Lovely caravan but oh the price! I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it at the NEC. Love the classic interior, it’s gorgeous, very pretty, and well done to Cathy and her lovely designs and for building it in the UK. Looks lovely but not for us as some practical points are missing. I wouldn’t want vinyl seat covers - you stick to them - but glad if buying from new that you can change that. I have a compressor fridge in my campervan - and it didn’t cost that much more - but it’s linked to a solar panel on the roof that keeps it topped up when off grid. I can do a week easily without power and everything runs fine - can you fit a solar panel on the Barefoot? (Looked it up on the website - you can - it’s costs an extra £425 for a 120w solar panel) The chopping board/sink cover would drive me nuts - where do you put it when you are using the sink? It would be great to have a rack to slide it into. Where are the power points and usb charge points as well? Can it take an awning - it doesn’t seem so at first glance but one photo did show it with a sun canopy - if so, which? (Update - went on website - you have to pay extra for the awning rail - £350 at todays prices - and then there are a number of options including an adapted Dorema awning at £1100 or the Kampa sunshade at £430, with side panels an additional £315 - so looks as if you are tied into buying the adapted ones). I would love to have had more details in this review. However overall compare this to the not so pretty but very practical Basecamp, and you can almost buy two of those for the price of this. (Prices quoted from website as of July 2024.)
I think that’s a fair comment. I should add that this video is designed to be a first look/overview as opposed to the last word on ownership. I’ve not been lucky enough to review one of these properly yet, but my full caravan live-in reviews usually go a lot more in-depth. My takeaway from the Barefoot was that you were getting a top quality product that’s as locally built as it possibly can be. No cheap Chinese fittings like you get in a lot of standard caravans, all hand built and bespoke which is where the money is. No, the standard spec list wasn’t dazzling, but at least there’s a huge scope for customisation and making it your own. I came SO close to buying a Basecamp 3 in October 2022, but monitored the Owners Club group on Facebook and was put off by the horror stories of quality control faults, issues with aftersales, leaks and design flaws. I really really love the Basecamp and I would absolutely love to have one, but I can’t justify spending £25k on one for it to be more unreliable than our 60-year-old caravan! Judging by the Barefoot Owners group, that’s not a worry you’d have with one of these…
Ok, for that price would you pick a Barefoot or a La Mancelle? Which is the better quality? Which would tow more economically behind an EV ? Which has better longevity and resale value?
Love the Barefoot vans. Also met and chatted with Kathy (lovely down to earth lady) and love the quality, layout and high quality fixtures and fittings. But at 6’2, I’m just too big unfortunately. Bring out an extra large egg maybe a foot longer and a few inches wider and in the height and I think it would be on my wish list. Great video Cameron
Lovely looking caravan and curtains in the classic, but £36.5K??! You can fit it out as expensively as you like, but to me practicality is more important. No extension on the worktop so hardly any space for serving up meals. The worktop opposite, as well as being small, would have my 18" TV and kettle on it. But more worringly, where do you put the washing up to drain? I caravan alone so have no one to pass it to to be be wiped up as I wash! Funky and fun but totally impractical.
Great episode! Lovely looking caravan, but I must say that if I saw this van in a showroom I'd be questioning the quality - the window latches and stays are the usual poor quality plastic flimsy items and the silicone work around the bathroom sink is poor. This would encourage me to look deeper into how the van has been constructed and finished.
