ACCESSORIES: Essential and often compulsory are at least one fire extinguisher, a warning triangle, first-aid kit, set of spare bulbs and spare driving glasses. In addition to the many accessories mentioned in this A to Z, we recommend an outside table and chairs, levelling blocks, a 12-volt air compressor and an awning. Look for second-hand bargains in the MMM and at motorhome shows. Visit www.roadpro.co.uk for a range of goodies.

ADDRESS: Many officials need to write to an address in the UK - for insurance, driving licence, pension, bank statements, telephone, vehicle registration, income tax, etc. Although internet banking, email, phone calls and SMS text messages are replacing letters, it is still nice to have an actual card at Christmas and letters on real paper.

If, like us, you kept your house for the income that tenants provide, you can use its address and pay Royal Mail to divert letters to a friend or agency. This service costs £32 per year, per surname and is limited to 2 years. Ring 08457 740740 or visit www.royalmail.com.

Without a house, a close friend or relative may let you use their address, or even open your letters, deal with urgent matters and send you the minimum amount of paper. See Poste Restante. Urgent papers can be sent by FAX or scanned into an email attachment. Without a friend, you can use the address of an agency that collects the mail and posts it on for a fee. The Royal Mail offers a PO Box service for £53 per person per year. However, the address of an agency or PO Box might not satisfy the needs of some officials.

BOOKS: We carry a small library of books and magazines for reference, for hobbies and for pleasure. English books can be expensive and difficult to find abroad so we buy from UK charity shops, exchange with other English-reading travellers on the road and visit www.amazon.com for a mail-order service. For reference, we carry:

• Road Atlases of Europe, Germany, Italy and France (spiral bound to last longer).
• The Michelin Green Guides (for history and culture in Italy and Greece).
• The Rough Guide or Lonely Planet guidebooks for the countries we visit.
• French and German dictionaries and phrase books for other languages.
• Manuals for our machines and appliances.
• The Motorcaravan Manual by John Wickersham (Haynes Publishing).
• Caravan Club Continental Sites Guide and Handbook (two volumes).
• The BMA Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia.
• Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
• Hutchinson Softback Encyclopaedia.
• Birds of Britain and Europe - Christopher Perrins, Collins New Generation Guide.

BORDER CROSSINGS & VISAS: In Europe, only Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Serbia require a visa from their Embassy in advance of your visit. The visa for Turkey is bought at the border for £10 each (cash) and the motorhome is entered in your passport so you can't leave without it. All countries, even those of the EU, put a limit of between 30 days and 6 months on the length of your stay, although this is difficult to enforce in these days of unstamped passports. Outside the UK, your passport also acts as your identity card and should be carried at all times. UK passports can be renewed at any British Embassy Consulate.

Travelling beyond Europe, Turkey or Morocco, is a different matter altogether and raises a number of problems of safety, visas, insurance, suitability of vehicle and the expensive customs carnet. Visit www.visas.com. For passport information and renewal, visit www.ukpa.gov.uk. See also Insurance and Travel Advice.

CAMPING, FREE: It is quite possible to find places to stay other than campsites. In France and Germany there are well-signposted places in towns for overnight parking, often with water and toilets, free or for a small fee. Reisemobil, the German motorhomers' magazine, lists over 2,400 Stellplätze ('Standing Places') in their annual guide: Bordatlas (about £10 from newsagents that sell Reisemobil and online at www.bordatlas.de). Every entry is illustrated and there are excellent maps which cut through the language barrier. ADAC, the German motorists' club (www.adac.de), lists 1,200 Schlafgelegenheiten ('Sleeping Opportunities') in a new book or CD: ADAC Stellplatzführer Deutschland, on sale in all good German bookshops.

The excellent annual Guide Officiel des Étapes Touristiques Camping-Cars lists 4,500 Aires de Services in France, with a separate map. It also lists the farms and vineyards taking part in the 'France Passion' scheme, French Fiat and Electrolux dealers and a few Aires in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. It is published by Camping Car Magazine and costs about £5 from good newsagents (Maisons de la Presse).

In Scandinavia it is a citizen's right to camp in the wild. In parts of some countries (northern Greece, Bulgaria, central Turkey and inland Morocco), there aren't any campsites and ingenuity is needed to find a safe place for the night: in TIR lorry parks, hotel car parks, outside police stations or border posts.

The UK has the most restrictive legislation against 'free-camping' of any European country and is keen to enforce it, fuelled by mild paranoia about gypsies and 'new age travellers'. Even so, all that might happen is that you could be asked to move on, perhaps the following morning.

CAMPING, SITES: A comprehensive guide for France is the Guide Officiel de Camping-Caravaning en France, listing 11,000 campsites in 754 pages for about £9. The ultimate European guide is ADAC's Camping-Caravaning-Führer listing 5,500 campsites in 2 volumes: Germany/Northern Europe and Southern Europe (also available on 2 CDs). The Dutch ACSI Gids describe 8,200 sites across Europe in 2 volumes or on a CD (www.acsi-gids.com).

