Drive away awning - advice please

We would like a small, easy to erect awning for our Ford Duetto and would appreciate some advice. As well as being easy to erect, we must be able to disconnect from it easily to drive away & then easy to link up again on our return.

Hi Dora
Welcome to the forum from Bridington.
Boaby

Thank you Boaby.

Hello and welcome  to this most friendly and informative forum. Advice will surely come your way soon. 

Thank you

You’re new to this forum, are you new to motorhomes? Consider how you intended to tour, long stays or constant moving. Perhaps a roll out fiamma type just for shade. Inflatable awnings are popular and withstand wind but are heavier and more bulky when packed than pole ones. Then there are freestanding ones like quest 4. If connected to van check for clearance on sliding door. Look at for sale sections on forums, the amount of awnings for sale reflects the difficulty of getting choices right

We also have a Duetto and have a Vango Hexaway, an inflatable awning. We find it really airy and easy to erect and to connect/disconnect. It packs away pretty easily though it is a bit bulky. We transport it on the rear travel seat, secured with the seatbelt!
But as Solaris says, do think carefully what you want to get out of an awning before purchasing. We spent a lot of time head scratching before taking the decision to make sure we didn't get one too small or too big.
Happy hunting!

Further to the comments above, if you are new to motorhoming I would also strongly suggest that you hold fire until you have the experience of a few trips.

All of us are different of course, but we would never use an awning. In fact we rarely use the wind out sunshade. It's all too easy to talk yourself into wanting a "must have" item, only to find that after a couple of trips it gets relegated to the loft!

They are quite bulky, specially the inflatable ones as already mentioned. You could easily find yourself in the same boat as many caravanners - forced to erect the awning on arrival whether you want to or not, just so you can move around inside the van!! For example, if you go to France and stay on aires en route, it could be a real pain in the backside!

(If you are not novices, this might be useful for someone else!  )

Gromit wrote:Further to the comments above, if you are new to motorhoming I would also strongly suggest that you hold fire until you have the experience of a few trips.

All of us are different of course, but we would never use an awning. In fact we rarely use the wind out sunshade. It's all too easy to talk yourself into wanting a "must have" item, only to find that after a couple of trips it gets relegated to the loft!

They are quite bulky, specially the inflatable ones as already mentioned. You could easily find yourself in the same boat as many caravanners - forced to erect the awning on arrival whether you want to or not, just so you can move around inside the van!! For example, if you go to France and stay on aires en route, it could be a real pain in the backside!

(If you are not novices, this might be useful for someone else!  )

Good advice. We only use ours for long stay visits ie Spain.
I have plenty of room upstairs for the trip.
Micky

Thank you all for your advice. Just to confirm that we aren’t new to motorhoming although it’s been several years since our previous one. When it looked as though Coronovirus was here for the long haul, we knew from previous experience that a motorhome would enable us to take breaks away in safety. We managed ten days away* before lockdown, which was enough for us to decide to opt for a small drive away awning. (* it rained the whole time)

Outdoor Revolution Cayman Classic Driveaway awning. Easy peasy to erect and easy to drive away and re-attach. Not at all bulky, unlike airframe types. Travels comfortably on rear passenger seat and sits out of the way on the drivers seat if on a one night overnight stop. Can’t be beat!

Thank you Jeff Bennet. I’m pretty sure we decided on that ourselves but when we saw it erected at the showroom, we decided it was a bit too big. After a lot of humming and haaing we bought a Sunncamp Silhouette 225 Motorplus which isn’t quite so tall and has a smaller footprint. We haven’t managed to get away yet, but erected it in our dining room (to keep it clean in case we needed to return it) & feel it will better suit our needs. Appreciate your advice though.