Here's a tip that I discovered from my days of doing voluntary work in Africa, and it's something that I still do today when I go caravanning in the summer months. If you want to keep can of drink cool on a hot summer's day, but you don't have any ice or a cooling sleeve, use a nice thick walking sock. Soak it in water, put your can in the bottom, and hang it in direct sunlight (a breeze also helps). An former member of the SAS taught me this trick. I don't know exactly how it work (something to do with evaporation, maybe?), but it really does the trick.
Pete Stubbs
London

Go to your local hardware shop and look for cable ties. Not only can they be used for tidying up scruffy cables but they can also prevent clothes from moving around when the caravan is in transit. Cut pieces of plastic tubing to fit over the rail in your wardrobe, attach them using the cable ties, and slot your coat hangers in between the gaps, so that they can't slide around while your van is moving.
Nigel Richards
Bristol

I've just spent a rather painful Saturday afternoon fighting the crowds at IKEA, but it was worth it for the decent caravanning kit that I picked up. The most useful was a miniature ironing board, which hangs in your wardrobe on the rail. I don't know its name, but being Swedish, it'll probably have a couple of 'ös' in it!
Alison Jeffers
Norwich

When we go caravanning, we tend to take more folding items (such as T-shirts) than items that we need to hang. So we have bought a pair of hanging shelves. They are cheap, lightweight, and easily attached to the wardrobe rail thanks to Velcro straps.
Elizabeth Edmonds
Laleston, Bridgend

Because they are smaller and easier to store than duvets, we use sleeping bags when we go away. But washing them is far from convenient. I got around this by making an inner bag out of an old duvet cover. I unpicked the sides from the poppers' end to about halfway up, so there's an opening on one side. I then cut off the poppers and hemmed the edges. Washing this inner bag is easy; now the sleeping bag only needs a wash at the end of the season.
Kay Collister
Hingham, Norfolk

If your van is stored on your drive over winter, make sure to roll it back and forth a few feet every couple of weeks to stop the tyres from deforming. Daniel Jones Blackpool the key to the problem The cutlery drawer in my caravan's kitchen is rather small and only just about fits knives and forks, let alone a potato masher or whisk, so I bought some sticky-backed plastic hooks and fitted them to my kitchen wall, then I bought some key rings and threaded them through the utensils. Now they all hang from the kitchen wall.
Erica Davis
Weston-super-Mare

I've found a great way of keeping the carpet in my Elddis Avanté clean, and it doesn't involve buying one of those expensive little hand-held vacuum cleaners. First, sweep the carpet with a dustpan and brush, making sure that you brush across the pile. Then, using the rubber blade of a car windscreen wiper, brush the carpet towards you. This is particularly good for picking up dog hairs.
Margaret Aherne
Darlington

To shorten long 12N and 12S cables that touch the ground when hitched up to the towcar, hold them away from the caravan in a straight line, then turn the socket end round and round, as though you were turning any other kind of rod on its end. This will produce a neat, tight twist in the cables that will shorten them without requiring you to make heavy, awkward loops.
Donald Truman
Chesham, Bucks