Last weekend wife suggested that she, myself and two youngest sons (12 and 9) took a short camping trip.Since we normally use a six berth twin -axel caravan towed by a Renault mini-bus, I was not over keen especially when she said we should see if we could get everything in the Panda! However on the television that week was the story of the man who cycled round the world carrying all his equipment with him which fired my imagination a bit so despite having a Doblo which is ideal for such things I agreed to give it a go.Well she managed to to fit in a small six man tent, air beds, sleeping bags, pillows, a small camping stove,changes of clothes and a small amount of food(we ate out mostly)with room to spare.We put the back seat in the rearmost position which gave plenty of room in the rear footwells for storage and I removed the cd changer to give a bit of space in the glovebox and, no we didnt use a roofrack and, yes we could see out the back window.Trip was a great success apart from forgetting the plug for one of the airbeds and stove and gas cylinder being incompatible.Multijet averaged 61 mpg over 250 miles, compared to 23mpg of minibus and caravan(not bad as whole ensemble must weigh over 4 tons).and with tyres fully inflated rode ,handled and pulled very well.We are planning further trips already!

well camping on an air bed you'd be warmer on foam mats

but any way pack light travel well

just remember if your roughing it your doing it wrong

Must admit we have a small roof rack fitted, but on our last camping trip we managed to fit:
2xadults, 2xmedium dogs on back seat;
Large frame tent, air bed, full size duvet,2 pillows, folding table with chairs, 2 folding chairs, grille and cooker, rechargable lighting, 3 days clothes for me (1 pair shoes), at least 7 days clothes for her (4 pairs shoes plus slippers), 3 days food (God knows why..). washing up dish and pots/plates/cutlery, bucket for 'ablutions', various types of alcohol/fizzy pop, portable tv, radio, laptop plus 240v invertor, several magazines and books, plus many small items to numerous to mention.

The roof rack held all the soft stuff (not the tent) but everything else went in the Panda somewhere

also laughing at your mistake in the gas stove and the wrong bottle of gas been there done that :bang:

i use one of these now



folds down nice and compact (about the size of a brief case) and has a bit of space inside where i usually pack a box of matches and spare fuel and dish cloths/ tea towels

also if you run out of fuel you can use petrol

i also have their smaller liquid fuel stove camping stove

and a couple of their lanterns and they really kick some light out..