Advise please

pommers

Hi, hubby has month of August off and we have Tesco vouchers to cover the Ferry from Rosslare to France, 2 kids aged 6 and 4 years, this will be our first time doing this, so would love any info on places and prices, we were thinking of maybe going down as far as Spain?? Trying to get some kind of a budget together, so any help on anything would be great.

Thanks:)

WildWater

Hi pommers

We have kids about the same age as yours and we when to France in the camper last year. To keep cost down you can use the Aire de Services and Municipal campsites. Aire's are basically overnight parking facilities for motorhomes that are provided by local towns. Some are free, some have a small charge but all will have facilities to empty your cassette and grey water, and take on fresh water.

For example last year we stayed on an aire at St. Martin on Ile de Re for €10 a night and it was close enough to walk to the centre of town.

Look out for this sign as you enter towns as it will lead you to an Aire or a municipal campsite.



Municipal campsites can be great also. Some may have a pool onsite or perhaps one close by in the town to which you may get a reduced entry.

If you want you can then check into a fancy campsite for a night or two every so often. There are some really nice campsites in France and the big advantage of these is their pool complex complete with slides etc and activities for the kids.

With a month Spain is definitely doable but we have never been so of no help to you there. Lots to see and do in France though and if you stick to the atlantic coast you really can't go wrong.

Search this forum for 'France' and you will find lots of suggestion.

Wildwater

pommers

Thanks for all the info..sounds good:) Bit nervous been the first time going, sounds good with those €10 a night and then the really good campsites here and there..thanks again..

Pommers.

T650

For aires :

http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm

For municipals :

http://www.campingfrance.com/UK

Lots of the big attractions have their own aire site right next door e.g Futuroscope, Disney (€30 though) , Grand Parc du Puy du Fou

Maurice G

In France at the moment,
Used municipal sites and Aires only. I would suggest Municipal sites with small children, no facilities at Aires for children.
Most Municipal sites have play areas and are safe for little people on bikes. Prices vary at the moment from just over €7 to €14 odd including electric hook-up. May be a little more expensive in august. More people about as well!

pommers

Thanks so much everyone for all the advise and websites, going to spend the next week going through it all with Hubby:)

T650

For route planning

http://www.viamichelin.com/

The options section lets you tailor your needs so for example you can choose to plot a route without toll roads. That can help keep costs down too.

pommers

Hi guys, Just looking online to book a campsite for the first 3-4 nights when we arrive in France and all the campsites seem to only do 7 nights or is booked out around the time we are looking for which is 29th of July- 1st/2nd of August, kind of getting a bit worried as 1st time! We would need to have first campsite booked before we go? Not to just arrive and go looking when we get there??

Help Please:o

niloc1951

pommers wrote: »

Hi, hubby has month of August off and we have Tesco vouchers to cover the Ferry from Rosslare to France, 2 kids aged 6 and 4 years, this will be our first time doing this, so would love any info on places and prices, we were thinking of maybe going down as far as Spain?? Trying to get some kind of a budget together, so any help on anything would be great.

Thanks:)

Before you use your Tesco vouchers do your sums very carefully.

The discount with the vouchers is off the 'Brochure' price and unless you have a lot of vouchers the discounted price could still be higher than a 'special internet' price.

Check the price both ways, using and not using the vouchers

pommers

niloc1951 wrote: »

Before you use your Tesco vouchers do your sums very carefully.

The discount with the vouchers is off the 'Brochure' price and unless you have a lot of vouchers the discounted price could still be higher than a 'special internet' price.

Check the price both ways, using and not using the vouchers

Yeah, we had €250 in vouchers which added upto €1,000 in vouchers, that seems to be covering it, just have to wait on vouchers to come back to book, so hopefully:D

Thanks.

T650

pommers wrote: »

Hi guys, Just looking online to book a campsite for the first 3-4 nights when we arrive in France and all the campsites seem to only do 7 nights or is booked out around the time we are looking for which is 29th of July- 1st/2nd of August, kind of getting a bit worried as 1st time! We would need to have first campsite booked before we go? Not to just arrive and go looking when we get there??

