The Big French Campervan Escape 2013..... suggestions?

[d1155385066947b003392]

Good Afternoon Everyone.

The last couple of years we've taken our VW T2 camper-van to France and bimbled around having much fun in the sun. This year we spent 3.5 weeks travelling down to the south and stopping on the way. Next year I plan to go at the moment the bell goes for the end of term, and not come home until at least 3 hours before the children need to be in school!!

So what I'm after is idea's/recommendations of camp sites around France that meet the following criteria:

Take camper vans
Have a pool (preferably)
Are reasonably quiet
We love a good municipal camp site.... but they are tricky to find!
Near something interesting... perhaps a vine yard, beach or nice woods you know the kind of stuff 6 and 4 year olds love....

I'm happy to share the recommendations that we have from the last couple of years if anyones interested. I just want to start planning my big summer escape now to get me through these cold nights, and i just can't wait for it to be time to hop back in my lovely van!

Many thanks in advance for your advice! (if anyones thinking of doing the same i'd love to hear about it and happy to share our "tips" we've gathered along the way!)

[cheerup]

Am very jealous that you can go for the whole summer. I would love love love to be able to do that.

In terms of your criteria, I would recommend two that we went to this year - Le Prunay in the Loire and L'hirondelle in the Drome. Le Prunay is a small family run site based on a farm with a small pool, huge pitches, little lake that you can take a boat onto, old fashioned but very popular play ground and woods as well as farm animals and cereal crops as far as the eye can see. It was very relaxed and chilled out when we were there in June last year and loads around to do and see.

L'hirondelle is a larger site with 250 pitches but over a large wooded area and in the beautiful Drome region looking onto the very impressive Vercours mountains. It's got pools, slides, bouncy castles but isn't that kind of site at all and apart from live music at the bar/restaurant a couple of time a week there's no entertainment. There is a river which is perfect for dam building and paddling (waist deep at it's deepest point when we were there in August); and for the brave (& lighter than me) riding the mini rapids in a rubber ring. It was so dark at night we could see the milky way over the mountains from our pitch and we had an edge of the woods comfort pitch with fields in front of us so oodles of room to play and enjoy the scenery. If you've been to Forgewood, it's a bit like that but with much better weather, decent toilet facilities, a river and swimming pools. Plus there is a junior Go Ape type place opposite and a lovely village just down the road. If you look it up on trip advisor you'll see my review and photos. Wish we were going there again next year but it's dh's turn to choose and he wants to go to the Dordogne and somewhere livelier

Enjoy your planning, it's at least half the fun if not more!

[d1155385066947b003392]

Thanks for that... both sites sound exactly what we are looking for. Really great review.

We stayed at camping le brevedent this year and that sounds similar to your second site. I will pop those on the list.

We also stayed in a great muni campsite in bais for a couple of nights and it was cheap as chips, had really great facilities (the highlight being a shower which you just turn on like at home!!) bais but there is very little other than a huge swimming pool and a swing.... although for 2 nights en route to the south it worked a treat for us!

My husband might not make the whole 6 weeks but I will stay with the childs and he can fly back to earn some bread

[QuenelleIsOrangeAndGoldForNow]

I don't have any campsites to recommend, just wanted to say I'm insanely ...of your campervan, your trip and the whole planning stage.

Please post lots in here over the next year so we can all enjoy it vicariously

[cheerup]

If you do a Dover crossing and haven't booked yet you could get a bargain DFDS crossing using the code 'enec' but only if you book it today. Car only for £58 return (high season), motorhome £68 return. Free amendments until the end of June so even if you don't know your dates yet you can book and change. Offer only valid until end of today when the caravan show ends.