The April issue of Practical Caravan is our niche vans special! This month we feature unusual caravans from manufacturers who think outside the box and deliver head-turning vans that get you noticed.

However, our April 2015 magazine is special for two reasons, as you also get a free copy of our brand new Top 100 Sites Guide 2015 with this issue. These are the best campsites in the UK as voted for by you. For this year’s guide, we had more votes than in any previous year, making the results more reliable than ever before. You can head to our sister website Caravan Sitefinder for more information.

The cover star of our April issue is Practical Caravan’s Bryony Symes in the little T@B teardrop caravan that she and colleague Clare Kelly used for a tour of the New Forest. It’s so light that they had no trouble towing it with a VW Golf, and the girls had a great time meeting wolves, deer and ponies, cycling and discovering the delicious foods of the forest.

Stacie Pardoe and family have lots of fun in the Italian sun when they visit Lake Garda on their way back from the south of France. The 2015 Adria Adora 612 DT Rhine, towed by a 2014 Volvo XC90 D5 Exec GT AWD, makes an excellent outfit for this mega trip. Stacie stays glamorous through water sports and sightseeing, but then her small daughter asks for an Italian ice cream…

Suzanne Asquith wins friends wherever she goes in her unusual Carapod caravan – find out how she gets on during an action-packed family weekend in Cornwall. 

Anna Lyon and her family find adventure on Mersea Island in their Eriba Troll for a child-friendly weekend of sun, sand, seafood and more on the East of England coast. 

There are few sights more welcoming than a decent pub near a campsite, and Bryony Symes picks out 10 great sites for pubs in this issue. Why not try one of these campsites and enjoy an evening stroll, with a meal and a pint as your reward?

Talking of joyful sights, you’ll be amazed at the range of niche vans we feature in the April issue. From the quirky to the palatial, we look at 13 fantastic caravans guaranteed to make everyone smile.  

We review the Hymer Nova GL 590, a stylish and incredibly luxurious four-berth, then test a micro-caravan, the Wingamm Rookie 3.5, the ideal van to tow behind a small car. We bring you a full live-in test of the new Bailey Pursuit 550-4, a comfy four-berth aimed squarely at first-time caravanners. Then we review the fascinating Wildwood Design Twagon, a modern caravan with looks reminiscent of the Wild West. 

Gadget fans will love the items on our test bench this month – we compare nine tyre compressors so you can make light the job of inflating all your car and caravan tyres to the right pressures before you set off on your caravan holidays. 

When it comes to tow cars, our expert David Motton is hard to impress, but this month he takes the new Vauxhall Insignia Sports Tourer 2.0 CDTI 140 Ecoflex S/S SRi Nav and hitches it to a Bailey Unicorn before putting the outfit through its paces on our favourite test track. Read the April issue for his verdict. He also takes the Ford C-Max for a quick test, after hitching it up to an Eriba Touring GT. Then he gives his first impressions of the new Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TDI 150PS. 

There are always bargain caravans for sale on the secondhand market, and this month we compare end-washroom two-berths you could buy for less than £10k then find a selection of the best pre-owned five-berth and six-berth caravans you can buy for £9k to £15k. You’ll need a decent used tow car, of course, and Russ Smith tests the (E91) BMW 3-Series Touring made from 2005-2012. 

Practical advice is what you need if your caravan’s looking a bit grimy and green around the edges after the winter. So John Wickersham explains all the best products and methods to use to spring clean your caravan and keep it looking as good as new! And DIY mechanic Nigel Hutson shows you how to adjust your caravan’s brakes, step-by-step. 

If you love the current trend for all things vintage, you’ll enjoy our ‘Me and my caravan’ interview this month. We meet Karen and David Jennings, the owners of a beautiful uprated 1956 Chevy Nomad and a Shasta trailer. The couple reveal how they restored the caravan to its former glory, and now the pair are living the American dream in a van with ‘wings’.

We hope you’ll enjoy the April issue!