Italy- campsites with mobile home/cabins and no need for a car- recommendations please.

[Stormsurfer]

I will be taking 5 teens (my 2 DC and their friends) to Italy next summer. The idea I have is that we would get accommodation with 3 bedrooms- one for me, one for the girls (14,15,15) and one for the boys (15,16). I am not sure how the budget will work yet, but I imagine I will pay for the accommodation and ask the friends parents to pay for the flights. I think a campsite with pools and facilities would be ideal so they can have some independence and yet not be too expensive. Ideally it would be within walking distance of a village/town and have bus/train/boat links to the airport and for some sightseeing. Do you know anywhere that meets those requirements? Or have any other suggestions of how I can manage this?

We stayed at camping Del Garda in Pescheira. We stayed with Alfresco but eurocamp are there as well or you can book a mobile direct with the site. There are two big pools. One is quite noisy but we spent most of our time at the quiet pool. It's a ten minute walk to the lovely lake and another ten minutes along the lake to the centre of Peschiera and boats across the lake. We flew into Venice and stated there for a couple of nights before getting the rain direct to Peschiera. We booked cheap flights home from Milan and again travelled there by train. We also had a lovely day out in Verona by train. There is a free bus to the nearby theme park and water park. There is a big supermarket a ten minute walk from the campsite. Lots of people hire bikes for getting around.
We are going back this year and have booked cheap flights to Verona. It's an easy holiday to do without a car. There are several campsites within Peschiera and it's a popular place because of the train station.

elizabethcharlotte thank you! That sounds wonderful. That's exactly what I was looking for. When you booked again did you do it with alfresco again or direct?

a lot of the mobile homes have very small rooms and the third room is typically a bunk bed set up so usually quite tight im not sure youd fit 3 teens in any of the rooms

We booked with alfresco again. One reason is that we use Tesco vouchers towards the cost of our holiday. The other is that when we were there a few years ago the site owned mobiles didn't have terraces but alfresco and eurocamp do. The alfresco mobiles were also more modern than the eurocamp ones as well having a bigger living area.
The site also has some chalet style accommodation. I don't know if they are any bigger than mobiles but they looked quite basic.

Camping Portofelice just north of Ve ice and near Carole is exactly as you ha e described! It's fab!

Caorle!! Damned phone!!

Another vote for Lake Garda.

I would see if you could get flights to Verona as it is a much shorter transfer time to the southern end of Lake Garda. What you might save in airfares to Milan will be used up in taxi/car hire/transfer costs.

Thank you, that's all very useful. Good tips on the Alfresco and the flights. For Caorle do you fly to Venice? If the rooms would be too small for 3 teens are there any other ways I could do this? I am assuming hiring a villa would be extortionate??

im sure you could easily work around the room situation as we only ever seem to sleep in the cabin and are outside for most of the day. Often the lounge seating area converts to a bed too sometimes 3 bed caravans can sleep up to 8 people. Other time we have seen families have a small tent next to the caravan with older dc sleeping in, this may be site specific though

Oh that's a great idea about the tent. DS and his friend are regular campers.

I wouldn't want to camp in a tent at that time of year in Italy. It is far too hot at night to sleep without aircon.

Oh I never thought about the heat. I wonder what other options there are? Would another country have better options?

We camped at lake Garda in August and had 5 solid days of rain . Lovely place but I now know why the lake is there.

We have booked a week in Lake Garda during May half term with Venue holidays. They are like Eurocamp etc but more reasonably priced and the static homes have air con.
The site we are staying is called Camping San Francesco and cost just £260 for a week as they were offering 7 nights for the price of 5. I think May half term is considered off peak as Italians are at school that week so it is a lot cheaper than booking in the summer holidays.
We booked cheap Easy Jet fights. The whole holiday including flights has cost around £700!

That sounds brilliant! Sadly we don't get a may half term in Scotland, but maybe the first week in July will be cheaper. I will have a look. Thank you!

Bella Italian - lake garda. Lovely town to walk into on a night.

Union Lido near Venice; arrive Venice airport, take the bus from right outside the terminal (helpful assistant tells you which ticket and which bus), bus stops outside campsite and the journey is about half an hour.

The same bus route goes right to the end of the line to where you can catch the water bus into Venice itself and also passes a Lidl/Aldi so you can do your shopping.

I think we had a safari tent with Suncamp which I would also recommend

Lake Garda was out worst holiday ever when the kids were little . Stinking hot , heaving with people , extortionate car hire costs , roads clogged up and took forever to get anywhere , awful touristy food . We tried to get earlier flights home to no avail .
On a positive note it is a beautiful area and I'm sure it's a great place to visit but not in August when we went .

The first week in July would be cheaper than August and the temperature would be less intense. We have been to Italy early July and loved it but I wouldn't want to go much later in the summer.
The site we are staying at has a restaurant by the lake which is meant to be lovely. I love Italian food!

Posted this a couple pf days ago on another thread...

Marina di Vanezia, just outside Venice. Large park, great pool complex, opens onto the beach, bus transfers from both airports and easy access to venice via water bus.
We have been there a couple of times and would recommend it.
Many of the tour operators have mobiles on it, or the site have their own chalets / cabins.
We found Venue Holidays to be best price at that time.

We were in lake Garda in August a few years ago and had very mixed weather. We had some hot sunny days but also several cloudy and very wet days! We had been warned how hot it would be but we were very unlucky! It didn't put us off but let's hope we get better weather this year!

Just looked that campsite up in my Venue brochure, SilverViking. Looks amazing! One to consider for the future.

You were just unlucky Speckledy. We went in August both times and had great food, didn't bother hiring a car as we just used the ferries to get around, and had wall to wall sunshine the whole time we were there.

I can see no advantage in hiring a car there as public transport is easy and stress free.

Pinky that's fine great tip for Lake garda in May!