Is It Worth Joining A Caravan Club?

We get asked whether it is worth joining a caravan club most weekends at Chipping Sodbury Caravans, often by someone who's just picked up their first caravan or motorhome and is standing at our sales desk with a leaflet for the Caravan and Motorhome Club in hand. Our answer is always the same. It depends on how many nights you're realistically going to spend away each year, not on the length of the benefits list on the club's website.

As a rough guide, once you're touring five nights or more a year on club sites, the membership fee is usually paying for itself before you've touched a single discount. Fewer nights than that, and the rest of this article is where the real answer sits.

How much does it cost to join a Caravan Club? 

The two big UK clubs price membership differently enough that it's worth checking both before you commit, and it's worth clearing up a common mix-up while we're at it.

The Caravan and Motorhome Club (CAMC) charges £69 a year if you pay by Direct Debit, or £79 if you pay by card, which includes a £10 joining fee. That fee already covers you, a partner, and any children under 18 at the same address, free of charge. If another adult over 18 lives with you and uses the van too, adding them on costs £10 more.

The Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC) charges £56.95 for digital membership or £59.95 for a paper membership pack, and that fee works the same way: it covers your partner and any children in your household as standard.

We get asked about this a lot at the sales desk, usually by couples worried they'll be charged twice. Neither club charges per person for a standard family setup, so the fee difference between CAMC and CCC is a straight comparison rather than one where you need to double up for a partner.

The break-even point: how many nights before it pays for itself

CAMC publishes a specific figure here, which makes the maths easier than most club comparisons let on. Members save £15 a night on UK Club campsite pitch fees compared with the non-member rate.

Divide the £69 Direct Debit fee by that £15 saving and you land on 4.6 nights. Round up, and five nights a year on a CAMC site is roughly where membership starts paying for itself, which lines up with what long-term members report anecdotally as well. We've watched customers do this exact sum on the back of an envelope at our sales desk, and they land on the same number every time.

CCC doesn't publish a flat per-night figure in the same way. Its saving is described as up to 30% off Club Site fees, so the pound value depends on what the pitch actually costs. On a typical £20 to £25 a night Club Site, that percentage works out close to CAMC's flat £15 saving over a handful of nights, but you're relying on the pitch price rather than a fixed number.

The practical takeaway is to count your nights before you count the perks. If you're not sure how many you'll actually book on club sites this year, look back at last year's trips rather than guessing.

What you get beyond the pitch fee

Small sites you can't book any other way

Both clubs run networks of small, quiet sites that sit outside their main campsites, and this is where membership stops being about discounts and starts being about access.

CAMC calls these Certificated Locations (CLs), and there are more than 2,000 of them across the UK, usually a farmer's field or a paddock with room for five caravans or motorhomes at most.

CCC calls its version Certificated Sites (CS). The club's own pages give slightly different counts, over 800 on one page and over 1,300 on another, but either way it's a large network of similarly small, low-key pitches, again capped at five caravans or ten tents.

It's one of the questions we get asked most at Chipping Sodbury: why can't a non-member just turn up to a CL if there's clearly space? The answer has nothing to do with the clubs wanting to be exclusive. It comes down to UK caravan site licensing law. An organisation can be granted "exempted" status, which lets it authorise land for up to five units without needing a full site licence, but only for its own members. That's the actual reason you can't book a CL or CS as a non-member. It's a legal condition of how the site is allowed to operate, not a marketing choice.

Discounts that add up if you actually use them

CAMC's Great Savings Guide advertises up to 50% off at UK attractions and up to 20% off more than 3,000 products in the Club Shop. Its network also stretches to over 350 campsites across 17 European countries, with discounted ferry crossings if you tour further afield. The club says members have saved over £13.8 million between them over the past five years, though it doesn't publish how that figure is worked out, so treat it as a headline rather than a promise about your own savings.

CCC members get a 60+ Saver offering up to 35% off at a number of Club Sites, plus nine issues of the club magazine a year, which the club values at around £50.

Both of these only pay off if they match how you actually holiday. If you're not visiting the attractions on the list or shopping at the Club Shop, the discount guide is worth far less to you than the headline percentage suggests. In our experience, customers talk about the Great Savings Guide far more than the flat pitch discount, mostly because a half-price attraction ticket feels like a bigger win on the day out than a few pounds off a pitch fee.

What's included, and what you still pay for separately 

Membership on its own gets you site access, discounts, and technical advice from people who know caravans. It doesn't automatically include breakdown cover or insurance.

Both clubs sell breakdown cover and insurance as separate, paid products under their own brand. They're often good value and worth having, but they're add-ons to membership, not part of the basic fee, so don't budget for them as if they're already covered.

CAMC or CCC, or do you need both?

If you're choosing one club, the decision usually comes down to three things: cost, how many extra adults over 18 you'd need to add to the membership, and which CL or CS sites happen to be near the places you actually tour.

We see plenty of regular customers who end up in both. The CL and CS networks don't overlap, so touring widely across the country with both memberships means twice the number of small sites to choose from, even though it means paying two fees.

Where membership won't help as much as the marketing suggests

We've had customers come back from a summer trip having been turned away from a popular coastal CL, membership card in hand and all, simply because it was already full. A big network number doesn't guarantee you a pitch when you actually want one. Popular Club Sites and CLs near the coast or in national parks still get booked out weeks ahead in the school holidays, membership or not.

Club sites also come with rules that some owners find restrictive: set arrival windows, no open fires on many pitches, and dog restrictions on a handful of sites. If you value turning up whenever you like and doing what you want on your own pitch, weigh that against the savings.

Membership also renews automatically by Direct Debit each year unless you cancel it yourself. If you're only joining for one season, put a reminder in your calendar a month before the renewal date.

And if you only tour once or twice a year, or tend to return to the same one or two independent sites, an annual membership fee may cost more than the pitch-fee savings you'd actually collect. Independent sites, farm stays, and networks like Brit Stops don't require membership at all, and are worth comparing against your real travel pattern before you commit to a club.

Our view at Chipping Sodbury Caravan 

Our honest view, after years of selling and servicing caravans, is that membership earns its keep for anyone touring regularly and using the CL or CS network. It's a harder case for owners who tour once or twice a year, or who are happy sticking to the same static pitch.

For that kind of use, work out your actual nights away first, then decide. The clubs are good value once you clear the break-even point. Below it, you're paying for access you're not using.