Idiot's Guide to caravanning in France? Atlas?
We're planning to explore parts of France next Spring. (My thanks to those who posted so helpfully on my "Dordogne or not" thread!)
We've tent camped in France before over the years, but never taken our caravan there, and only started caravanning at all this year.
There's some useful advice on the C&MC's "Overseas Holidays" pages on this site. There's some more on the sticky posts at the top of this thread.
But as Donald Rumsfeld famously said, it's the unknown unknowns, the things we don't know we don't know, which are the ones that count: the questions we didn't know we should be asking!
Is there a source which gathers together a compendium of the useful things relevant to caravans in France which we really need to know before heading off? We may end up reading stuff we know perfectly well, but better to do that than realise too late we should have known that.... whatever it was! Our caravan probably knows already, having been made there, but it's not always very communicative.
Thanks for untangling this last paragraph, and thanks for any suitably idiot proof info sources 
2nd query - we greatly enjoy our superb Philips Navigator Caravanning & camping Atlas of Britain. Is there any similarly caravan-friendly Atlas/map range of France, or is it all down to the standard Michelin maps? I imagine maps are more likely, as a useful scale of French atlas would be doorstep thick. We have an old satnav, but do like a good map.
Thanks for advice, again.
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no list can be a complete one with regard to 'the questions i should have asked'....etc.....
however, i would just say 'Relax'.....and go with it.....
.you'll get some useful posts about electrical connectors and ACSI cards and toll/non-toll etc.....BUT in general France is caravan friendly, has wide uncluttered roads, loads of campsites (everywhere) and not a peg in sight (site
)....so, just enjoy, wherever you decide to go...re the atlas: IMHO the AA Big Easy Read has the clearest largest mapping you could ever want....im about to get my 2018 one after my 2007 one is wearing out.
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I am a great fan of the Michelin Road Atlas of France, same scale as the yellow maps which we have been using over the nearly thirty years of going to France. You are obviously quite experienced at travelling in France so not sure you need worry that you will come across something that you don't have at least some knowledge of.
David
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My Michelin Motoring Atlas of France says "New Edition" but it is at least twenty years old. Time for a new one.
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Me too and you can also get large scale "local" Michelin maps if you want more than motoring detail.
peedee
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HH, I suggest a 2018 copy of the Club's Touring France guidebook.
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That's all reassuring and helpful - thanks all
We've enjoyed all our French trips, widely spaced though they've been. The first was around 30 years ago, and I sometimes wonder how we got away with that one!
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I'm another who likes the Michelin Atlas, and we supplement that we a few larger scale maps of areas we particularly enjoy and like walking in.
There is a very long thread, which has been going for years, on UK Campsites started years ago, but still being added to................ and it may be worth reading it through from the beginning! It's titled 'Advice for Continental First Timers'.
Otherwise, like many of us did originally, I suspect, just go for it. When we started camping in Europe there were no forums, no on-line booking, no advice forums - and we just set off with little prior investigation. We've been back every year since 1980 with very little in the way of things ever going wrong.
Personally I think that sometimes advice forums can add as many worries as they solve! Though I'm quite happy to contribute, but mostly try to keep my advice positive and reassuring.
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Like Valda we never had forums or the like and just went for it. I think you can overthink something and make it seem more complicated than it actually is. You learn as you go along and if you do hit a glitch at least nowadays you have the interweb to turn to for advice.
In France and most of Europe no need to book early season, have an idea where you are heading and plan a few sites that may suit and see where you get to. A lot of villages and towns have municipal sites so plenty to choose from.
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I seem to recall the Club magazine having a section in the classified adverts section called "Can you Help" where members posted questions and many of them were about going abroad. Not quite the same or as convenient as a forum but people have been asking questions for years!!!
David
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These have all been mentioned above but the only things we take are:
Club handbook Touring France
Michelin France Indéchirable (Whole of France on one two sided sheet)
Michelin Road Atlas - yellow book with ring binding
ACSI membership and iPad ap.
Archies POI download for the SatNav
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Road atlas - we like the AA Easy Read France at 2. 8 miles to the inch - large scale - lots of detail and £13.99 if you pay full cost.
Just go and enjoy. Do a bit of research and have a bit of a plan. We did Venice and back this year with no problems. Usually there is no need to book in advance and many times we do not but this year we were on Camping Natterer See in Innsbruck in early June and thankfully we had booked as they were turning visitors away! Enjoy.
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You're right about having originally gone there long before forums were invented, ValDa! We set off around 1987 with a Michelin camping guide, maps of France, and nothing else, other than some advice from good friends. And we only phoned home when we got a payment card for those phone boxes, too, so the family didn't hear for quite some time, and strangely, we all survived despite this!
Mysteriously, the more information is available on the net, the more it becomes indispensable, and the longer it takes to research in unnecessary detail
Unlike you, we've been back only intermittently, so have got out of date with the information, and as I've mentioned, it's our first time with the van rather than with tent.I'm also aware, in general, that where we used to just set off, confident we'd walk into a site somewhere, these days decent sites are more likely to get booked up in the main season, so the vicious circle of researching starts all over again! Hopefully going in May will mean that as long as they're open, then as you've already advised me in another thread, walking in will still be feasible.
Again, thanks all for useful comments.
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just ordered my AA Easy Read from Amazon....i wanted the A3 version as its less pages but still 3 miles to the inch....£10:50 delivered free.
the A4 version needs 200 pages to map France at this scale (a bit cumbersome) although there is a spiral bound version (better for opening up) many are not, so check.
i also got an updated larger scale Michelin map of Spain, but i find the Michelin mapping far less easy to read than the AA one....too much red/blue/purple hue to it for me (and OH) bit there is no large AA one for Spain....
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Returning to the original questioner, you have been camping in France you will know the ropes, know the maps and routes and I suspect may be ready to be fairly adventurous!
I have fairly short list of items to get:
i) sign up for an autoroute tag - this saves both time and stress going though the tolls
ii) Not all site have the modern three pin electric plug- get an adaptor before you go - it will repay its modest cost many times over
iii) Many people subscribe to the ASCII campsite guide, but I find that the most comprehensive listing is the FFCC guidebook ( Federation Francais Camping et Caravaning - https://www.ffcc.fr) has the greatest list of sites. Outside of July-August it is rarely necessary to book in advance, just phone up the day before to verify there are spaces on your chosen site.
iv) Take two gas bottles as trying to buy refills in France is a big hassle
Above all go and quickly learn that caravanning and towing in France is in many ways less stressful than it is in the UK!
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