tips for france

If you're looking for classy campsites it well worth getting the ACSI app for android has current years inspectors report, real pictures and you can filter by type of pitch, price, facilities etc. Its less than 2 euro for all the inspected sites in France.

If you're looking for Aires we found the Aires campingcar-infos app was most comprehensive needs WiFi or a data connection.

If you don't want to spend your holidays pushing a trolley around a shop just head for lidl its half to a third of the price of e.leclerc and carrefour, super u etc. and the layout is similar to here. No fresh milk though. We also found that the small carrefour city stores were often cheaper than their larger sister shops for certain items we wanted some did frozen bottles of water which are great for the fridge in 30 degree heat and had much less queuing.

We did hardly any driving this holiday as we found in southern Brittany there's a town every 2-4km at the coast a beach nearly every km no need to go far.

We got a lebara sim which worked out grand with 20 euro credit for calls and data. I discovered they are transparently caching site data and deliberately restricting port 80 traffic. I could torrent at 800kb per second but you could barely load a webpage until after midnight. I see other people say you can use a 3uk sim with 'like home' in France might be a better option.

ADAC is a good idea for breakdown. Ours didn't come through in time so we ended up paying double the annual .membership to AA for less than a months cover. My cousins gearbox packed in in the Pyrenees while we were there and he paid €1800 to get a flatbed back to the ferry I'd hate to think what it would have cost for a camper van.

If you sailing in with LD lines then definitely pay a visit to LA croisic the west side of LA baule, piriac sur mer and the walled town part of guerande.

Irish flag is handy too they've much friendlier when they know you're not a 'rosbif' and yes they seem oblivious to the IRL on your number plate for some reason. We got such a frosty reception one place I think they thought we were israeli - tricolour sorted that out and the neighbours were over playing guitar in about 5 mins.

Jeep is class 1, class 2 camper costs about 40‰ more in tolls. f you're over 3m tall the automsted toll both will register you as class 3 which is more than twice the price for roads and can be 4 times the price for bridges and tunnels you have to press the intercom and ask for class 2. If you have a good GPS you can still use thousand of km of motorway and avoid tolls.

TrailerBob wrote: »

Ouch, fair point... I did pay class 2 last year with a big box trailer, and it was about that much more alright. If you planned to take a few days going down I suppose that would be a better prospect.

The via michelin routing is good you can choose, fastest, shortest, most economical etc. and it will give you class 1 tolls which you can use to estimate class 2 tolls. Over the suggested route there are three alternative routes so you can weigh up paying tolls vs time.

One I looked at was Roscoff to Nimes
- 13 hours by motorway and 17 hours avoiding tolls. 13 hours in the van on the motorway would be a killer but the tolls saved on the longer route would put us up in a 4 star hotel with dinner in bordeaux or limoges to split the journey or 3 nights in 4 star campsites along the route.

Just go with it and have a good time. There isn't a more motorhome friendly country anywhere. All the advice given is spot on. Driving is easier than at home. Roads Like England only without the traffic ( mostly) Use the autoroutes if you're in a hurry to get to somewhere far away. Otherwise set your GPS to avoid tolls ( not motorways) and you'll have a nice compromise. Don't know now far you are going - for two weeks you might think of going as far south as Bordeaux as the weather is more dependable. Biscarosse Plage is worth a visit - great aire with beach - beach bar /forest/cycling tracks/ town/ campsite next door. If you want guaranteed sunshine then head for Provence ( We're here now (en famille) and it's worth the journey) Pm if you're interested in more detail.

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

I often wonder about the actual economy of avoiding tolls factoring in added expense of vehicle wear & diesel on a longer route with a few hundred more gear changes and the alternator dragging from mega-resistors known as fridge and road lighting.

Not that I give it much precedence because I prefer the scenic route.
So rough maths; say I add 75 city miles to the route that's €20 diesel, alternator is costing me an additional €1.20 for the extra 4 hours with a 300W load, I'm sure the rest is equally negligible...who cares I'm on holidays, just something to occupy my mind on the way round...

You could also argue the other way. The shorter time on the motorway is largely based on driving an average of 30km faster. Due to brick aerodynamics I get about 4-5mpg more on the scenic route than motorway, tyre wear probably increases significantly with speed and higher temp on the motorway. Lack of gear changes in the early ducato contributes to 5th gear failure due to poor lubrication. Some tolls are totally worth it others not so much. In the end of the day I just take whatever road I feel like at the time thats the glory of a camper van after all you don't need a plan.