When to book for next year

[MollieO]

As a first time camper this year (not counting girl guides and camping abroad) I was amazed at how hard it was to book the various sites we chose.

How far in advance do you book for school holidays and when does your camping year start?

I start booking at about easter time for some longer summer trips. Short trips i leave to later.
My camping season starts at easter (depending on weather) and ends Oct half term (ditto).

Depends on where you want to go - if you find the perfect site and you are certain when you want to go then book now if you can - why not?

We book for France much earlier than this country though as it is our main holiday.
Season? same as troutpouts Easter (if it's a late one, no snow thank you!) - Oct.

Am thinking about going to France but not sure where to go, probably Normandy or somewhere that doesn't involve a long drive but is near a beach. When do you book for France Lucycat?

Mollie, for some of the really popular sites people make advance bookings for the following year before they go home and many take new bookings from October or so (basically when the current season ends).

We'll be booking our main site for next summer in the next couple of weeks I expect (when we get paid) but we'll leave the Eurotunnel and the stopover sites until later.

I keep an eye on the tunnel prices then use our Tesco vouchers.

Have you a site in mind?

Have a trip to a very small lovely site booked already, will book 'main' trip after Christmas. Weekends on an ad hoc basis.

No idea where to go other than I think it might be nice to have a go at camping in the sun . We were lucky with the weekends we did this summer but we only booked one or two days before we went so we were able to know what the weather would be like. I'm wary of booking something a long way in advance without the hope of good weather. I figure we might be luckier in France than in the UK. Also it will be good for ds to practice his French.