Campsite availability France/Germany July/Aug

[House4DS]

Hi
We're thinking of getting the ferry to France then meandering towards and through Germany in the first couple of weeks of English summers holidays.
Has anyone got experience of just booking as you go?
Is late campsite availability likely to be an issue?
We don't need anything fancy, just low key sites with a wash block.
Some initial ideas include starting in Bruges or Ghent, through the Jura, visiting the Black Forest?
I haven't camped in France for 10 years, and always went around the 15th August after which campsites emptied rapidly.
Thanks!

We usually go to France for just over 3 weeks in the summer holidays and after the first year I've never booked anything. I'm on loads of European camping groups on FB and if you look at them you'd think that it's impossible to stay anywhere unless you book but we've never found that to be the case.

We tend to go for basic, a clean wash block is my main priority, so we're not looking at the all singing all dancing sites. Nowadays I tend to email or ring the day before to see if they've got availablity and we plan our journey accordingly.

This year we're branching out and are considering Spain or Germany and are planning on doing the same which I'm finding slightly daunting as my French is excellent but my A' level is 25 years of of date and my Spanish is very basic!

@NoodieRoodie thank you so much for your quick reply! That's really reassuring and sounds like our needs are similar. If we do it, we'll ditch the 6 berth family tent and just take 2 x 2-person ones which hopefully are easier to accommodate and definitely easier to pitch and pack up.

You're welcome, the first few years we had an 8 man air tent but then we downsized to a 6 man which has definitely made our pitch and pack up quicker, we're a family of 5 btw

Check allcamps and filter by ‘pitch’

Just bare in mind some sites charge by tent rather than per person so 2 tents = twice the price.

we never book nor do we book hotels before arriving in town because we like to be flexible, not in school holidays these days though have done so in school holidays in the past