Help Please:o

Try giving them a ring instead. Lots of booking engines for sites assume you want a chalet, not that you are a tourer.

pommers

T650 wrote: »

Try giving them a ring instead. Lots of booking engines for sites assume you want a chalet, not that you are a tourer.

Yeah your right think I will give them a buzz tomorrow!

niloc1951

Have a look HERE, there are many hundreds of campsites and thousands of Aires in France.
Armed with a good guide, which can be bought in the book section of most big supermarkets you should have no problem finding the right kind of place for you

pommers

All booked:D now just to book our campsite for first 2-3 nights, docking in at Roscoff.....10.30am....any suggestions, would like to have at least 1 campsite booked before we go;)

pommers

Booked our first campsite for when we arrive and will just book the rest as we go, our books have arrived too that a few of you recommended:D;)

Getting very excited now!!

Here is campsite we booked, have anyone stayed here before?

http://www.campingdupetitbois.com/gb.html

WildWater

We stayed very close to there last year. It is a nice area and its also not too far from Roscoff for your first days drive. Kids are always excited about getting to France so hitting a nice campsite on the first day is a good strategy!

We used to go over to the beach at La Turballe and park up here http://goo.gl/maps/WLrs for a few hours. It is a little bit outside the town but easy to park up the van and enjoy the beach with the comfort van nearby.

There is an Aires in the town, see here, so I personally would not overnight here as I would not want to upset the locals. But definitely no problem parking up for few hours.

pommers

Thanks Wildwater, thats all great info there, am so looking forward to it now:D

kelbal

we just got back from 6 weeks away in France, our 1st motorhome trip. We spent 1 week with friends at a campsite, and had about 5 other campsite nights, the rest was entirely at the "Aire de Service Camping cars". We found them great, we have 3 kids. Some of them were in quiet-ish areas, but others were absolutely fantastic, on the edge of lakes with playgrounds / municipal swimming pools / town centre all within 5 minutes walk - beats any campsite hands down as far as I'm concerned. Here's some of the best one's we stayed at, so you can consider them, in no particular geographic order.....

Town of Fleurance, free (between Auch and Agen)
Town of Objat, €5 per night with free hookup (north of Brive la Gaillard)
Saint-pee-sur-nivelle, €8.50 (at resort lake with beach, outside town)
St Jean de Luz, free, with free water and hookup (very popular with limited spaces)
Saint pair sur mere, €5, just south of Granville. Right in town, and beside beach
Chateauroux - right by man made lake with fishing, swimming. 15 minutes walk to city.
Grez-nueville, free (north of Angers)
St Jean pied de port (right in centre of old town)
Uzerche, free, by river and overlooking historic old town
Le Roque Gageac, €10 per day, south of Sarlat. Amazing setting on river beside old town

They all have playgrounds closeby - if your kids are still into them

Give me a shout if you want more info on specific areas.

kelbal

another tip for heading away....
Whether the water tap is free (alot of them are), or you have to pay for it, you'll need some way of getting the water into your tank. It's just a tap, there's no hose provided. Some of them have a screw connection for attaching a hose, but not many. Most of the time I had to fill plastic bottles and carry them back to the motorhome. The bottles I had didn't really fit into the water inlet, so as I was pouring there was a certain amount of wastage down the outside. Then I noticed what other guys were doing. they had a 1 litre plastic bottle with a really thin neck on it, so that it can sit into the inlet and stay there by itself, look for one in the supermarket. Then you cut out a square from one side of the bottle, that faces upwards. Then you get a 10 or 20 litre container/jerry can - fill it up at the tap and pour into the gap in the bottle. No wastage, and much quicker.

martyc5674

kelbal wrote: »

another tip for heading away....
Whether the water tap is free (alot of them are), or you have to pay for it, you'll need some way of getting the water into your tank. It's just a tap, there's no hose provided. Some of them have a screw connection for attaching a hose, but not many. Most of the time I had to fill plastic bottles and carry them back to the motorhome. The bottles I had didn't really fit into the water inlet, so as I was pouring there was a certain amount of wastage down the outside. Then I noticed what other guys were doing. they had a 1 litre plastic bottle with a really thin neck on it, so that it can sit into the inlet and stay there by itself, look for one in the supermarket. Then you cut out a square from one side of the bottle, that faces upwards. Then you get a 10 or 20 litre container/jerry can - fill it up at the tap and pour into the gap in the bottle. No wastage, and much quicker.

