last four or five years.

I'm debating whether or not to do it. And go into more detail on the campsites that we visit.

For example, we stayed at a campsite called Concierge Camping, and I'd love to explain all about it on the podcast and give you my thoughts on what you can expect when you get there.

And the pros and cons and where it is and what's around there and things like that. So if anyone's thinking of going to that area, that might be a good not just for concierge camping, but for all the other campsites we've stayed as well. Caravan cooking.

I've mentioned the equipment. What about the. Meals we are going to go through? Perhaps a number of meals that we like to eat while we are in the van.

They're easy, convenient, doesn't create much washing up and we have at home just as easily transferable to the camper van as well.

Reading. I like reading. I read as many books as I can, not as many as I would like, but I have a list of camper van and travel books. It's also a blog post on the website which I'd like to go through and tell you who they're by and what it's about. And no spoilers, but why we or why I like them and why I've read them and why I keep them on the shelf, things like that. I'd like to share with you more on. The New Forest has loads of great campsites in the new forest.

There's lovely places to visit and a new forest. It's a national park. It's over 100 years old. It's been a national park. I think. I think so. I think that I can really go through lots of things around the new forest, which is near where we live, the visitors to Sydney Forest that I find useful. So they are 12 or 13 things that are coming up over the next few weeks.

Like I say that the main work in doing it recording only takes 1520 minutes, but the research behind it is where the time is and to get it into a decent format, which I've not been doing.

So there we go.

We are on 16 or 17 minutes of this podcast. I am going to leave it there for now. It is Friday the 11th. I'm recording this on Thursday the 10th. It will be released on Friday the 11th. If you're listening to on Friday the 11th, have a great Friday.

If you listen to it any other day, have a great day.

Please leave me a good review on your chosen podcast platform. And if there are things you don't like rather than just give me one star, why not tell me?

Tell me what you don't like.

Tell me what you'd like to hear and we'll see what we can do.

But in the meantime, thank you for listening. Have a great week and we'll see you next time on Driving Horizons.com.

Bye for now.