Completed and learned from our first French tour

[DBK]

Maybe that is what was wrong, but surely the lady at Control and the Frenchman could have twigged that.

Geoff

You would think so. I like the French but I think their brains are wired differently to ours.

 

[Jasz]

Don't think any one try,s Aires and goes back to sites
Those that moan about them usually haven't tried or have been to one or two crap ones

We use both, generally depending on where they are. We have been 3 times in September and have never come across a full site.
This year we stayed on a site at Saint Valery Sur Somme which with ACSI appears to be cheaper than the Aire there (from reading the signs) and it had an indoor swimming pool and decent size pitches.

 

[nicholsong]

The best aires de camping-car we've found have been a little off the beaten track so now we tend to "look" for those when we're ready to stop. Often we've had them to ourselves too!

We also.

And by a babbling brook or on a mountainside.

Even without an aire, just a stop in park4night or find it yourself

Bliss

Campsites? Pah!

Geoff

 

[Rusty Pumper]

A number of glorious months spent touring gorgeous France in my old VW T5 - from North to South and back again. Wissant was my final glorious stop - I loved it and it’s lovely little shops and long beaches. Tres belle!

 

[Reallyretired]

Some ccp are not great, eg Argeles sur mer is just a partitioned bit of a carpark. The flts just use the rest of the carpark free. Villefranche sur saone is one of the better ones, ex municipal. The good ones are often the lower priced too for some reason.
Some you need to use your card to turn on the water, some you dont.

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[Shrimp]

We had a hiccup with a paying machine on an Aire once.
When we got there the barrier was up and seeing as the last time we were there the workmen were putting the machine/barrier etc in we thought it hadn’t been commissioned so just drove in.
Later in the day we saw the barrier was working.
next day when we wanted to leave, of course no ticket, so we couldn’t get out, tried to ring the help number but that didn’t work, even a Frenchman couldn’t sort it for us!
Eventually a German chap came to our rescue and rang a number and the barrier was lifted for us.
We had a free night there!

 

[Chris S-S]

We have the Aires books but have found Park4Night to bea better friend as more reviews and a lot have good photos and an option to click on a map link and directions to assist in finding the location.

 

[TerryL]

It's the map that we find most useful. We usually only decide on somewhere to stop about an hour beforehand so can never really predict with much accuracy where'll we be. The early apps were rubbish at this, which just encouraged us to use the books and our trusty netbook running MS Autoroute with loads of POI's. Nowadays they're much better - our recent 3 week trip to Ireland was done entirely with Campercontact, their Irish "map".

 

[Rusty Pumper]

I’ll second the camper contact app, as the maps are available offline (or they were). Very handy if you’re up a mountain or without a signal!??

 

[PandS]

We also use a mix of books and apps on our travels. This month is the first time we have also used Park4night and have found it useful to find services as well as places to stop. There is a way to search for laundry facilities and it also helped us find a source of water in the visitors’ car park at Chateau de Termes after visiting an Aire whose water point had been removed.

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[suavecarve]

theres a fantastic free aire at Lac des Montagnes near mazamet - with water and toilets/emptying points - well worth considering.

Was just about to ask you for co ordinates but found it on Search4sites and already marked up as a place of interest for April