has anyone been abroad with a caravan, but done a stopover in a travelodge type place?

[millimat]

We are off to Southern France this summer, but need an overnight break near Orleans. The only sites seem to take us off the motorway a fair bit, and there are motel type places at motorway services. Just concerned about parking there overnight with the caravan hitched up?

We do this and used to sleep over on the services in the van but last year stopped in couple of over night sites.
We stopped in a municipal at pont l'arche and issoire
If you have a look on uk campings web site there will be recommendations for overnights.

Did you sleep IN the caravan at the services? Do you have to pay? Will look up those sites, just can't seem to find one in the right location.

We have our camping trailer (soft top) wth us and we are going to use overnight hotels this year as putting up the popups in the ran of N France got v tiresome last year.
i think we are usinf b&b hotels as they sleep 4 in a family room - lots of people on ukcaming recommend them so they should be safe.
I'd avoid sleepng in an aire tbh - are there no municipal sites close to the autoroute? We've use camping de Sologne at Salbris for an overnight tent stop and it was very busy with caravans. My revew is here and while it looks as though it's a long way south of Orleans it's only about 1/2 hr.

hth?

Lucycat, we need somewhere ideally about an hour before there - DCs are only young & conscious of making the trip into a huge disaster! I do like the idea of a stopover in a travelodge type place, but not sure if that's because it's the nearest I ever get to a hotel! I just can't seem to find a site in the right location, but not sure where to look

How about somewhere like this site?
ukcamping is a great place to look.

Yes they have long parking bays for lorries and we pull into those. It's free but it can be noisy and you do have the possibility of being broken into although its never happened to us.
Other down sides is no power or water on tap.

We used small campsites last year 25 to 30 euro you get a hook up loos showers etc and better security.

oops a bit too far east for you - that's the route we'll be taking

You can sleep in your van on aires but I wouldn't recommend it....

Only time we have, we ended up parked next to a refrigerated lorry and every 20 - 30 mins, the chiller unit would kick in so we got very little sleep .... Add that to the worry or a break in (or worse) and i think it's better to book onto a camping municipal or a small site

There are all sorts of horror stories of break ins and gassings when sleeping over on an aire

The camping municipal at Issoire is just off the motorway with a convenient hypermarket and fuel stop at the same junction

Alternatively, we've used a small site near Rouen a few times now... Camping Ste Claire at Neufchâtel en Bray ... Cost about 18 euros a night incl hookup last time and a convenient supermarket and garage again too .....

We stop at Alencon at the municipal site - but we avoid Paris and go down the west side, we like it as a short walk to a decent municipal swimming cmplex to go and have a swim and mess about after driving and dc then sleep

Calais - Abberville - Rouen - Alencon