Every experienced owner has a first-trip story and none of them are about the scenery. They're about the cassette, the ramps, the roof light left open at 50mph. The shakedown trip exists to collect those stories cheaply: book one or two nights at a proper campsite close to home, with hookup and staff who've seen a hundred flustered new owners before you. If the heating won't light or you can't work the toilet, you're not stuck in Ardnamurchan working it out by phone torch.
Before you leave the drive
Start with weight, because it's the one item on this list with legal consequences. The plate under the bonnet or on the door pillar gives your MTPLM: the maximum the van may weigh fully loaded. Load the van as you intend to travel, then put it over a public weighbridge: gov.uk has a finder, and most charge £5–15 for the ticket as of 2026. Get weighed twice, once per axle, and compare against the plate. New owners are routinely astonished at how little payload is left once water, gas, bikes, food, a full wardrobe and two adults go in. Water alone is a kilo a litre, so travelling with a quarter tank instead of a full one buys back 60–75kg on a typical van.
Then gas. Check the bottle actually has gas in it, check you own the spanner that fits the regulator connection, and turn the bottle off for the drive unless your system is specifically designed for running on the move. Fill the fresh tank a third full: enough to test everything, light enough to stay under weight. Run the habitation checks slowly: fridge switched to 12V for travel, roof lights shut, TV aerial down, step retracted, cupboard latches clicked, table stowed, nothing loose behind you that becomes airborne at the first roundabout.
In the cab, take ten unhurried minutes before you turn a wheel. Seat, mirrors, and a proper look at how far the rear overhang swings. Then write the vehicle's real height, including aerials, box and anything else on the roof, on a sticker and put it on the dash where you'll see it. Petrol station canopies and car park barriers claim more motorhomes than any mountain pass, and the sticker works precisely because you will forget.
The arrival routine
Do it in the same order every time and it becomes automatic. Pick the flattest spot on the pitch and check level before you settle in. A few degrees nose-down means sleeping downhill and, on many absorption fridges, poor cooling. Ramps under the low side, handbrake on, engine off. Then services: hookup cable out and connected, gas bottle on, fridge switched over from 12V, water pump on, and a tap run until the air spits out of the line. Put the kettle on. Not for the tea, though the tea helps. A kettle proves the hookup, the pump and your patience in one go.
The classic first-trip failures
The same handful come up so often they're practically a syllabus. Levelling ramps left at home, discovered at 9pm on a sloping pitch. The cassette full on day two, because nobody mentions that a typical cassette holds about 17 litres and a family gets through that startlingly fast. The awning wound out on a breezy afternoon and destroyed by a gust. Awnings are shade for still days, not weatherproofing, and a bent roller is a three-figure lesson. The roof light that was open all along, announced by a bang on the A38. Driving off with the hookup cable still attached, or the step still out, both of which are why the walk-round before departure is a rule and not a suggestion. Every one of these is survivable forty minutes from home. Several of them are miserable in the Highlands. Most of them are a kit problem before they are a skill problem, which is why the ramps and grip mats and the small roll of tools live in our van permanently rather than getting packed.
What to write down for trip two
Trip one pays for itself in notes. How many litres of water you used per day. How long the cassette really lasted. What you packed and never touched: that box goes back in the loft and gives you payload. What you reached for and didn't have. Which cupboard rattled, where the cold draught came from, how long the boiler took, what the pitch cost. Two nights of proper notes will shape your loading, your budget and your booking habits for years. Memory won't hold it. By trip three the details blur, which is exactly why owners who log trips properly get better at this faster than owners who don't. The habit itself is covered in keeping a trip log you will use; if you would rather the phone did it, Stops & Stays handles logging from the driver's seat and tank levels at both ends of a stop.
First night, a Caravan and Motorhome Club site outside Chester, chosen because it was 35 minutes from the driveway. The heating wouldn't fire. The warden diagnosed it in under a minute: gas bottle still turned off from the drive up.
Treat the first trip as a rehearsal and it takes the pressure off everything. Nothing has to be perfect. Book the two nights close to home, keep the notes, and fix what failed before the long one.
Reading this on a laptop?
Stops & Stays is a phone app. Point your phone's camera at the code and it'll take you to the store, or search Stops & Stays in the App Store or on Google Play.
Make the shakedown trip your first logbook
Stops & Stays logs the stops, the fills and what they cost. Ten stops free, and ten covers a first trip comfortably. No ties.
