So after a stressy 3 months with no income we find life has looked up a bit and OH has 3 months of freelance work and I've found a temporary contract till end of July.
So... booked the tunnel for a 3-week trip in August.
and that's it - as much prebooking as we will do. A couple of days before we'll check the 5-day forecast and decide which way to go from Calais for the first 2 nights, probably the Loire and then make a plan to go West, South or East - or maybe even back to Italy if the French weather looks unpredictable.
Love just doing it 'on the fly' so we can follow the sun and it means if the job situation is back to being dire we can limit the miles we do and book into cheaper sites instead of being committed by having paid in advance.
Christine
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
I like your style regarding lack of planning. I must admit to having a bit of a squeeky bum in relation to peak season. We've always booked in advance for July/Aug even though there is just the two of us. I really love all the scrutiny of sites/reviews/ferry timetables etc. I guess that includes assumptions about the sun shining in most places that time of year.....and of course some campsites will be full, though plenty which arent i imagine. We're in the Loire ourselves, but may yet head to the west coast too.
Ah wish we could do that but Im a meticulous planner and am already on the case for 2012!! Glad you managed to get yourselves sorted for a holiday though - nothing like a good holiday to look forward to! 3 weeks roaming around France sounds like bliss to me!
Just the way I like to do it. However, when OH is with me (I also travel on own with motorcycle) she seems to want all the T's crossed and I's dotted. This year I have managed to get her to relax a bit more so have booked first three nights out and planned last two nights back. There'll be 19 other days to 'drift' although there are friends we have 'promised' to drop by on. If they're in the sunny bit at the time.
------------- Mavericks don't get to lead the herd - not that they want to!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
I tend to book all hols a couple of weeks before we go, whether in this country, aborad with Eurocamp (not yet taken own unit abroad) or package hols! I do my research first but don't like to have a hol booked too far in advance as I then start counting down the days for ages!!!lol
I've booked my tunnel crossing for the first week of April with my Tesco vouchers. We tend to go Dordogne way on our Spring holiday as some of our favourite sites Provence way are not open. We are going to call in on some friends who live in the Dorgogne, probably near the beginning of the holiday. One thing I am certain of is that we won't be staying in Guines on the way down, as they are still closed so will have to make other arrangements, probably Baie de Somme. Not long to go now....
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Good for you for not booking. It's the way to go. We never book (apart from this year for the first time as going with my mother and three children first two weeks of August cos of GCSEs).
We are also returning to a campsite which we've never done apart from weekends with friends in this country.
While we were there last year we looked at a couple of other sites and were so glad we hadn't booked them as their websites looked good, but in the flesh they weren't.
We also have been lucky as the campsite have said we don't have to pay a deposit. They wanted a bank transfer, we said could we pay by credit card which they couldn't accept out of season so they just booked us without a deposit. That was very kind.
We ended up at this campsite last year as we also followed the sun. It was in the only corner of France that didn't have rain. In fact, it was more busy than usual with loads of people moving down there because of the rain.
Quote: Originally posted by xtinexoop on 23/2/2011
So after a stressy 3 months with no income we find life has looked up a bit and OH has 3 months of freelance work and I've found a temporary contract till end of July.
So... booked the tunnel for a 3-week trip in August.
and that's it - as much prebooking as we will do. A couple of days before we'll check the 5-day forecast and decide which way to go from Calais for the first 2 nights, probably the Loire and then make a plan to go West, South or East - or maybe even back to Italy if the French weather looks unpredictable.
Love just doing it 'on the fly' so we can follow the sun and it means if the job situation is back to being dire we can limit the miles we do and book into cheaper sites instead of being committed by having paid in advance.
Christine
Sounds like us last year! This year we have booked a place for 5 nights out of the 11 but purely as we want a specific place this time.
Yup, last year we had 4 weeks booked, but had only committed the tunnel and 3 nights in a read-erected tent near Rome (because it was cheaper than a pitch) turned out to be a blessing in disguise because hubby got made redundant the day before we were due to go, so we were able to change our tunnel to give us a couple of days to think (ended up changing it twice in a week!) and then we changed our plans to go to a friends chalet so he could 'work from home' from there so that we got paid for some of his holidays and so that he could fly home from Geneva for an interview, and that had a knock-on effect to the Rome booking but as we'd only left a £65 deposit that wouldn't have been too bad - although in the end the campsite changed the booking for us so all was good.
Christine
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Like Pauline49 we've been really pleased with our 'lack of planning' for the last eight or nine years. Our 'plan' is to book a ferry at times and dates that we find convenient, and then buy a paper on our first morning in France. Wherever the weather map on the back page shows the sun is shining (and the four day forecast shows similar smiley suns) is where we've headed. our plans have always worked.
A couple of years ago we did decde, pre-crossing, to head for the Dordogne as we wanted to canoe there. However, on the way, it rained, and rained, and then poured, and then the roads flooded, so we carried on further south, stopped overnight, and looked at the reception computer in the morning. There was one tiny area of sunshine in the Languedoc so we headed in that direction, and had a week of hot sunshine!
Fellow caravanners that we met later that week, or the following week, had had almost constant rain for a week, and we met a convoy of caravanners who had been flooded in the Dordogne, so badly that they'd been unable to leave the site for four days!
Imagine, if we'd booked on to the site we'd headed for! Four days of constant rain, and floods, where we had four days of solid sunshine!
Three cheers for lack of booking - and even lack of planning!
For those worried about not booking, last year we travelled on the first Saturday of the English school hols - you don't get more peak season than that. We got a pitch on the first site we tried - we called them when we were about 3hrs away so that if they didn't have spaces we would have time and alternatives to try.
Franbee, just seen your post. Campsite is Les Genets d'Or (can't do links, sorry) in Bagnols sur Ceze. Lovely site, very helpful owners. The lady is Dutch, gent is French, but many Dutch people onsite. We were only English people there and met one English family who left the morning we arrived! Site is on Ceze river, has own pool, restaurant, very clean facilities. Helped that we had fantastic weather.
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: All planning done in 30 mins!
If they're in the sunny bit at the time.
