Winging it in France

[WelshMoth]

Right.

prepares for flaming

On account of a vicious and really chaotic work schedule, I have a ferry booked for Spain imminently but absolutely no campsites booked.

We also have no return journey booked.

The plan is to drive through the Cantabrian coast (Northern Spain) then up through France before bagging a crossing Calais - Dover.

We've left it too late to book for many sites especially for 1-3 night sites.

Any suggestions on how to approach this? I planned on printing off loads of info and just going for it but DH is more of a worrier and has visions of us in strife.

Every town in Frnace has a municipal campsite. They are a lot nicer than they sound!
I did this in my student days, we drove across France and just turned up. If it is not a major tourist trap we foudn there was always room.

Is there a reason you can't book now? How good is your French? I would try and do telephone bookings.

Hubby and I did this for a month a few years back. Only one town we couldn't get anything. Even hotels fully booked so ended up sleeping out under the stars

I've tried the bigger, water slides type sites as we always like to get one or two in for the DD's and they're all full.

The smaller sites also show full but state that if we show up before midday, they should have short stay pitches.

I think we'll be ok but DH wants a super duper campsite for at least a week and is afraid that we'll end up on municipals all holiday.

Sounds great, and totally doable.

I've found pitchup.com really good for checking availability - plenty of French sites on there.

Cool camping France is pretty good - website and book.

You may find camping ala ferme as well that don't advertise other than a small roadside sign.

As long as you don't want big sites with pools and entertainment, right on the beach etc, you'll be fine. We've done this sort of holiday lots, and only once had to sleep in the car once in 20 years.

When do you go though? The next fortnight is peak french holiday season.

Bon voyage!

Municipal sites are usually great, and close to towns for a walk and a nice meal. You'll be fine, just don't get there too late in the day. The only place you might have a problem is near the channel coast. All the nice places get booked up, and there are a few grim ones around!

Ah this reminds me as we did the same when Dcs were 3, and 6 months, we drove back through France and I lost the campsite book so totally winging it! I would recommend if poss not taking a 6 month old baby which made for recent stops on the way back.

We did have cool camping france book but bit pricy sites- we did 1. Pyrenees, 2. Weird partially naturist site on way to 3. Les ormes site in middle 4. place in La Belle isle or somewhere off the coast (never again, bury and horrible) and a knackered stay in the north coat before coming back - we were away for around 3 weeks and it was a bit of an adventure. Good luck, it would be fun but would recommend taking more info than us and possibly older kids if available

We got the ferry overnight to Santander, this was great as went overnight and you get there first thing

PS we were mid Aug and didn't have any problems with availability possibly as away from the coast

We didn't book anything btw.

Fab! I feel positive about this but DH wavering. I'll buy a good book today and print off info. Excited!

It was the other way round with us! haha. You'll be fine. have fun x

We have done that before and have found some amazing sites. As others have said all towns will have a municipal site if needed.

One site that still has space is loire-gives.com we have stayed there before and loved it so have booked to go there again in a few weeks time.

Sorry, that should be loire-gites.com blooming autocorrect!