Getting to the South of France for Eurocamp

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I'm looking at summer holidays, I like the look of some sites in South East France, both on the Med and the Atlantic. I've not been to a Eurocamp site since I was about 14 (so about 7 30 years ago). What is the best way to get there? It will be me, DD (age 9) and possibly my best friend. It will only be me driving, I don't really fancy driving all that way, but can if I have to. I always seem to over pack, so I'm not sure if it's manageable by train or plane. For those Eurocamp veterans, which transport would you recommend:

• fly to nearby local airport on Ryanair/ Easyjet, then hire a car
• train to Avingnon then hire a car
• just suck it up and drive all the way there

Any other ideas? Any particular site recommendations would also be welcome, I'm getting site blindness after too much research. My ideal Wishlist is good swimming pool, walking distance to a beach, walking distance to a town/ village, with places to eat etc/ some sight seeing. I had thought about Dordogne or similar, but DD wants a proper sea beach rather than a lake or river.

DD wants to stay in a tent, we're compromising on one of the safari style tents, are they worth it? Is it likely to be too hot in the south of France to stay in a tent? Anything else I need to think about?

You can get the Eurostar to Paris and then TGV to Marseille. The trains are amazing and not expensive if you book in advance.

Would definitely recommend it. There are sleeper trains too if you prefer to travel overnight.

Then you can hire a car for the freedom to get around

I would also advise looking west. There are some great areas near Bordeaux which is only 2 hours by TGV from Paris or you can fly there direct.

I am biased though as it is my old stomping ground!

Some people we met in argeles a couple of year ago had got down there on the train. Apparently they got on the train in Leeds at 0600 and we’re sitting on the beach on the Spanish French border at tea time! I thought it sounded very civilised compared to our 2 day mega drive.

Personally I think the normal tents are much better than the vans ( we’ve done both) the tents are bigger, the pitches are normally nicer and a lot of the vans are ancient. Never stayed in a safari tent but they look amazing!

Argeles very nice and would tick all your boxes but it’s very noisy because of a local theme park. We’d have gone back we’re it not for that. The pool is amazing.

We did eurocamp last year and flew with Ryan air from Birmingham to Perpignan. We stayed for a week and took 2 suitcases for 2 adults 2 children.

We got a taxi from airport to camp site and then walked everywhere for the week. No driving at all.

Dcs had a great time in the pools, it was hot but the caravan had a good air con unit.

Can't remember the name of the site but can google if you like. :)

Sorry the site was called Le Soleil.

We flew to Nice and the hired a car and drove to Port Grimaud which is a fairly straightforward drive.

THis is where we stayed - la chapelle

www.eurocamp.co.uk/campsites/languedoc/wm034-camping-la-chapelle/ataglance.html

Thanks, I'll have a look at all of those. I do like the Bordeaux area, but the sites I'd found all looked a little remote.

Barbara what was the site at Argeles, we might be able to cope with local theme park?

Train does seem tempting, especially the direct ones to the south of France

You can take your car on some trains in France. I've never done it, but always thought it sounded a great idea.

www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm

Camping la Sirene in Argeles is good.

Oops, just spotted it, looks like a good site.

It's a brilliant site for sure and there's loads to do around there. The pool is the best one we've seen anywhere in France!

If you're not hypersensitive to noise like me you'll probably be able to tune out the theme park, it didn't seem to bother most people and Dh wasn't bothered by it but I've got mega hearing and found it really intrusive.

In the summer you can get some direct Eurostar’s to Marseille- I think most of the best campsites are some distance from there however. I think they stopped the trains which carry cars some years ago, unless they have brought it back. Flying to somewhere like Perpignan is probably easiest, I’d never want to drive all that way.

We go to Argeles ( La Sirene) each summer - this year will be our 5th visit. We drive but have met loads of people who fly to either Perpignan or Girona (Spain) & either taxi (30 mins) or bus (60 mins). La Sirene is a really good camp, v safe and the Eurocamp staff are lovely.

We did le vieux port on Atlantic coast twice. Did Portsmouth to Caen daytime crossing so got to France 3 ish and then drove down, arrive 1 ish French time with a couple of stops. Lovely Eurocamp site, beach on site.

We stayed at Bois des Valmerie with eurocamp last summer. Also Argeles but at one end and slightly away from busy bit. Could not recommend more highly. It was gorgeous, check out the reviews. You could walk to various restaurants in both directions from site, right on beach with views. You can get a boat to Colliure, a stunning traditional French town. We drove, it was fine, roads great etc but it takes up a chunk of time. We met lots of people who had flown into Perpignan just down the road

We've travelled to the South of France by all three ways you mention. My preferred transport is to drive all the way - although to be fair, it was DH who did all the driving . We stopped for a couple of nights on the way down here and three or four nights here way back. Being able to see several different places on one holiday is one of the advantages of driving.

Eurostar to Avignon was pretty easy - but depends where you're coming from. The Eurostar leaves quite early on a Saturday morning. We live in SW London/Surrey and we needed to leave before the first train from our local station went, so had to pay quite an expensive taxi fare to/from St. Pancras.

We stayed in a mobile home in the South of France once. Never again. They might have air conditioning, but the air conditioning isn't on when you wake up at 8am and the sun is already high and hot and heating the tin can mobile home up. We've stayed in tents since. More space, and if it's hot you just unzip a wall.

hiya squirrel can i be really cheeky and ask how much your flights were to pepignon from Brum we went to st Tropez 4 years ago and drove all the way but it was exhausting even with a halfway sleepover been looking at flights but stupid money for a family of 4

We went a few years ago, near to Perpignan. Got a cheap flight from Gatwick to Toulouse and then had a hire car. It was,an ace holiday. 2 adults, 2 children under 5, 10 days, brand new cabin - £1200 all in!

baggie - it was a lot. Even with Ryan air. I can’t remember exactly but pretty sure it was over £800 for the 4 of us, possibly nearer £1k. 😬
We’ve have gone mad if we’d tried to drive it tho.

Last year we flew to Paris, spent a couple of days there then got the overnight sleeper train to nice. Kids loved it
Then we hired a car and it was about an hours drive to frejus where we were staying at la Baume, couldn’t walk to a beach but lots within a short drive.
We then flew home from nice

ha ha i know what your saying

This will probably be very out of date information but when I was a child we used to drive to Dover, get the ferry and then put the car on the motorail from Calais to the south of France to go Eurocamping.

That was a million years ago though so they might not do it any more.

Not useful now but for n cut year- flights were pretty reasonable when booking opened.. we got 4 return from Gatwick to nice for under £500 in aug