This is a lovely caravan with lots of options on the soft furnishings - as there should be! The quality is also very evident.Other than the Swift Alpine 4, this is the only other UK caravan that is sold here in Japan. The typical UK layout and unnecessary items such as an oven are turn-offs for the Japanese customer, but sadly, UK caravans suffer from a poor reputation both in terms of quality and terrible customer service. Hopefully, this Barefoot will help to redeem that reputation, but unfortunately, it being over 750kg means that people will have to invest in the very expensive and massively time consuming class 2 towing licence in order to be able to tow it and for the price, the customer will typically look at the German Hobby or Slovene Adria and get a far more spacious caravan that typically have layouts that are more popular here. I don't know why, but whilst the Japanese customer typically prefer smaller things, the opposite is true for leisure vehicles and there is this ludicrous desire to have the biggest possible. Often, for no good reason. I would consider it for quality alone and its construction means that it is best suited for the very harsh Japanese climate. However, there is no air conditioning option on the homepage and I can't see how one could be fitted. The offerings by Truma, Dometic and others just can't handle Japanese summers and most caravans are fitted with domestic style separate type air conditioning. Gas heating/boiler is a no-no. Too much hassle and compromise to justify the price. Especially with the yen being so weak at the moment and the situation in the Middle-East meaning that shipping is now far more expensive pushing the prices up to ridiculous levels. Two factors that obviously, way beyond any company's scope of influence. This applies to any product from Europe, not just leisure vehicles and passenger cars. Such a shame as this is really a very well thought out caravan and the lovely Cathy Chamberlain is the type of person the UK leisure vehicle industry desperately needs to improve its reputation.
Ohhh, it's so cute and beautifully designed. But oh dear, what a big fat price for such a tiny wee space. Thanks for inspiring and teaching us how to renovate older caravans.
That is a truly lovely piece of design, the Barefoot company deserves to be immensely successful. Out of interest, how many caravans do they make in a typical year? 🙂
I agree! I’m not sure actually, I would guess around 24? They make six in a build and it takes about three months to make them. Just some quick maths but I’m no Carol Vorderman 🤣
Is it possible to get one with stronger window hinges? Very beautiful design, looks like a lovely caravan for lone travellers. How tall are you? The bathroom looks as if a few people could manage without any changes. Birdy
Very nice original product, with a high quality build, but for me a small caravan should be cosy, cute, but modest, humble... Problem is, this caravan is absolutely not in this spirit : we quickly see that it has high-end finishes and that it probably costs a lot of money ... As a result, it is the opposite of what it is supposed to be : it is not a "cool" caravan for those who like to go travel light on a whim, with a young spirit, it is a display of high income for people in their 60s who order a tailor-made product 1 year in advance.
Why can’t a small caravan be high quality? Why does it have to be modest and humble? Despite the high quality, this is still lightweight and easy to take away at a moment’s notice. What if people want something unique and bespoke? I don’t think the criticism is fair when Barefoot have sold so many of them.
@@NotAnotherWhiteBox Of course a small caravan can be of high quality... And yes, there is a real market for this type of luxury product, but not at all for everyone : it is for wealthy and elderly married couples, passionate about having the cheesy designs they want on their curtains, absolutely not for a "young and cool" clientele as they try to sell us the image of this caravan. This caravan is for elderly bourgeois people who believe that their purchasing power will allow them to become suddenly younger. You defend the image of this caravan against all those here who criticize its price, as if you were interested in sales, instead of remaining neutral and objective as a journalist should be. I think criticism is fair and interesting, what is not fair is to promote a fake image of a "cool" caravan, whose price is not cool at all.
Don’t talk so daft. Moulds for glassfibre manufacture are cheap to produce and last ages. Its still an overpriced nonesense. For the money they’re asking it should stunning but it’s not. It’s yet another overpriced box on wheels and you continue to fall for the ‘glorious’ interior without using any common sense as to it’s massively overpriced and ludicrous pricing. Just grow up.
@@suzie_lovescats suzie, you’re just an apologist for ripoff manufacturers. If you think this ludicrous box on wheels is good value you’re a simpleton.
Who P!ssed on your chips? Keep your nastiness and bad attitude to yourself. This is a high-priced item for sure, but it is no different from buying a Mercedes instead of a Ford or a Ford instead of a Dacia. They are essentially made out of the same bits as each other. The reality is that moulding large single-piece glass fibre items in a shape like that is actually not that easy and can have a high failure rate. I have seen one in person and the build quality is indeed first-class as is the quality of the stuff used in the interior. it's more than I would pay but for some people on a good income, they would most likely be happy to pay and enjoy the quality.
