Vacation V Staycation Costs
Comments
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I dought that many "meander" off their drive to the next destination in this country ,it seems most (including MCs owners) need to get to their next site to be first in queue for the 1200/1300 arrival time in case some others get a better pitch
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"Unfortunately I don’t think any of us will be getting there as quickly as before.☹️ Additional paperwork / checks at airports and ferry terminals. Including of course the fridge inspection."
good point and it is this that i find most irksome, as it is today you have to be at the port 60-90 minutes before boarding starts, and you did not mention the possibility of having to isolate in which ever country you are in, e.g. if on return you have to have a negative covid-19 test before you board the ferry, have you factored in how much it will cost if you have to then self isolate somewhere in the EU ???, and the total inconvenience to everyone concerned
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Our annual European tour would have continued until I personally felt I was not able, we also after returning toured in the UK as well so happy to do both, although here we had destinations planned and booked.
I cannot foresee touring mainland Europe this year or next year, and maybe not ever again. Changes have happened and a lot of those changes will stay and affect us in many ways irrespective of vaccinations. Health, security and political change have altered this country for many years to come and we will have to jump through hoops in an attempt to get the freedom we use to take for granted.
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Towing a caravan has never ever stopped us from stopping for lunch if we have wanted to. If a place that we have passed has looked inviting but not readily accessible and not too far away, we would call at a later date. It isn't a problem with the availability of a car. You don't have to unplug or wind wires in , so not a problem.
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Absolutely, Rocky. We'd miss so much by heading straight there non-stop. Stopping the odd night or two here and there to explore other locations and no back tracking as with a car on day trips makes so much more of the holiday.
Then there are the breaks along the way in spots such as Helmsdale or Lunan Bay - things that couldn't be done towing a caravan. Then, having enjoyed the journey we can rock up at the next site in the late afternoon once the arrival mayhem is over.
I realise people with time constraints probably won't have the luxury of taking their time but, for us, it's the way to do it.
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Only those who live untidily need to do that as I'm sure you discovered but it's the same whether in the UK or overseas.
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We once tried the "off the ferry and turn right" approach , with no clear idea where we were going.
We couldn’t quite do that on our first MH trip, as our ferry docked in Cherbourg and we had to wait until we got down the Contentin peninsula a bit.😂 The only thing that was known when we boarded the ferry, was that at sometime in the holiday we would end up in Avignon, so we could meet up with my sister who lives nearby. We did more or less the same when we tented. However, for some reason with the caravan I preferred a more planned approach. For the first time ever we even booked the odd site in France.😱
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We rarely drove more than 100 miles a day on any trip. Some of our best discoveries were when we stopped of at CLs en route to whatever destination we were eventually heading for. There are some amazing "off the beaten track" spots in this little island of ours!
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Indeed M. All those years, using a variety of routes, overnight stops heading to SW and Scotland. We have now taken the time to spend longer days on many of those stopovers and explored the areas more. I wish I had a pound for every time someone has said to us “how do you know all about these places in UK”
When we did the Tour of Britain race car day, it was me telling our driver where he was, what he was passing, who had lived in that castle, that house, and he had been all over the World, but knew little about what was in his own backyard😁 He did know a lot about bike racing though😂
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I disagree. The sites we stay on in France tend to be municipal ones without facilities such as swimming pools, bars etc. The only difference was the number of pitches available and the electricity supply often inferior on those in France.
Anyway I know because I actually stayed on them, you didn't. This was reality not some made up scenario.
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Probably why the majority of MC owners tend to want to be within reach of their supplies or/snd public transport
When we had MC/camper both were able to park up in most places/parking bays as the both had access via a rear door,and swing out of the way cycle racks,great when we were younger and OH more mobile ;But as you am sure find height barriers/more restrictions caused by the "few?" are now in the UK making it less atractive
I notice North Devon are now having problems and want more restrictions in place
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Anyway, just looked at the price for a 10 day stay at sites of similar levels of quality and facilities, one in Cornwall and one in the Vendee.
The price for Cornwall, at Pentewan Sands, is £498.10.
The price for France at La Yole via the club and including a BF overnight crossing with cabin is £488.36
We don't go 'over there' to save money but its another example to show that considering 'going' as opposed to 'staying' need not cost a lot more.
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Our hovel is in the Vendee; a quick hedge trim of the back garden and a harvest of what was the back lawn should uncover our trailer tent and free up a pitch ...
Steve
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"Not exactly like for like though..the pitches the club allocate at La Yole can be 'small' .... I know I booked via the club en route back from south and refused the pitch..choosing to upgrade to one further back"
another very good point when comparing prices, although never booked via the club have used a couple of Spanish sites where people had booked thru the club and although much cheaper they were very standard pitches.
We have also noticed on some sites the ASCI pitches can be of an inferior quality, on one site we stayed they were behind the facilities block, needles to say we did not use, some of the club pitches in the UK can be dangerously close to the facilities block, maybe ok for some less mobile than us.
and as for not booking....if you are visiting Spain early April you will find that many of the snow birds have not yet flown back to Holland, Germany etc so all the best beach side pitches are still occupied, ok you can reserve a good pitch for when somebody moves off and a lot do move early April, or you can phone ahead and ask what is available.
It all boils down to "horses for courses", we go where we fancy, pay whatever is asked, maybe after a bit of haggling, if we dont think we can pay we dont go, simple, and if we dont like where we have been we dont return,
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Not an organisation I would want to take on in court if things went wrong, especially as the UK is no longer part of the EU. But I expect your knowledge is much greater than mine.
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Staycation v vacation....i think this says it all irrespective of cost, and i found it rather amusing that France have lifed the travel restrictions for the UK ....
"due to the widespread variant Anglais in France the restrictions were no longer necessary"
so what are they saying?, come on over folks we dont care if you bring a few more cases of variant Anglais, especially as it seems they already have a major crisis
"France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
The number of people treated in intensive care units for the disease was unchanged at 3,918, halting a five-day-long increase, but staying at a three-and-a-half-month high.
Health Minister Olivier Véran is due to give his weekly Covid-19 briefing on Thursday but no major announcements are expected, even though some health experts say the hospital system in the greater Paris region is close to breaking point.
Hospitalised patients in the northern Hauts-de-France region were set to be transferred to facilities in Belgium starting Wednesday, local health authorities said. The city of Dunkirk and its surrounding area have been especially hard hit by the latest wave of the pandemic in France"
Take my chances in the UK even if i have to pay more for my leisure activities.
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I appreciate that we all have different needs, likes/dislikes, , we have had some fantastic times in Spain and i like the adventure of driving thru France to southern Spain and as we normally go Apr thru Jun we really appreciate just that bit more sunshine and warmth, and yes I enjoy the variation in food and drink, but that said we had a fantastic month, Sept 2020, on a site in Devon so much so that as we left we booked it again for this year, glad we did, and the sunshine/warmth/variation in food and drink, swimming in the sea pool at Bude, loved it
not cheap but what we saved on ferries, insurance, diesel, payed for the site , result 1 -
Your post says it all to me. We like the spontaneity of being across there. We avoid mid July to end of August. Outside of those time we never book just come and go as we please. It is one of the reason for having a MH.
A couple of years back we tried something similar in the UK. We quickly found that there just was not the free availability.
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I'm one of those who always prefers to have good holiday weather and the one certainty in this country is you cannot depend on the weather. The fact you had good weather last September does not mean you can expect the same this September.
Wearing the correct clothing does not improve a grey sky.
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