Overnight stays in France
We're "hoping" to be able to travel to the south of France later this year in our motorhome. Of course our hopes raise & fade like the tide at the moment! We haven't taken the MH before and would be very grateful for members' advice about overnight stays on the way down. For the first trip we just want the convenience of an overnight stop. We've read that some motorway service stations might be good enough for an overnight but wondered what members thought? Probably want to stop somewhere near Reims or Troyes. Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Comments
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For me personally I wouldn't go near a autoroute service area to sleep overnight, They are too noisy with truckers coming and going all night. I always pull off the autoroute and find a municipal site. These are mainly local authority run and offer great facilities for overnight. Most large local towns will have one. Alternatively, with a motorhome, you can use something called an Aire, not to be confused with those on a motorway. I tow a caravan so will leave someone with better experience to explain their use but they are very cheap.
You don't say where your destination but by mentioning Troyes you will be heading for the centre of the south coast. That is a long haul from Calais, about 700 miles so you may want to factor in more than one stop. Troyes if 250 so that leaves you roughly 450 miles left to do.
A popular overnight with Brits on that route is a site at Chalon en Champagne which is about 200 from Calais. another equal distance stop after that would be Macon.
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You can stay on motorway services if you wish, but, as Harry says, they tend to be noisy with trucks coming and going in the night. There are more pleasant places in just about every town and village - either campsites or aires.
You need decent guides listing them all - they come in printed book form or as apps, or you can simply look on the internet. The two towns you mention both have overnight aires and CamperContact.com will show you and tell you what they are like.
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Hi, I am in the 'no way' camp re overnights on service areas and, if I was to consider doing so, I would soon be posting from just 'A' the 'J' having voted with her feet!
In all seriousness, if you cannot find a village aire within a short distance of any route you take then there has been a lot of misinformation posted about the advantages of a MH.
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Hi David, We have only ever spent one night enroute not on a site and that was due to being stuck on the ferry due to an issue with unloading.
My point was that, for the OP, in a MH, in France why would they need to stop on a service area unless that is their preference.
Our now abandoned trip to Italy this year was going to be the first using our new regime of travelling a max of app 200 miles a day, as opposed to a max of 400, albeit that was only once across Spain, and a norm of 300-350.
Even in France I had to resort to Google map searches etc which is something I presume would not be the case when you can use aires.
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We have been going to the South of France since 1992 on and off although not in the last few years. I have these maps on my website that show both the Lyon and Clermont Ferrand routes to the south with suggested campsites. See here http://www.davidklyne.co.uk/the_route_south_2.html
Might be worth looking at Vicarious Books and consider a motorhome Aires book rather than an Autoroute Service Area.
David
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>Search for sites< will give you lots of options both campsites, aires and parking for lunch stops.
peedee
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Hi A & M
The south of France stretches for nearly 500 miles from Bayonne in the west to Menton in the east. If you could be more specific about where you're heading and how long you are going for, plus which crossing you are using, you will get more specific advice.
For my part I would endorse the three websites suggested by Deleted User - you are very rarely more than 20 miles from an Aire de Camping Car in France.
As far as autoroute services are concerned, they are okay as a last resort and I have used a few in my time, mainly in the winter when daylight is short, sites are closed and icy local roads may be untreated. If I do use them, my golden rules are 1. Don't stay on aires with services - they are noisy 2. Don't stay on an aire near a large town or city - too many people coming and going 3. Do stay on an Aire de Pique-nique or Aire de Repos - they tend to be quieter.
One final word, if you do not feel comfortable once you have stopped, move on - there's bound to be another stopping place not far down the road.
Hope you have a great time when you (eventually) get there.
Jim
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I criss crossed France with caravans for 40 years - always looking for a comfortable campsite by 3pm.with 250 miles under my belt. I don’t think I would change that habit if I bought a motorhome, and by the look of this photo there are still some motorhomers who also prefer that sort of campsite rather staying overnight cheek by jowl on a tarmac aire. Horses for courses as they say.
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" I don’t think I would change that habit if I bought a motorhome, and by the look of this photo there are still some motorhomers who also prefer that sort of campsite rather staying overnight cheek by jowl on a tarmac aire "
That photo could equally be of an aire these days - so many sites in France, especially municipals, have been converted to motorhome aires. There are lots of spacious MH aires to choose from too.
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We only switched to a MH from caravan in 2019 and due to covid have only taken it to France once. We particularly liked the Camping-Car Park Aires mentioned above. You don’t say if you are using autoroutes, however if going from Calais via Reims and Troyes as mentioned, there is one just off the A26 after about 230 miles, 20 miles or so north of Troyes. If heading down the Rhone to the Med there is another near Valence just off the A7, a further 305 miles, about 150 miles from the Med. Despite there name they are far removed from car parks, most having EHU at 6amps and many Wifi. We’ve not stopped at the ones I mentioned above but the pictures are a couple that we did use.
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I've got a Camping Car Park card and have managed to hold up the world whilst getting the barrier machine to accept it.
They have quite an extensive network.1 -
On my way south in times gone by we have stayed at Troyes Municipal campsite.This has just been discussed at length on this forum,whether it is opening or being updated,so homework will need doing on this site.
The other overnight (that did not turn out to be an overnight) is the municipal site at Beaune. We ended up staying for 3 night here,walking distance to town,and the Unesco Beaune hospital "museum",but you must arrive before say 15:00hrs as it gets many 1 nighters looking for a pitch.
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Hi
Can i just add to WTG post earlier suggesting the three websites which basically is all you need to tour the whole of Europe and that is the excellent POI on the Camping car info site which are free to download and cover every country in the EU and is updated every six months, if this is your first time in France i would recommend WTG other suggestion of Camping Car Parks they have some of the best aires in France and all come with electricity and wifi.
Enjoy Phil
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Thanks Jim, there is some really great advice here in all the posts which has been very helpful. We will be traveling down to Flayosc which is in between Marseille and Nice.
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We find search for sites the best one, good app too, website is free and app is £6 a year.
https://www.searchforsites.co.uk/
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Here's another link to a motorhome aire website for France :
I've not used any of their sites yet, but they seem very similar in concept to Camping-Car Park.
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We've just cancelled our pitch reservations for our early-summer 6 -week push to the Côte d'Azur. Three weeks in the Cotswolds instead, and a couple of days at Cleethorpes to see the sea! However, we have three overnight stops for your trip which we can recommend. We use the autoroute with a tag for the tolls, and we have supermarket stops for fuel and provisions.
Our stops are as follows:
1. Municipal Camping at Val de Vesle just south of Reims.LINK
2. Next stop is at Beaune and Camping Les Bouleaux. Link
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I was challenged earlier in this thread when I said I didn't fancy pitching "cheek by jowl" on tarmac, but here's a photo of the Aire at Reims . I think I will stick with ChasnCath's selection of campsites
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