Just curious 🤔

[Bailey 15]

For first time this year we are able to do month in Spain / Portugal from Santander.

I have purchased the Aires book series 6 for our travels
I have also booked the middle 2 weeks at Turiscampo site as we like to be settled at times.

Now, I know many aires are by beaches/towns which is great, but you can’t actually get awning n table chairs out so does it restrict a bit in order to save £22
Also if near beach do you feel comfortable leaving van in these aires n going beach for few hours?
Obviously not leaving any valuables or money in van?
Just curious, but we are going to give week 1 & 4 a try at Aires

 

[bigtree]

Try the Aire at Gale, it's really nice.

 

[Bailey 15]

Any further thoughts on this pjs

 

[Googlebot]

I would just try it. See what others are doing and crack on.

Camping car park Aires for instance, you can have your awning and chairs out on most of then.

You can’t avoid leaving valuables in there sometimes either. We just accept we might get broken into someday and hide them all out of sight. It does worry me but I wouldn’t stop going out. If I was that worried I would move on.

We like a mixture of sites and Aires. You can travel easier with an Aire but we relax more on a site.

 

[Dorset Diver]

We use a mix of aires and sites mostly aires staying two or three nights to explore the area then move on. Only once in nine years have we found felt at risk; we moved on within a couple of hours. It is true that "camping behaviour" is generally prohibited on aires but we just follow the lead of others already on site. Generally sitting out seem to be perfectly acceptable.

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[zulurita]

There are lots of perfectly safe Aires in Portugal, Spain, France. We use Searchforsites, Aires books, P4Night and any that look good we see on FB Groups. We don't stay on any motorway Aires, big cities. Anything that looks dubious we move on. We don't park up at supermarkets in Spain for shopping preferring to walk for shopping. In other countries if we do park up at a supermarket one of us stays with the motorhome.

 

[suavecarve]

The Aires by the beaches will cost you 10 euros plus so the saving is likely to be 10 euros.
However to make the saving 22 euros head inland looking for plan d'eaus.
These are swimming lakes with 95 per cent of them free and you can normally park overnight (for free)
On top of this there is bound to be a playground and picnic area and it's freshwater swimming.
Search on Google for "plan d'eau" along your route and view in satellite mode as some are fishing lakes. My rule of thumb is big car park= swimming. You can also search "aire" or "camping-car"
Rivers lakes and cascades are always good aswell.
Or you could get it all done for you and buy wild swimming in France volume 2. A Bible for us in finding great spots and you will save your money in one night. I believe there is one for Spain and Italy but haven't had the need to buy them yet.

 

[The Wino]

I feel my MH is safer left on busier places so often aires feel safer. Whether that's true is a different matter. I certainly don't feel that other motorhomers on aires are in any way dodgy

 

[Lenny HB]

We mainly use Aires or wild, only very occassionly stay on a site never had a problem.

 

[Bailey 15]

Brilliant
Great replies thank you all