Worth having a screw fitting on one end of a hose kept in the van.

What I saw one fella doing was using a regular plastic garden watering can.... He had about 6 inches of flexible hose clipped onto the spout... Looked real easy.

Alternatively a funnel with a flexible section would get you out of pretty much any situation. ( just work out how to keep it upright first)

Marty.

niloc1951

kelbal wrote: »

another tip for heading away....
Whether the water tap is free (alot of them are), or you have to pay for it, you'll need some way of getting the water into your tank. It's just a tap, there's no hose provided. Some of them have a screw connection for attaching a hose, but not many. Most of the time I had to fill plastic bottles and carry them back to the motorhome. The bottles I had didn't really fit into the water inlet, so as I was pouring there was a certain amount of wastage down the outside. Then I noticed what other guys were doing. they had a 1 litre plastic bottle with a really thin neck on it, so that it can sit into the inlet and stay there by itself, look for one in the supermarket. Then you cut out a square from one side of the bottle, that faces upwards. Then you get a 10 or 20 litre container/jerry can - fill it up at the tap and pour into the gap in the bottle. No wastage, and much quicker.

Not wishing to disagree, but I have never come across a drinking water tap which will not take a screw-on fitting, however on some of the chrome press type taps the screw threads are not always easy to notice.

Don't be confused by some of the tight-wad types who draw their water from the taps at sites where the tap for rinsing out the toilet cassette :eek: which is free but the drinking waters tap is not.

*Kol*

Be careful whichever tap you use for filling water as I have seen some very brown water coming from so called drinking water taps. Its a good practice to fill a clear container with the water first just to see what you are getting.

kelbal

niloc1951 wrote: »

Not wishing to disagree, but I have never come across a drinking water tap which will not take a screw-on fitting, however on some of the chrome press type taps the screw threads are not always easy to notice.

Don't be confused by some of the tight-wad types who draw their water from the taps at sites where the tap for rinsing out the toilet cassette :eek: which is free but the drinking waters tap is not.

Well, we definitely did see plenty that didn't have the screw fitting!

And no, I wouldn't be inclined to fill my tank from the tap a few inches above the toilet emptying point

pommers

Hi Folks, Just wanted to thank everyone for all the help and advise you all gave us, it was "all" very helpful on our travels:D

We had the best holiday ever I have to say, we will never do a package holiday again!! Arrived in Roscoff and first 2 nights we stayed Chachatteau du petit pios....from there we went to Le Rochelle 1 night in a Municipal, following night went into the aire, highly recommend, it's free, it's just a car park but its on a cycle route through a park right into the beautiful Le Rochelle! We also went to Biarritz then into Spain San Sabastian, then decided not to go trough Spain as we thought maybe too much on the kids plus loving France, stayed in an aire called Saint-pee-sur-nivelle which was recommended by Kelbal(thank you) was fab!!€8.50 per night! We visited the Dune du pilat, excellent!! We went to futurescope http://en.futuroscope.com/ great park but think my girls could have been a bit young for alot of the rides:rolleyes: but mam and dad loved it:D lol.....We went to disneyland Paris 3 nights in Disney Aire, full day in DisneyLand park and 1 day into Paris to visit the Eiffel Tower, loved every bit of it all in Paris but was glad to get back to the quite campsites/Aires again!! We met a couple from Limerick in Futurescope carpark gave us lots of tips on Disney greatly appreciated!!There is way too much to mention everywhere we stayed but did go to lots of places that was recommended by your good self's:D:D So now having done it we can also offer some help and recommendations to others!! Just to add we stayed in campsite only 20minute drive to the boat (Cherbourg) it was ideal as to have little drive morning of going home http://www.camping-normandie-fanal.fr/?-Camping-4-etoiles-en-normandie-dans-le-calvados-

Total driving 2300km and about €550 in diesel:)