The internet is increasingly useful for finding campsites in the area you plan to visit, using a search engine for the country of your choice. Visit www.eurocampings.net for an on-line listing where, for example, 60 sites in Greece are accessed by clicking on a map.

In the UK, membership of the Caravan Club (www.caravanclub.co.uk) and/or the Camping and Caravanning Club (www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk) brings details of their own sites and thousands of small, usually rural, Certificated Locations. The Caravan Club also publishes a Continental Sites Guide to 22 countries in 2 volumes for £11 per volume. See also Organisations to Join and Travel Advice.

A Camping Card International (CCI), formerly the Camping Carnet, costs about £4.50 per annum from clubs like the Ramblers' Association, Cyclists' Touring Club or Caravan Club. It saves leaving a deposit or passport as security when checking into campsites, provides some third party insurance on site and sometimes allows a 10% discount. Somehow, ours never seems to expire!

Some travellers 'free-camp' all the time; some never do. It's all in the mind (or in the wallet). On sites, you meet other travellers, the 'locals' on holiday and the campsite staff. Free-camping, you meet the rest of the world! We mix the two ways of camping, finding a campsite while we explore a locality, perhaps with a reduced fee for a longer stay. On the road, we stay overnight where we can: harbours, the car parks of supermarkets, ancient sites and restaurants, outside petrol stations, in lay-bys or on motorway services (free everywhere except the UK).

CLEANING: We were surprised at the long list of all our cleaning materials: washing up liquid, bleach, 'Puriclean' for the water tank, toilet fluid, liquid Ajax, spray polish, soap, laundry detergent, shoe cleaning kit, car, hair and carpet shampoos, wax, silicone spray, WD40, awning cleaner, oven cleaner, black spot remover, dusters, chamois leathers, brushes, buckets, bowls, a vacuum cleaner, a washing machine . . . . Where's that dishwasher gone?

COST OF LIVING: The best way to control spending is to keep accurate records, under several headings (see organising information). Calculating averages tells us how things are going: for the last complete year, our average total daily spending on consumables was £17.50 for (in order of expense) campsites, food, diesel, postage/phone/email, eating out, sundries (tolls, ancient sites, postcards, etc) and LPG.

This sum does not include getting or replacing equipment (new kettle, motorhome repairs), insurances or ferries. We have days when we don't move (no diesel!) or don't stay on a campsite, but we do eat well, every day, though we rarely dine out and our favourite drink is tea. See also Food, Cooking It.

ELECTRICITY FROM BATTERIES: In addition to the 12-volt battery needed to start the engine, full-timing demands one or more batteries in the living quarters for lighting, the water pump, TV, inverter, fans, gas heating and even to flush the toilet. Since a battery holds very little energy (less than 1 kilowatt-hour) it has to be used efficiently and recharged regularly.

We have 3 extra batteries for living, connected in parallel and recharged from the alternator in the engine (not very often), from a battery charger (when there's a mains hook-up), from the generator (before we removed it) or from roof-top solar panels. We avoid running the batteries down ('deep-cycling'), keep them topped up with distilled water and, in return, they have given us over 4 years of continuous use. We added a switch across the split charge relay, so that the engine battery can also be recharged, if necessary.

The digital camera, mobile phone, torch, electric screwdriver and toothbrush are all rechargeable and we use rechargeable 1.5 and 9-volt batteries for smoke alarms, bike lights, clock, GPS, TV zapper and a personal alarm. The short-wave radio runs from a regulated DC-DC converter, which plugs into a 12-volt socket and gives a 3, 6 or 9-volt output. See also GPS and Radio and TV.

ELECTRICITY FROM A GENERATOR: Our built-in 4-kilowatt LPG-driven Onan generator only clocked up 48 hours (at a cost of about 75p per kilowatt-hour), before we removed its 100 kg bulk and gained an extra locker. A smaller, portable, petrol-driven generator could charge the batteries and run a microwave, hairdryer or a mains-only TV but, before buying one, think about its potential use versus its cost, noise, weight, size and the energy required to carry it on your long journey.

ELECTRICITY FROM AN INVERTER: That excellent invention, the inverter, plugs into a 12-volt socket and runs mains accessories at 230 volts and 50 Hz. When there's no mains hook-up, our 250-watt inverter can run a soldering iron, electric drill, food-mixer, small-battery charger, electric blanket, video, laptop computer and printer. Great!

ELECTRICITY FROM THE MAINS: Campsite staff rarely know much about their mains supply, the maximum current and what happens if it is exceeded. The most common plug required, outside France, is the unfused 2-pin German model, with a side-contact earth. We use a digital multi-meter to ensure that there is a good earth on the supply and that the live and neutral connections are the right way round.

Avoid two other potential dangers: a connecting plug lying in wet grass and a tightly coiled lead overheating when in high-current use. Although the tangled nightmares of wiring in Morocco, Greece and Turkey have often surprised us, they have not yet shocked us!

Campsites are no longer supposed to sell electricity separately at a fixed price: they should install meters or make a fixed charge per pitch, including all services. The word has reached the Caravan Club but not Vassilis Polyzogopoulos, here at Gianitsochori, or many other places in between!

