What website/book do you use to find sites in France?

[Scatt]

Hi Campers, we're heading to france to camp this summer, what website/book do you use to find campsites/reviews? There are just so many places to look I'm can't even start, so any recommendation it narrow down the list would be most appreciated!

Scatt

caravan club book, Alan Rogers and sat nav program

Alan rogers, also my sister is a veritable oracle on French campsites. I don't like the caravan club due to several disastrous trips to their sites

You need to decide if you want big sites with fabulous swimming pools but unfortuante accordion based entertainment or more basic

www.ukcampsite.co.uk lists a reasonable number of French campsites or there is www.campsitefrance.com or www.campingfrance.com. Alan Rogers also good but |I find it takes ages to search as it has so many sites listed - probably just me though.

If you are into smaller less all singing all dancing sites, the Cool Camping France book might be useful but it does only have a fairly small selection.

Coming on here and asking for recommendations in particular areas also works well and look at the reviews on here too.

The above advice is really good and this might be stating the completely obvious but remember to buy a french road map/atlas... ! A couple of years ago we madly assumed that we could navigate around the whole country on an A4 sized single sheet map lol our eyes were opened when we bought an atlas.

ukcampsite and I found our main site on Cool Camping. It was brilliant (and cheap).

Also, if there's a specific place you want to stay in for an overnight stop try googling that town and 'camping'. I found some excellent and cheap municipal sites that way and booked through the local Office de Tourisme.

i wish there was a webpage for municipal sites. they are fantastic value

Absolutely Caerlaverock. One we stayed at last week was fantastically clean and well kept, 100m from the town centre, big play area, all for ?9.60 a night.

hi Quennelle - which was the town centre site you used? We still have a very fluid itinerary for August so on the lookout for anywhere good and would like a couple of nights in a town - thinking either Loire then Dordogne/Lot or Burgendy(ish) then Ardeche/Drome/Gard. Also meant to ask how the weather was for you? I think we'd been having similar weather based anxieties before we went.

how did those hash signs and numbers get there - wasn't intentional

Note to self - must save some money (i.e. not spend any spare cash on camping) to upgrade laptop to one with a functioning h key.

The town centre site was Beaumont sur Sarthe just north of Le Mans. The only downside was the lack of family friendly cafesin the town and the major roadworks, but it'll probably be better later in the summer.

Domaine de Mathevies in the Dordogne was fantastic. If you have small children they will love the freedom they have there. There were childfree couples who loved it too.

I'm very jealous of you going to Ardeche/Drome/Gard though. We love all those areas. DS was conceived in a lovely little town in the Drome. I'm sure you'll have more sun there.

The weather was...changeable. Dry and warmish until we reached the main site and then 50/50 rain and storms/sunshine.

The town centre site was Beaumont sur Sarthe just north of Le Mans. The only downside was the lack of family friendly cafesin the town and the major roadworks, but it'll probably be better later in the summer.

Domaine de Mathevies in the Dordogne was fantastic. If you have small children they will love the freedom they have there. There were childfree couples who loved it too.

I'm very jealous of you going to Ardeche/Drome/Gard though. We love all those areas. DS was conceived in a lovely little town in the Drome. I'm sure you'll have more sun there.

The weather was...changeable. Dry and warmish until we reached the main site and then 50/50 rain and storms/sunshine.

Discovered this site the other day for searching for municipals. Not the most user-friendly or efficient perhaps, but good to see someone has had the idea to organise the municipals - I'm a big fan of them.
www.camping-municipal.org

I have never user Alan Rogers, have had mixed experiences with Cool Camping - my stinky review of a site in Champagne is on their website, and usually spend hours trawling through uk campsite to book before we go. Last year, when the aforementioned cool camping site fell way below par, we packed up and stopped off at a tourist information office, who pointed us in the direction of several campsites and even phoned them up to check they had vacancies. We came across a wonderful site - all French clientele and full of character - that I know I would never have picked out even if I had seen it online. So this year, now we're a little more experienced, I'm more happy to play it by ear. I'm still going to make a shortlist though because I secretly enjoy doing the research - though would never let on to dh.

i wish there was a webpage for municipal sites. they are fantastic value

the municipal sites are listed in the caravan club books - that is one of the reasons we have the books as there are a great deal of campsites, it seems ashame you right of a whole book based on something that went wrong - when there are hundreds of campsites listed in them

virtually every town in the book has a municipal listed

Is this the book by the Caravan Club you mean? Is it worth buying?

yes - as there are so many sites listed and there is a basic guide to what the site is like - we never ever book before we leave and take this with us to find sites on the way - they are a good guide to what the site will be like, crowded, busy in peak season, noisy or quite peaceful good for a stop over good for long stay

the other is the this out of July and August it is really good and you save alot

Thanks ivy. That sounds like a wonderful adventure! I don't think we're quite seasoned enough to do that yet (and I'm terrible for anxious outbursts en route even when we know where we're going...), but it'll be good to help make our decisions.

The card looks like a good deal, but we're always restricted to school holidays so might not help us. Thanks for the info

Sorry ivy! Didn't mean to sound rude, I just don't like caravan club sites in thenuknand assumed the book would only list those sortsof sites.

We've always used the Michelin Guide here. Bear in mind it's in French, but there is a page telling you what all the symbols are in English, so it's easy to gauge what the sites offer.

It lists sites by department, and has a grade for ones which they consider to be especially nice (this may not mean more facilities - it may just be a particularly nice setting, or a lovely view). We've found it really helpful for sussing out campsites especially when looking for overnight stays. It lists a lot of the municipal sites too, so is not just limited to sites with more in the way of facilities, which is what a lot of the guides seem to offer.

I'm going to get me one of these books for next time we're on the road. After one of my carefully chosen sites turned out to be not so good last week we ended up with nowhere to stay at 6pm one evening. This doesn't bother me but DH hates not knowing where he's going to be ending the day, which is why I had to book every night's accommodation in advance.

With no internet or other campsite listing we had to rely on luck to find somewhere, which it turns out is incredibly easy in June. The first town we tried had a free aire de camping which was a bit too basic for us, but the second town had a real winner of a site, and it was signposted off the autoroute.

DH has agreed now that we don't need to get everything sewn up so tightly in advance when we're travelling out of peak season and it's actually nicer to keep some flexibility.

If I may chuck a spanner in the works........ look on the EuroCamp site. They are rigorous about the quality of the sites they put their units on, and most sites have space for tents as well.

This will cut down the amount of sites you are considering and the brochure or web site will give you really detailed info. Then you look up the site itself and book independently :)