Are we mad driving Calais to dordogne... No stop overs? HELP !

[Hattieboo]

Mumsnet has become very helpful in persuading my dh to come round to the right way of thinking! We're off to France in caravan with dd's (5 and 9) on Thursday. Ferry is at 11pm ish, and dh thinks we should get to Calais and drive drive drive! I can't tow the caravan so it will just be him, and I'm worrying :-( we have our campsite (for 12 days) from Saturday night so we do have to sleep somewhere on Friday, but we were hoping to get as much travelling done on Friday... Hopefuly not as busy as Saturday? He suggested sleeping some where near Calais on side of road! IS THIS SAFE and legal??
Any suggestions MOST welcome!!! X

Some French towns have municipal car parks with an area set aside for motorhome and caravans where it's legal to stop for the night - have a look on google for some towns near Calais where this might be the case.

I really don't think it's safe for one person to drive that far in one go, especially towing. How far will you have driven to get to the ferry? Saturday is a huge day on the roads on France so travelling on Friday is sensible, but get some sleep first :)

You are talking an 8 hour journey, at least. My Dad used to do that every fortnight and he ALWAYS stopped somewhere overnight.

I would suggest you look into motels, I think they are called grand prix, they are relatively cheap, or find campsites on the way down.

If your OH doesn't have any sleep he is increasing the risk of an accident, I would insist on a stop over for that very reason.

Well we have done it loads of times - when the dc were young we did an early morning eurotunnel crossing and they usually slept. We did it the last time two years ago to Montpellier and back. We do stops for food etc. My dh usually does all the driving although I do offer between sleeps

We have done similar drive in a day - 8 hrs is about right. We don't much like stopovers as its a lot of money and hassle with our 3 very different kids, one of whom has SN, and we'd rather get on! So it's certainly doable. Only thing I would worry about is your dh being tired so sharing the drive would be good if you can manage it. Or make sure he sleeps during Thurs?

You are going to be pulling off the ferry at about 2am (French time) so will be too late to check into a campsite. You could consider stopping on an aire on the motorway. There is a link here to a discussion and what look like some sensible tips (ie go for main aires not picnic ones.).

TBH your safer bet would be to book into a motel for Thursday night. For £33 right now you could book a room in a formule 1 hotel (you do need to book or you will find no room at the inn). Very basic, shared shower/toilet. However in your situation that might be a good bet. You get a key code to check in so no one will know how many people you have in your room. Get in, get your heads down for a few hours then drive on to your destination.

All good advice. The whole camping at an aire sounds too dodgy for me, maybe if it was just us but really don't think I'd sleep a wink with the kids! Will look at formule 1 and grand prix but what do we do about our caravan, would it be safe? I may look into earlier ferry times, however not sure if that will help massively unless we can camp near Calais and be there late afternoon.
There are lots of municiple sights but again we'd be arriving at odd times, the link was great but couldn't work out how to book anything?
Finding all this great help guys, thank you x

GnomeDePlume, is it just a double bed in a formule 1? X

We camped at lots of different Aires last year, but we also used lorry parks at the rear of service stations off the auto routes too - never had a problem.

Also carparks of buffalo grill restaurants - again never a problem

Ah and if you can find a camping municipale, lots of them are open 24/7 and the local council employs someone to come and collect the pitch fees twice daily. We found some really nice ones of those.

I would do, and have done, this, but it was shared driving between DH and me. Why not try towing yourself, on those lovely French roads? I would drive as much as you can, maybe take some Red Bull for DH and make sure you stay awake with him. Stop off at the rest places and have lunch/breakfast, whatever. If you don't make it to the Dordogne, then you can just stop at a municipal in any town on the way, but don't leave it too late. We usually start looking from about 2pm, as we won't have booked anywhere.

If you have left the ferry about 2 am, try and get as much distance as possible until the rest of the traffic starts.

I hope you have fun.

