Just one word of warning, the luggage allowance on Ryanair is very small indeed. You pay a lot extra for extra kilograms of luggage. We found that even clothes, towel and washbag for a four-day weekend took us to the upper limit of our allowance, and we thought we had travelled light! Check out the luggage limit, weigh what you intend to take, and calculate the over-weight payments you may have to make on both legs of the journey. However, having said that we got flights to Rodez for 99p each way, so return flights both ways only cost around £50!!!
If you're thinking about ready-erected tents, such as Canvas and Eurocamp, then some sites do 'turn up and rent' in low season when occupancy is low (don't know how well published this is, but our friends were couriers for one such company and I think the nightly rate was about 25 euros. Some french sites also have ready erected tents or mobiles. You can also get really cheap hotels in France - from about £17 for a double room, and some of them are excellent, if your camping equipment weighs too much!!! Don't use the Ryanair website to find such hotels, though, you'll need to research other sources of information.
If you're thinking seriously about it then you need an airport near to campsites or to a railway station to take you on to another 'campsite type' area nearby. Reus is within taxi distance of lots of sites on the coast at Cambrils and Salou. Montpellier might be another, with strings of sites around the coast. In some areas you may have difficulty actually getting to sites on public transport. I'm sure there are loads of others, and no doubt people on this forum will be able to give you more information.
Our friends flew to Marseille last year, 4 of them, in August for £220 all in!!! They hired a mobile home directly with site (much cheaper than eurocamp etc) and a car for a week. The total cost was £960 for flights, mobile home and car, which is cheaper than eurocamp on ferry and driving for 1 week in south of france. I would think if ur planning to take ur own tents, you would need to consider baggage allowance. Seems a good thing to do if you can get the cheap flights.
------------- Kyla
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Thanks, I really appreciate the answers. The real crux is how much gear we'd be limited to taking. We have two 3 year olds so have their luggage allowance, but I might look at eurotents or something.
I was interested to hear about the luggage allowance for Ryanair as we will be flying from Australia to the UK and then getting a flight from there to France.Obviously we will have a lot of luggage (there are 4 of us and we are going for 6 wks) It wasn,t something that I had thought about! We are planning to stay in static vans whilst away.....that way it will still seem like camping! We,ll be hiring a car for the whole trip,so transport won,t be a prob.
We can,t believe how cheap the flights are between the UK and Europe! We haven,t got any flights here as cheap as those (the main reason being,we really only have Qantas and Jetstar (owned by Qantas) and Virgin Blue,so there isn,t any competition )
Hi Christine, last year we flew with Easyjet to Paris and hired a car for a week. Total cost for 4 return flights and hiring a car and staying in a canvas holidays tent at their Berny Reviere site in June was just over £600. This year we flew to Barcelona with Easyjet, hired a car and stayed at their Le Soleil site for 9 days, which is just over the border into France, at the beginning of July and I think the total cost was just over £1000. We have never had any problems with baggage allowance with Easyjet, we took 4 big suitcases and have never had to pay any excess, dont forget the kids are allowed the same allowance as you so you can put towels, sleeping bags etc in their cases. I would thoroughly recommend the fly/drive option especially if your kids like mine are poor travellers.
If you book your flights as soon as they become available which is usually the end of October for Easyjet for the following summer then you can get some really cheap deals. You can hire a car off the easyjet website as well and book your insurance all with discounts. Canvas holidays send you really good maps etc a couple of weeks before you are due to leave so you have no problems finding your campsite.
Dionne
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Just another word of warning about luggate allowance - my son recently flew back to Blackpool from Girona - and had to pay 100 euros for an extra 14 kilos of luggage!
You can fly with Easy jet to Nice in the south of france and then hire our mobile home!!we are based Holiday Green which is in Frejus,midway between Canne and St Tropez and just 40 mins from Nice airport its an ideal spot for all of the cote d' azur.If you'd like our info give us a call 01978-291124 .or e-mail us at:mandywilliams at dsl.pipex.com
We flew with bmibaby from Birmingham to Bordeaux, hired a car, drove to the Dune de Pyla, Pyla sur Mer on the Atlantic Coast, taking our Diablo 900 with us and our camping stove and four folding chairs. We had to buy a gas bottle whilst we were there and bought a picnic table, which we had to leave behind. It all worked out really well and we managed with the baggage allowance (which is 20kg each with bmibaby & 7kg for hand luggage). We were lucky both ways and had our hand luggage allowance taken into consideration other we would have been over. However, we could definitely have taken less clothes and some other things could have been left behind. We're considering going to Italy next and are considering the Ryanair option (with the downside being the baggage allowance). We now have a second, much smaller and lighter tent which we would use for this purpose. Our flights for four of us, return, including all taxes etc, cost us £200.
I am interested in flying to camp, either in France, Italy or Spain in 2006, myself and two children. can anyone recommend good sites and/or a good lightweight tent ?
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
We met a young couple with two small children on a site in Rome last year in early September. They had flown from London to Rome, were then travelling by train to Milan and flying from there to Spain, before flying back to London. Their total air fares were £85. No I've not missed a figure off. They had trawled the internet to find these prices. They were staying in Eurocamp accomodation.
we're 45 minutes from the airport at Tours, we've been renting out our almost new Avondale Rialto caravan for the past few weeks. We site it on the main campsite with all the others, they have all the modern conveniences, and half the hyassle. We even erect the awning if they want it! It's proved to be quite popular with 'vanners that just don't want to tow here from the UK. We've just said goodbye to the latest couple to rent it.
We went to Pra del Torre, Caorle nr Venice (must post a review). Flew Jet2 from Manchester to Venice and picked up a hire car. We were staying in a Canvas Jubilee Midi Mobile home so managed to avoid taking the kitchen sink like we normally do when we drive to France - just packed for a normal beach holiday plus added sheets and pillowcases (you can rent bedding and towel packs.
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Flying and Camping
