clueless newbie questions - france

[emanwen]

Could seasoned campers give me some tips?
We want to drive to south of France/Med in Aug, and I was gasping at prices of overnight hotels for family of 5. So I'm thinking about 2 things:

1. camping as overnight stops - we have no kit - what is the minimum stuff we would need to camp overnight (with 3 kids 5 - 11)? How much might such clobber cost us?

How does it work - how do you find decent campsites en route? Can you book in for 1 night? What sort of price is it? Any good ones about half way down (roughly between calais and languedoc or cote d'azur).

1. Getting carried away now, and thinking about spending our 2nd week on a campsite (first in an apartment). I had a quick look at sites and it seems a bit complicated. I see you can hire a mobile home/chalet (not that cheap - some are about 1000E for a week!!); but what are the other options - obviously buy a proper tent and use a pitch? or i thought you can hire a pitch complete with a tent - but I can't see that on the sites - could anyone point me to an example of that? What's a good option for beginners? Would it be unbearably hot in a tent?

Areas we fancy are around lavandou or maybe languedoc - serignan, argeles etc. Thank you very much for any tips.

Try Eurocamp/keycamp/sunsites type companies (actually those brands are all owned by the same parent company. They allow you to stay one night en route to your proper destination although you have to book in advance not just as you go. They would have everything you'd need and so although they're not cheap it would probably be alot cheaper than buying new kit.