ELECTRICITY FROM SOLAR PANELS: Our two rooftop 22-watt solar panels (arrays of photovoltaic cells) cost £300 and put up to a quarter of a kilowatt-hour into our 12-volt batteries on a long sunny day. If that were repeated every day for ten years, the electricity would still cost 32p per kilowatt-hour! What you pay for is the convenience of camping for longer periods without a hook-up or having to run the engine. Visit www.unlimited-power.co.uk.

ENTERTAINMENT, AUDIO & VIDEO: We have an audiocassette player in the cab that has extension speakers each side of the bed, but it's a long way to go to press a button. Our laptop computer (see organising information) plays DVDs, audio CDs, slide shows and stores its own musical compilations. Some travellers use their computers to make mini-disks for their MP3 players. 'Talking books' can be collected in the UK and the pages turned down the road, on tape or CD. See also Radio.

We carry a mains-only Sony video recorder and a collection of tapes, to play when we feel nostalgic. Without a multi-standard video recorder, we can record the local TV images but not the sound. See also TV, Terrestrial and TV, Satellite.

FERRIES: The ferryboat is much more than an old-fashioned alternative to the Tunnel. We have made over 50 ferry journeys during our full-time travels, crossing to Scandinavia, Estonia, Morocco and Greece, visiting Greek islands, working our way through Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica and crossing the Dardanelles into Asian Turkey. Ferries have taken us to Europe's furthest north (Nordkapp in Norway) and to its furthest south (the island of Gavdos off the coast of Crete). Check that the ferry's ramp doesn't catch the motorhome's bottom; that there is room to manoeuvre (Greek island ferries require you to reverse on) and whether overnight camping is possible on the open deck. The Motorhome Ticket Club (phone 01803 855555 or visit www.ferrytickets.net) also offers motorhome, pet and travel insurance.

FOOD, BUYING IT: Eating is an unavoidable expense that is reduced by buying fresh, unprocessed food to cook at home. We had this in mind when we bought a large motorhome with a 4-burner hob, gas oven and grill, as well as a microwave oven and a large fridge/freezer (see which motorhome). We buy in bulk where food is cheap – weekly farmers' markets and roadside stalls for fruit and vegetables and special offers in supermarkets for packets and tins. German 'Aldi' and 'Lidl' supermarkets are established across Europe, selling food and non-food products of consistent quality and value. For a list of European-wide supermarkets, visit www.eurapart.com, who also deal in air and ferry tickets.

When changing countries, you need to know if prices will increase or decrease, if food will be plentiful or scarce. For very different reasons, stock up before entering Norway and Bulgaria! But see Weight (the motorhome's, not yours!).

FOOD, COOKING IT: We use the microwave for most of our cooking on campsites with unmetered electricity. It produces bread, cakes, Christmas pudding, jam, marmalade and porridge as well as daily meals. Without a microwave, we might have bought a low-power electric hotplate or a slow-cooker. When using gas, a pressure cooker saves time and fuel, and de-pressurising outside helps to reduce condensation. We brought our old Prestige Hi-dome, but there are smaller models available in the Butterfly Elite collection.

Our other cooking equipment includes a low wattage electric kettle and toaster, whistling kettle, Camp-a-toaster to use on the hob, frying pan, lidded saucepan, Pyrex casserole (for the gas or microwave ovens), baking tins and microwave ware. We also have a wall-mounted can-opener, knives on a magnetic knife rack, scissors, cutting board, sieve, orange/lemon squeezer, potato peeler and masher, cheese grater and a rack of herb and spice jars. Our Boots Diet Scale, marked in ounces and grammes, weighs up to 16 oz and fits inside a pint-measuring jug doubling as the scale pan. An empty wine bottle serves as a rolling pin! Citric acid powder is useful for both descaling kettles and making lemonade.

The 600-watt food processor needs mains electricity but a small Moulinex hand-mixer can be used with an inverter. We also carry kitchen roll, greaseproof paper, cling-film, cooking foil, plastic bags and boxes for the fridge/freezer, oven gloves, a large thermos flask, a corkscrew and our favourite recipe book by Delia Smith. A barbecue might be a useful addition.

All this adds up to 3 good meals a day for 2 people at an average total daily cost of £3.50 for the last full year.

GPS RECEIVERS: Our hand-held Magellan colour GPS receiver uses at least any 4 of 24 US satellites to give a position accurate to 3 metres when walking, cycling or driving. A map of Western Europe is built in and a 32 MB card holds more maps, selected from a CD-based contoured map of the world. Waypoints can be set and routes planned, entered and followed. The GPS gives: distance between any 2 points; altitude; current, average and maximum speed; distance covered; heading; latitude and longitude; time and date; bearing of the sun, moon and current waypoint; sunrise, sunset and moon phases and much else. A track is left on the map with profiles of the track's altitude and time. How did we ever travel without it? Visit www.magellangps.com and www.garmin.com.

Larger, CD-based GPS systems can be fitted in the cab. They give detailed street maps and routes, with voice instructions on how to reach a desired destination. Visit www.conrad-anderson.co.uk. See also Organising Information.