Eurocamp in South of France - should we drive?

[recyclingbag]

We're booking a Eurocamp in South of France for 10 days.

To fly then hire a car is about £1500.

We could get the ferry to Calais for about £200 and, plus petrol, would still leave us with a saving of about £1,000 which we thought we could use to stop off a couple of places along the way.

Is this a ridiculous idea? Our children are 6 & 9

I would definitely just drive. Take plenty in car electronic entertainment for the dcs, lots of sweets drinks and snacks and you'll be fine,

The roads in France are really good.

A family room in a Novotel is the best place to stay, imo. And Bourges is a good place to stop en route????

As long as it's not 2nd August, I'd drive.

We are driving to Paris, putting car on overnight auto train, having lovely night in Paris then getting tgv down to meet car at lunchtime next day. Car train plus tgv for 5 under £300.

We've in the past got sleeper train down so met car at 8am next day, but fancied overnight instead.

Driving back though, third year in row, is horrific but we forget and do it again, and have been v unlucky with traffic (plus ds5 getting uti and managing to wee on all of us whilst dh doing 80mph trying not to crash, thank God carrefour sold Huggies pyjama ants)

That sounds brilliant thatsshallot. We travel down quite a lot, but didn't know you could still put a car on the train.

We looked at the autotrain but couldn't quite work it out.

Might take another look. I would love to stay a day or two in Paris but think it might be more trouble than it's worth.

We used to get motorail as a kid which was ace, you plus car on same train all the way from Boulogne to South, so this is more faffy but you can get from Calais to Gare de Bercy in un der 2.5 hours.

Happy to help if I can, seat 61 website also awesome

We've driven to South of France for the last 3 years and are doing it again in 3 weeks. We have 3 children (8, 6 and 2) and they love it. We stop half way down around Bourges or Orleans so do it quite slowly over a couple of days. The peages are perfectly set up for kids and although I'm the 1st to admit they can be right whiney buggers at time, there's no complaining at all from them. Video players are a life saver! Agree about missing first week in Aug or whenever the French have their public holiday. Traffic is a bloody nightmare.

We always drive and stop overnight in a novotel.

I would drive. You can just load up your car at home -and have it all with you. No hassle with restriction on the plane.

Yes, it is a long way. The furthest we have driven south in France is to Carcassone area. (from West yorkshire!). I planned our itinerary to incorporate two overnight stops on the way down and a one night, plus two nights in Paris on our return. It seemed a lot of breaks, but really was more enjoyable than just ploughing on.

Another one who uses the novotel's as overnight stop offs in france - they're great. Worth signing up for their loyalty card as they often have good sales on for those that are members and getting half price deals.

The other chain we've had a lot of success with as overnight stop venues is Holiday Inn Express - we've had incredibly spacious rooms and they have a great free buffet breakfast included in the price which is nice as I always begrudge paying 10 euro a head or whatever it is for a couple of croissant and a coffee at the Novotels! Again - sign up for their loyalty club as it's free to do and you get cheaper rates.

Weve driven to France for years from west Scotland, usually stopping overnight at Holiday Inn in Folkestone and then get an early train. Long drive in France usually (weve also drove to the Carcassonne area!). Last year DH did home to a Eurocamp in North France and then we drove down to Tuscany in Italy the next day.