Planing a Trip to South of France
Hi, my wife and I are planning to take our motorhome to the south of France for a 3 week holiday next year (some time in June) and having never taken the motorhome abroad before I would very much appreciate any advise on routes to take through France, places to visit, Aires / camp sites to stay at, useful websites, guides, mobile apps and any other information that you think I might find useful.
Many thanks!!!
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Can you be more specific about which part of the South you intend visiting? There is a big difference between the Mediterranean coast and inland Provence, Languedoc etc. For the Med. you would probably need to book but other regions it is not necessary and certainly no need to book on the way down. Also, need to know which port you will arrive at and how many hours you want to travel for on the first and subsequent days.
June is a good time to visit Southern France although it can still be very hot. You should certainly consider getting an ACSI card as it is valid off-season which will cover most of June.
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There is quite a bit of information about what to see in Provence and the Languedoc in my blog.
https://jennyandjohngocaravanning.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/provence-aude-and-millau/
I use the ACSI guide for information about campsites to gether with Trip adviser and UKcamping [which isn't just the uk]. In June you can make use of the ACSI discount scheme and away from the coast you truly don't need to book.
I use Michelin for route planning.
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Hello ParkC, It sounds a lovely trip. I am sure you will enjoy it.
If I were you I would ask Santa to bring a couple of good general guidebooks to France for Christmas, and then decide on what you want to see on the way south - museums, gardens, chateaux, historic places, palaces, - whatever interests you.
Mark them boldly on a big fold out paper map and join up the dots. That becomes the route, and I guarantee there will be a campsite or a Motorhome Aire at every one of those places, with no need to book at any of them in June. The freedom of the open road lives on.
Take care.
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That's a good suggestion from Eurotraveller, and basically what we did on our first caravan trip back thirty years ago. We knew where we wanted to stop over to visit various things. We simply highlighted our route on a paper map, and then looked through all the tourist information brochures and campsite guides that we could get our hands on. Then we bought a Michelin France atlas, which in those good-old days had a tent symbol where there was a site which was in the Michelin campsites guide. We then transferred the route to the Michelin guide, and ringed sites which were already on and added dots for those extra ones we'd found!
We had a great trip - and did a 'grand-tour' down through eastern France, across the south, and back up through the Dordogne and western France! We didn't book anything and never had a problem finding a pitch - even though it was August when we went away.
As has already been said, 'the South of France' is a big area - but many people mean the Cote d'Azur area. As others have said this is busy, even in June, and may require booking if you want a tourist resort, and a beachside site. Even inland some sites may be very busy in June.
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Hi parkc try web site camping street view you will find videos of hundreds of campsites. Which take you around all the facilities the sites have to offer
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Many thanks to you all for your very helpful advise.
We intend on aiming for the Med, we will be arriving in Calais and anticipate spending not more that 1-2 hours from Calais for our 1st overnight stop and then and then 4-5 hours per day there after until we get to the med. Buying some guide books and determining what we want to see on the way down is clearly a good idea
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