'We Are Sailing... We Are Sailing..'

With the start of summer upon us, lots of our customers are heading off to explore the fantastic range of Scottish islands. We find folk often have a few questions when they're thinking of including islands and ferry crossings in their Big Tree Campervan adventure, so we've put together our 'Top Ten Ferry Tips' to help plan your island adventures:

1. 'CalMac' as they are known across Scotland (or to use their proper name 'Caledonian MacBrayne') are the biggest ferry operator in Scotland.
2. Their website http://www.calmac.co.uk/is great for planning your island hops, especially the really useful Route Map which we've shown above. If you'd prefer to talk to a real person, we've found the folk who run the 'Enquiries and Reservations line (0800 066 5000) are really helpful and enthusiastic.
3. Think creatively about using CalMac routes to plan a really big adventures, eg a ferry from Mallaig to Armadale, then potter through Skye, and even then head off out to Harris on the Uig - Tarbert crossing, before coming back to the mainland at Ullapool.
4. There are lots of useful shorter crossing as well, for example if you want a probabaly much quieter way of getting to/from Mull, then the Lochaline - Fishnish route is great fun, and often much less frequented than the normal Oban to Craignure crosing.
5. Think carefully about the type of tickets you want to buy - if you're going to making lots of crossings, it may be worth buying one of the 'Island Rover' tickets, or even a '6 Journey' ticket - there's loads more information about ticket types on the CalMac website.
6. It's worth making a reservation if you have to travel on a specific crossing in the summer months, especially at weekends ....
7. .... but you should also think a bit creatively about the time of crossing you want/need to take. For example, the we once tried to book on the 9.45am Kennacraig to Port Askaig crossing when planning a whisky tasting adventure on Islay, but that crossing was full.... so we simply got up earlier and had an almost deserted (and very beautiful) early morning crossing at 7.00am!
8. Some crossings are more expensive at peak times (eg the Oban to Mull) becasue you have to have a Full Fare ticket, so again, check out the ferry times with CalMac and think about and earlier or later crossing.
9. Big Tree Campervans are 4.85m long, so they fit into the pricing category of 'Motorhome Under 5m', which is great news as it means they are the same price as a normal car!
10. If you've rented a Big Tree Campervan bike rack, then your campervan will be over the 5m length... but here's a simple idea which we've done several times: book an 'Under 5m' ticket, and when you get to the ferry port, take the bikes off the back, and put them and the bike rack into the campervan for the crossing. Ok, you may have to take the wheels off your bikes, and it will take a few minutes to assemble/re-assemble, but it's worth the ££ savings!

So, we hope these help to plan your island hopping Big Tree Campervan adventure!