For motorhome touring holidays, it’s hardly worth putting up a drive-away awning just for a night or two. That’s where motorhomes that come with a fixed sun canopy attached to them are so useful. To go with your sun canopy, the ideal camping accessory is a windbreak. We don’t mean the old traditional type, with the broom-handle style poles, but modern windbreaks that fold down small, into their own neat bag, like a small lightweight tent, and come with guy ropes and pegs. 

Some people use several windbreaks around their pitch, to form a kind of dog-proof and toddler-proof fence. Others just throw a piece of straw or a stray leaf up in the air to test the wind direction and wind speed, then put up a single windbreak in exactly the right spot to create an area of calm in which to sit outside. Do you like eating your breakfast outside in relative privacy? Or perhaps you favour lingering over a barbecue at dusk and watching the stars as they appear. Then again, you might want to go for some memorable picnics on the beach, without burning in the sun. Whatever your personal style of outdoor enjoyment, well made windbreaks can help make all your holidays more relaxing. 

To find out which are the best windbreaks for motorhome holidays, we assembled a good collection of shelters from rival manufacturers. All the big names from the camping accessories world have come up with their own versions of the traditional windbreak – and we wanted to see which interpretation would work best for us. 

Would it be the Sunncamp Windjammer at £30 (reviewed here), or the Kampa Break Standard Windbreak at £39.99, the Outwell Premium Round Windscreen at £69.99, or Olpro Picket Fence Windbreak at £29.99? We also tested the Coleman Windshield XL at £49.99, the Gelert Breeze Blocker at £24.99, Trespass Windbreak at £33.99, Vango 5 Pole Windbreak at £64.99, Halfords Urban Escape Camping at £20 and the Quest Windshield Pro at £104.99. We looked at the Vango Adventure Windbreak at £24.99, the banana-shaped Easy Camp Surf at £19.99, the Quest 7 Pole Family Windbreak at £49.99 and Kampa Deluxe Windbreak at £89.98. 

So, how did our Sunncamp Windjammer compare to all the rest of the windbreaks tested? 

At 5m long, and costing less than £30, this model is a direct alternative to Olpro’s Picket Fence windbreak, and Gelert’s Breeze Blocker. So what are the pros and cons? Aesthetically, this is smarter than the Gelert and as well as the version pictured, it comes in several other colours – green, brown, claret red and blue. On a practical level, though, it lags behind the Olpro on the guy rope front, with only enough lines to double-line the end two poles. The poles are made of steel, with base spikes to aid stability, while the main fly-sheet fabric is flame-retardant polyester. It’s 140cm high and weighs 3kg.

The large central window is more useful than the narrow little window slits on the Gelert, and we like the lack of gap between the material and the ground. On a campsite you could put several of these up to form a dog corral, and on the beach you wouldn’t get sand in your eyes when lying flat on the warm sand!