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Why Campervans?

As a choice of lifestyle, campervans and caravans are pretty versatile. You can just as easily go to concerts and museums or go bird-watching & wind-surfing. You can live the hippy dream or be a chilled-out exec.

Mind you, if you’re not alone, you need to be able to get on really well with your partner/chum/s as you are in a confined space for long spells!

Campers and caravaners also have to be fairly minimalist about their wardrobe, be easy with the sounds, sights and smells of outdoor living and be at least a tad practical.

Rural France : the pay-off

At four in the morning you may see the Milky Way as a huge belt of pulsing lights,

You’ll find butterflies settling on your camp-chair,

A farmer may sell you milk still warm from the cow,

You can pick wild myrtle-berries for jam-making,

You can listen to a harpsichord concert in the local church, 

chat in the bread shop in broken French,

or buy hand-made cheese at the market,

You can swim in the reservoir,

tour the basket-making museum, or even

fantasize about owning a French property.

Where in France ?

France is surprisingly large and each area has a distinct flavour. Here is a taster.

The Auvergne has stunning views of/from the volcanic domes. (Where, in August, it’s hot by day and often squally at night.)

A bit further south-west, the woods and low mountains of the Livradois are a walker’s or cyclist’s dream.

The Cevennes has a rugged beauty with dry, rocky low mountains, gouged-out streams and chestnut trees. Serious trekking.

The Tarn gorge is popular with active families. There is safe canoeing and shallow water for swimming.

Beaujolais country is great for the wine-tasting (dégustation) and you can buy wine from the producer’s door in villages such as Fleurie.

The foothills of the Pyrenees are spectacular and the climate varied. A mixture of sun & rain results in the biggest maize I’ve ever seen. Rafting is a hoot.

Summertime, anywhere south of Lyon you can expect to be hot or very hot. We spent one night near Bezier (Languedoc Roussillon) and turned tail. We’ll go back one spring or autumn; there’s so much wine to be drunk.

On-site

Setting up on a campsite soon becomes a routine with some features that are common to virtually all campers.

The first five minutes on a new site involve intense planning.

Important decisions are made in choosing the pitch & positioning the ‘rig’.

Suddenly it’s important to know where the sun will rise and set. Similarly people stake their territory with awnings, trailers, bikes and what-have-you. There are questions of privacy and of course, much debate on creating the right amount of shade.

On site, time takes on an extra dimension. Breakfast (there’s always bread and croissants nearby) is normally over by 10 a.m. and washing-up before lunch. Domestic activities expand to fill the time available. So, washing-up becomes a mini-project which involves a collapsible crate of dirties carried to the sinks, a little light-hearted badinage with neighbours and some sky-watching to determine the weather for the day. If you’re lucky, by then it’s time for the next meal.

The passage of day and night has more effect on your life than usual. Campers will often tuck up into bed soon after dark and a few even wake with the dawn !

How much ?

Buying a van is very expensive. Even a ten year old campervan can cost £10K and you can easily spend £40K new. Thereafter, it’s a cheap holiday. Vans come in all shapes and sizes but there is no perfect van. You have to work out whether you are prepared to compromise on comfort or ease of parking & access. You weigh living space against fuel economy. It pays to think the various issues through. MMM is one of several magazines with good advice.

For the last year or two there has been fierce competition on the ferries. If you book just after Christmas you can get real bargains. To change dates there is only a small surcharge so you have nothing to lose by booking early. We travel Seafrance from Dover simply because we live in Kent and it’s French culture from the moment you board the ferry. This year I paid about £75 for a return crossing.

Pitch fees. You can pay from about £6 up to £18 for one night for two people in a camper.  Le Camping Municipal seem to be in every town or village in France . On urban sites you can sometimes find strangers around where there isn’t be a full-time warden. The better sites have barriers or other security. Never camp in a lay-by or a service-station. The French papers in recent years have reported a number of horror stories especially relating to busy autoroutes.

French campsites are usually well signed. It’s not rocket science ….. the French word for a campsite is ‘Camping’. Nearly all have electrical hookups, toilets and showers as a minimum. Most have a laundry room and washing-up facilities. There is however a huge range in the quality of hygiene and general maintenance. With any campsite (not just France ) we go walkabout and inspect the loos before we hand over any cash.

You can often find sites through a websearch putting the name of the nearest town and ‘Camping’. Once in France the tourist information offices (Syndicat d’initiative) are very helpful and have free pamphlets listing the sites in the region. They will normally phone and book a site for you if you are not confident speaking French.

In France you only need to book in high season and on ‘fully loaded’ sites i.e. with a pool, entertainment, bar etc. We usually phone one day ahead. It’s so easy ‘Je voudrais une emplacement pour le nuit, s’il vous plait’ Then all you need is the days of the week !

Perhaps ‘Il y a deux personnes’. That’s it, booked.

Use an up-to-date guide such as the Caravan Club Europe 1 guide or the Michelin Camping France (in French).

There are some campsite chains. Camping Qualite comes recommended. They produce a free map showing their network.

Practicalities

Avoid serious travelling during July/August weekends. There are huge tailbacks on some of the motorways which are mostly predictable. The worst time to travel is the last weekend in July when the July holidaymakers drive home and the August holiday makers set-out. Bison Fute is a guide which gives an overview of the anticipated traffic flows across the whole of France for the holiday period. Where you see road signs for Bison Fute, these are short-cuts to avoid the congestion.

Caravan Club runs the excellent Red Pennant service which covers all aspects of breakdowns and recovery. The Caravan Club is an incredibly useful organization.

It helps to carry an International Camping Card and take your European Health Insurance Card (from the post-office here)

You should carry your driving licence, certificate of insurance and your V5 vehicle registration document (in a very safe place). First aid kits are recommended and a warning triangle, compulsory.

If the weather turns foul you can always stop off at a Logis or Hotel Familiale where you’ll get 2 or 3 star accommodation usually with a quite acceptable restaurant & very reasonable rates.

And that’s the nub of it. If you have a camper, you don’t need to buy a house abroad. You go where you please, when you please. If the weather and the company are good, you stay. When you are ready to, you move on.

Jon's van

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Links

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/ for second-hand campers

www.bilbos.com for new and secondhand campers ( S. England )

www.caravanclub.co.uk for everything to do with the subject

www.outandaboutlive.co.uk  for motor-caravan magazines

www.meteofrance.com for the weather.

www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr for holiday traffic info.

www.french-property-news.com for an English guide to French property

www.avendrealouer.fr for a French national guide to property