Idiots guide to camping in France please

[rainbowinthesky]

Never been to France and usually camp in UK.
I think we're best off taking the tunnel to get to France then how do we go about it on the other side?

We have a 16 year old and 8 year old and want to do cheap as possible.

Thanks

France is fantastic for camping, all the sites we have been to are good and the roads are excellent as no major queues like in England. Well we have not been stuck before!

But France is a BIG place so you need to narrow the area down that you want to go to or work out how far you want to travel once there. Have you tried looking on UKcampsite for help? They have lots of site reviews and lots of threads about different areas of France.

Most towns and cities have public sites that are good, cheap and generally within walking distance of the centre but may not have everything you want from a site, ie some dont have pools, and you cannot book them in advance.

Also we have found that it is best to take a good road map as well as Satnav as you dont want to lose signal when in a big town without knowing which way you are going! The Satnav tries to take you through Paris whichever direction you travel and that is best avoided too!

The only thing I would say is that if you are planning on heading to the beach campsites on the west coast, in the Vendee or Charentes-Maritime for example, then you are looking at a really long tiring drive if you go in the tunnel as it comes out so far away. When we were little we used to get a ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo with Brittany Ferries which cut the drive time to that area down drastically, about 4 hours as opposed to 10 hours from the tunnel. Which was much nicer for my dad, and we all found the ferry a real treat as it was huge and had lots to do; I think it took about 6 hours.

I prefer the tunnel over the ferry every time, if the crossing is rough, it causes problems, whilst the St Malo ferry cuts down on driving time, its a long ferry crossing, and we've found it too expensive to consider. Plus my DS has a habit of roaming , and its easier to keep track of him on the tunnel.

Calais to St Jean de Monts on the Vendee (as an example) is 6 1/2 hours drive, and we stop off for lunch for a picnic en-route, which breaks it up nicely.

www.viamichelin.com will give you a route (in English)

Just marking my place as a fellow idiot and wanna be French camper :)

you will only cut down the driving time if you live near portsmouth or plymouth rather than near kent, otherwise you will simply do the driving in england rather than france!