Twin axles in France
Many French sites have a notice banning twin axles. Does anyone know if this is enforced for holiday folk from the UK? We wonder if it is just to keep itinerant workers away, those with huge vans, trucks and so on.
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I don't think it's "many sites" - it's some municipal sites.
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We don't have a twin-axle caravan, but purely out of interest: I have seen prices posted up at entrances of some municipal sites, and where twin-axles are allowed, the price is eye-wateringly high. Presumably for the same reason, i.e. to put off what QQ66
mentions. But are these prices actually charged to genuine caravannners with twin-axle?0 -
Hi Qashqai66
There are some sites in France that do not accept twin axles, this could be because the access to site is narrow, or they just don’t have pitches big enough to accommodate large caravans.
There are a small proportion of campsites that ban twin axles as they associate them with a certain type of “customer”.
One way to ensure you don’t have an issue to pre-book through the Caravan Club, although I know that a lot of members don’t like to pre-book especially if they are travelling in low season.
Alternatively it could be a good idea to drop the site a quick e-mail or give them a quick call the day before you plan to arrive to check that they will be happy to accept you.
I get the odd e-mail from members worried about the acceptance of twin axles, but very rarely do I hear from members that have actually been refused entry. I don’t recall receiving any feedback about sites not accepting twin axles for at least the past two
years. I am not saying it never happens, but I don’t think it happens as often as people think.Best of luck with your travels, and please let us know if you have any problems
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When we wanted to stay at a particular site on the rhone, near Tain, and we were unsure whether we would be allowed due to length restrictions so we contacted the site. We were told we could stay, as long as we were single axle. When we got there manoeuvring
was tricky, and a power mover very helpful! A longer van would have had difficulty with the tight turns. If not booking, we would advise some planning ahead as to potential sites to stay at. We booked some, and had alternatives in areas where we wanted to
'wander'0 -
We did a couple of six weeks holiday in France with our twin axle and I always e-mailed ahead to see if they would accept us. One told us he would out of the main season as we could straddle two pitches but not in main season. The others just said yes apart
from the site at Ypres and a municipal site in Brittany.0 -
A lot of sites in France are very tight. We have had to use the motoe mover to get on a pitch with a caravan 7 meters overall.
You will find that the club foreign touring brochure does mention this sites in the description on the site details. If you have a twin axle I would always go for the larger pitches which many offer.
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We usually email a few sites in an area we want to visit, as we tour with camping cheque. We have not been told by any site we cannot stay, 1 site did tell me there would be an additional charge for a twin wheeler of over 8 euros per night. Needless to say
we won't be staying there!!0 -
A lot of municipal sites that have a non twin axle policy, do so for one of two reasons.
(1) fear of "travellers" using the site
(2) fear of damage to the terrain because of the increased weight if they do not have hard standing.
We have found that talking to the guardien at reception normally overcomes these problems
( except of course if you are trying to sell them bunches of lucky white heather)0