I am fairly new to camping and fancy holidaying in france next year. Normally holiday in Greece or Turkey, weather is fairly important to me. Recently posted that I was lokking to camp in normandy or brittany in august but have been put off by some replies saying weather may not be too good. So looking to travel further south. Looking for a campsite where you can go river bathing but one member of our party is not keen on car travel. Have found a few sites in dordogne that are ideal but can anyone recommend somewhere a little closer but again weather is fairly important. Thanks
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Realistically you are not going to get much better weather than the UK unless you head south in France.
Yes, you can have stunning weather further North, if you are lucky but you can't bank on it. If good weather is very important to you Normandy and Brittany are not guaranteed to give you what you need.
The weather does tend to get more reliably good in the Dordogne and parts south (but still not as hot as Turkey and Greece). Can the one member of the party not fly to the Dordogne and meet you there? I did this in the summer with my MIL and it worked well.
The very south of France is your best bet for very hot weather
We did the Southern Ardeche this year, first two weeks of July, also went to the same site and same pitch lol, last year for the middle two weeks of July, in both cases we had, wall to wall sunshine, with temps reaching +39DegC, from Dunkerque to the site was 639 miles, and as we are based just North of Manchester, we did two overnight stops at Dunkerque and Chalon-Sur-Saone each way, using the Premier Classe budget hotels, both of which had a Campanile restaurant within thier grounds, which broke up the journey niceley as we were towing a Half Ton trailer.
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I'm sure there must be super riverside campsites in Northern France - but like the others who've replied already, we always go further south for the weather. The Ardeche, which acamper60 mentions is wonderful for 'messing around in the river', as are the Tarn, the Dourbie, the Jonte, the Dordogne, and the Lot - but all these are in the southern half of France. We've camped alongside all of them - and loved them all, but I've yet to camp alongside a river in the northern part of France.
i would say brittany in august would be really nice .possibly too hot for many . or drop down to the loire atlantic and drift slowly east you have to find somewhere. get a good map there are loads of campsite by rivers . i find maps by kummerly+fry very good i have them of france and use a very old one of spain. i very often go in august on my motor bike because the weather is so nice. have fun go on give it a go. cheers alan.
The site at Pont de L'Arch is by a river...but you wouldn't want to swim there! It's the Seine and it's quite wide at that point with lots of big, big boats travelling up and down!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
You need to get car and kit to wherever you are going so at least one member of the party has to drive each way.
However there are some really cheap air fares around and on many occasions one, two or three (out of 5)of us have flown to meet up with car and kit!
For us its been because of business, or important dates for the kids. My kids were used to flying on their own, put on plane at one end and met at other, from the age of 14 but obviously you have to know your child and their capabilities! If you are talking about adults its an even easier option and certainly if you are looking for good weather you need to go as far south as possible.
Weather in Brittany is definately hit and miss, we spent 17 nights in August this year over 3 sites in Brittany. 1st site we had 3 red hot days there before moving onto next site where we had rain for virtually all of the 7 days we were there. At our last site we had a glorious 8 days which made up for the weather at the last site. This year I am considering going further south to try and get better weather.
------------- -x- Diane -x-
May 13 - Cala Gogo, St Cyprien (didn't go, hubby too ill to travel)
May 14 Ranc Davaine
August 14 Les Sablons
August 13 - Camping Playa Brava, Pals
If you go to the Dordogne it wouldn't be that difficult for someone to fly to Bergerac airport and be picked up from there - an hours drive to the campsites near Sarlat.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: ideas for river camping
