Backpacking France without booking

[Hercules12]

Is it a stupid idea to take dd, 15, backpacking with a tent to France without pre booking anything apart from getting to and from France.
I don't want to take the car - I've driven before and as it was just me driving didn't get very far down and am hoping we'll get better experience by using public transport?!?
I would think we'd use municipal sites and go where the fancy takes us.
Is this daft or perfectly doable!

I think you need to have at least the outline of a plan in place. camping is popular and you don't want to be spending all of your holiday looking for accommodation. Personally, I wouldn't do it without a car but that's just due to experience of trawling around looking for places to stay and spending time and energy sorting it out rather than relaxing on the holiday. any reason not to drive?

Hi. Thanks for reply. Originally I'd hoped it would mean more opportunity for dd to practice the language as she's doing gcse but I am seriously rethinking this now. Worst come worst we could sleep in the car.

Actually I don't think I want to drive. I have dry eyes that are fine for day to day driving but I think would be too much going way over that.

I'd do it without a tent. If you're using a train, then you'll be going from town to town and so you'll need a taxi to take you from the train station to the campsite. You'd be better off finding cheap bed and breakfast style accommodation/hostels in the towns and cities. That way, you've also got supermarkets and restaurants nearby. Many of hostels have private rooms and cheap dining/self catering kitchens. www.hihostels.com/destinations/fr/hostels

Hi. Our tent is very light weight and purpose made for backpacking. We wont take cooking stuff and I figured by sticking to towns we'd have a chance at municipal sites without booking? We could certainly stay in cheap accommodation though too with our stuff. Would we need to prebook those type of places do you think?

Thanks for the link.

Not booking anything could work, as long as you're not looking at going in July or August - in those months, everything from the most expensive to the most basic will be booked out ahead of time

It would be first two weeks of August...

Then to answer your first question, not booking anything would indeed be daft 😁

Thanks! Will trawl over the internet and book!

Going against what everyone else has said, DH and I did it years ago cycling around in July. Literally sticking a pin in the map every morning. We mostly stayed on municipal sites, occasionally private, a couple of nights in very cheap hotels when the weather was bad. If you are just going with a two person tent you will probably be OK, especially if you keep away from the big tourist towns. However you have to be prepared to stay in places/sites that wouldn't be your first choice as when you get there if it isn't great you have no alternative. It really depends where you want to go, popular places will be booked. If you stay away from those you should be ok. Make the first stop in any town the tourist office, they all help booking anything you need.

August is very busy, french people seem to take the month as holiday month and many like to travel within France.

I prefer not to book when I travel, for the adventure and spontaneity, but for August in France, may be a good idea to have an outline and plan.

My DP cycled from Mont st Michel to where we were staying near Limoges a couple of years ago using municipal campsites - he never booked and he never paid much for the night. The sites were always very basic - a field with a shower block (occasionally a river to swim in...), but he loved it.

If you want fancy pants swimming pools and amenities then you need to book, if you are happy with the municipal site that nearly every french town will have then you will be fine.

Thanks, Janek. We definitely want basic. We've done the fancy pants ones a few times - always booked and driven though.

I think that the problem would be the transport. Certainly around here there is very little in the way of public transport outside of the main towns, and the main towns don't have municipal sites. Some communes have sold them off , some have just shut them down. If you were cycling you would be fine as you could get to the smaller towns. Most small municipal sites would have space for a 2 man tent even in August.

You could do it staying in hotels tough especially if you stuck to the lower budget business type hotels. They will have space in August as most businesses are shut.

What about using Interrail or Busabout (www.busabout.com/hop-on-hop-off-europe) to make things simpler and easier to plan with the tansport?

Thanks for everyone's posts. I've decided to drive and do a rough itinerary with the aim of driving 5 hours on the first day then stay 2 nights in each place and drive 2-3 hours to get to next place. 1 1/2 hours before stopping for lunch then same after.
Just need to plan places now. Will book ferry back with flexible timing in case takes longer or shorter to get back.
Any further advice most welcome!