Well, I have recently returned from Italy with my parents and my dad decided to do the return trip in one day. It took 19 hours and was not in any way a sane endeavour. Probably not safe either.

8 hours would have been fine though, with regular breaks. We did the outward journey in 2 days, 12 hours the first day and 5 the next, and that was alright.If you're not in a rush though, I'd just book into a hotel. We stopped at one that was part of the Ibis chain on the way out and it was perfectly pleasant, reasonably priced at 60 euros per room and it had a private carpark so the car with all the luggage was safe.

I would really book a hotel and get some sleep. He not have slept before getting on the ferry so he's planning on towing a caravan on new-to-him roads having not slept for 24 hours. If he lost concentration and had an accident he would be utterly to blame. Etaps and Formule 1 are so cheap and have car parks, call them about the caravan. Be careful parking and sleeping in aires. Some of them have thieves that target just such people.

Formule 1 are IME 3 bed rooms: double bed with a single bunk bed over the top. Have a look at your chosen hotel on Google Earth Street View to see what sort of gate there is.

A link to Formule 1 here

We did it once with 3 adults taking turns with the driving. I remember it taking forever. Nobody slept well and it took about two days to recover anyway so not worth it.

All the F1 hotels I've used had secure carparks but not sure they are caravan manoeuvre friendly. Both Caravan Club and Camping and Caravanning Club have lists of associated sites which are geared up for overnight enroute stops.

Well, I have a result. Dh has taken the day off work today! He's going to sleep all afternoon so that he has had some rest. We will then drive a few hours in the night and find a municiple camp site. Am so pleased, thank you all! X

Congratulations!

Good luck, I hope you have a lovely holiday

We used to do worse, drive from scotland to s'hampton, sleep on ferry, then drive to the loire/bordeaux... My folks were mad!

We've done it several times and it's been fine. Just stopped for food. Going to Caen and then the dordogne this year as we're near Portsmouth at this end.
DH normally does all the driving although I might do a bit.

We're back!! Amazing holiday in dordogne... Want to go back! Just uncase peops wanting advice for future trips, this is what we did...
Dh slept for 4hrs thurs afternoon, left home at 6pm, towing caravan, got to dover around 10pm. Got off ferry in Calais at 1.45am. Drove south of Paris and stopped at an aire, where there were lots of other campers. But not until it started to get light 6.30am (ish). Slept for three hours and started off again, stopping for a drink etc every so often. Got south of limogues around 3pm and phoned campsite to see if we could arrive a day early, luckily fine. So arrived at campsite at 5.30pm. Long day but fine! All tired early night!!! FABULOUS holiday, very relaxing!
Way back... Left at 11am,went to Carrefour to stock up on bits in limogues, drove to just south of Paris, 7pm in campsite just off N20, beware, hardly any campsites around here, not touristy at all, not like dordogne (which we weren't expecting!). Left at 9am next morning, got to Calais at 2.30 pm, caught ferry to Dover and arrived home at 8pm... Shattered but happy!!! X

Glad you had a good time. Can't wait for my trip in a couple of weeks. Can't believe all the kids (youngest is 16) want to come with us. We can't be too boring obviously!

Hattieboo - did you go to Les Iles? Was it as good as it looks?

Hey, yes we did, it was the most chilled holiday ever! All the other campers were lovely, kids and us made lots of friends. Good mix of French, Dutch and English. The camp site is beautiful, so is beaulieu sur dordogne. Staff very friendly and always helpful. It was always quiet at night and clean. We'll def go back next year as sight was so lovely we didn't really explore much so still lots left to do! Will prob try another flower camping site on way down as their ethos of chilled and small sights definately worked for us! When you off? Let me know how you get on wont you! X

Where you off to NCIS? X

My friends do that all the time. They live in London, their house is near Toulouse and they always take an evening shuttle before driving through the night to the house. The children (4 of them, aged 0-14) sleep in the car and my friend's DH is fine about driving at night. They arrive in time for breakfast and find it just fine.