Raising the roof! Living South Magazine Feature

Ordinarily when you are camping, six solid hours of rainfall lead to tears before, during and after bedtime. Instead I am as snug as a bug in a rug in a moving mansion of mod-cons in a Cornish campsite, laughing in the face of inclement weather.

Steve and Kate Lumley were hoping to avoid the general inconvenience of conventional camping when they took themselves and their two sons off on a 13-week European tour; they bought a top-of-the-range VW camper and hit the road. It is the desire to share this experience which has led them to launch hire company Campervantastic. When the opportunity arose to take one of their vans for a summertime spin, wild horses couldn't have stopped me.

There are plenty of companies that offer rental campervans around Britain, and perhaps unsurprisingly a lot of these are based in the south west. The classic campers that they rent are lovely to look at but just a little impractical if you need to get from London to the waves. On our way to Devon we saw a lovely classic camper also heading down the M4 - on the back of an AA lorry. With Steve and Kate's vans you can go anywhere in the UK and even Europe. (Kate in fact is currently planning a dream campervan trip from Sydenham to Sydney; the only things standing in her way are Iraq and finding a boat to go from Somalia to Sri Lanka.)

Campervantastic is conveniently located just off the South Circular so once you've been through the training on how to use the van (and believe me - if you haven't been told where the picnic table is you would never find it), you can plug your favoured destination into the satnav, select your chosen iPod playlist and get out of town quick smart. The vans are very well equipped and have racks for bikes and boards should you desire to get active on your travels.

Driving the van was as easy as driving a large car; the TDI engine made light work of the motorway miles and it was only when Mrs Sat Nav showed her sense of humour by directing us down the narrowest, steepest lane in Cornwall that I was ever concerned by its size.

North Devon and Cornwall were calling us, so we started our activities at Saunton Sands where the midweek waves were empty and a lot of fun. You have to be a fan of surfing to go into the sea in Britain at the best of times. Getting out of the chilly water and into the van made it a luxury. Soon the stove was boiling water for a cup of tea, the wetsuits were drying in the breeze and we were warming our rears in the heated seats. After a quick breather we headed further west down to Bude to our selected campsite for the night.

This is when the real fun begins. Once you are parked up for the night, you can elevate the roof, liberate the picnic furniture from their hidey holes and start cooking dinner. Although we had quite a few beers in the capacious fridge we still managed to slot in some food and a slap-up dinner was soon dished out. At campervan rallies they sometimes hold cooking competitions to see who can make the best use of their two rings; while I don't think that our pasta-plus-sauce would win over the judges, it tasted great in the outdoors.

So with a jug of scrumpy in the fading light we enjoyed a word game called Snatch that conveniently came with the van, but pretty soon the excitement of the day had taken its toll and it was time for bed. We slept in the roof compartment. There were a couple of comedy moments in the climb up, but luckily there's a handy net to stop anything falling out in the night.

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast we packed up and headed further down to coast to visit a couple of other beaches. After a good surf we cooked lunch in the van and made decisions as to what we would do in the afternoon. I was all for the mountain boarding but my travelling companion unearthed the possibility of field archery in Kilkhampton. As a close relative of Robin Hood, I was powerless to resist.

We drove a little further down the coast that evening before finding another campsite whose welcome got warmer as we spied the table tennis and outdoor pool. After setting up the van and eating our dinner we planned the next day's activities. A visit to a tiny seaside town called Clovelly was in the offing. Clovelly is so small and the streets are so steep that even a surefooted campervan wasn't allowed to proceed - here they have to use donkeys and sleds to carry merchandise up and down the cobbled streets.

After one last session with the waves we bid farewell to quiet backwaters and joined the road back to London. I would never say that the M4 is my favourite road but it does open up a whole lot of the country for exploration. In the spirit of discovery, instead of stopping at Reading services for a Ginsters and a bad coffee we headed off the beaten path, parked up for a while and made some coffee and sandwiches in the well-equipped kitchen before plunging onward into London.

The camper had everything we needed and more - super-comfy sleeping facilities for four, tables for eating inside and al fresco, folding chairs, a DVD player, games, a fridge, stove, a kite and yes, even a kitchen sink. As you can see, we were hooked - a campervan makes it as much fun to travel as it is to arrive.

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