In this video excerpt, Kathryn "Kat" Bird walks motorhome and campervan owners through the main overnight‑stay options available while touring France. She explains that the choices mirror those in the UK: traditional campsites (ranging from high‑end sites with heated floors, pools and kids clubs to basic, rustic sites with limited electricity), free or low‑fee "aires" run by local councils, the newer "Camping Car Park" scheme that converts aires into reservable pitches, and wild/off‑grid parking spots. Kat details how to locate each type using tools such as the Caravan Club and Camping Caravanning Club websites, the Park4Night app, PitchUp, and especially the ACSI membership that offers discounted rates at hundreds of European campsites. She describes the practicalities of aires – self‑containment, first‑come‑first‑served access, and occasional small fees – and how Camping Car Park adds reservation capability and sometimes extra facilities for a modest cost. Wild parking is presented as a budget option with restrictions (e.g., prohibited in national parks and popular tourist zones). Kat also highlights motorhome service points at motorway service stations for waste emptying and water refilling, noting that apps can help locate them. Throughout, she offers tips on researching sites, booking ahead (or not), managing fees, and ensuring compliance with local rules. The segment concludes with a plug for her full "Touring in France" workshop, a free Europe checklist, and a deeper tutorial on using Park4Night.
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One of the most common concerns that people have when they're new to touring in France are all of the different places to stay. What are the campsites like? What are these aires that you've heard about? What is this camping car park nonsense like? How does it work? How can people say that they stay in these places for free, not have anything booked at the end of the day? That sounds absolutely terrifying. So what I want to do today is just run through some of the most common places that you can find to stay whilst you are touring around in France. If you're new here, hi, my name is Kat, and I'm here to help motorhome and campervan owners make the most of their time on the road, particularly those who want to take their motorhome across into Europe but a little bit intimidated by where they're going to stay. So we're going to run through them today. Are you ready? Let's dive in. So when you are in France, where do you stay? You've basically got most of the same options that we have got here in the UK. So the first one is obviously lots of campsites, and the campsites around France vary just like they do here in the UK. You get beautiful more modern, all singing, all dancing ones with heated bathroom floors and everything. They're brilliant. You get ones that have got swimming pools and restaurants and are by a beach, and they've got kids clubs and surf schools and all the rest of the stuff. They're also amazing. Um, and then you get much more rustic ones, and these are the ones that perhaps will have lower amperages, or they might have electrics that are a little bit dodgy, um, because they have a very basic requirement for campsites on what they need and what requirements they have to adhere to. So do your research before you book into the campsites. A few ways that I will find a campsite in France are I either use things like the Caravan Club website or Camping Caravanning Club website. I use Park4Night, the app. I'm going to show you how to use that in a second. And then I also use a website called PitchUp, which is really good. PitchUp It mainly works in the UK, but it shows you some late availability, and you can put a requirement in there, and it may show you some in France, but it doesn't show all the campsites. So that's probably my last resort when I'm in France. But the most common way I use of finding campsites, especially if I'm traveling out of main season, is something called ACSI, or ACSI, whichever way you want to pronounce it. And that is a club, basically. Let me Bring that down because I look like I'm in a— there we go. Um, so ACSI is a club, or a group if you like, campsites that have paid to be part of the group, and they offer reduced rates on their pitches for people who have bought into the club. So I think it's around €40 for the year, and that gives you access to hundreds of campsites all across Europe, including in the UK. And they, like I say, you can literally look on their book, you can look in the app. I always use the app actually. I don't know if they still do a book. I think they might have stopped that, but they've got brilliant apps. You can look on, oh, I want a campsite near here, see if there's an AXS website, and then, or an AXS campsite, and then you can, some of them you can even book online as well. So that's how I find the campsites. The next place are these things called— so this was a campsite in Bayou actually. This was our group trip last What was that, last April, last May? And you can see it's a really nice campsite near where the Tapestry is. Decent pitches, big space, loads of space for us to all sit there and have a little chat. And yeah, so that's your typical sort of campsite in France. Now, Aires are approved stopover places usually run by a local council, and they can either be free or there is a very small fee for these. Now, this one here was by, I want to say Omaha. It's either Omaha or Utah Beach. That's literally one of the DDA Landing beaches right there, and this was completely free. So we went there as a group and didn't pay a single penny. Now, there was no facilities on that aire at all. There was no waste emptying points, there was no fresh water tap, nothing, no electric hookup, no nothing. So you do need to be self-contained if you are going to use these aires. But like I say, some of them are completely free, like this one was. And then if you do have to pay, like the one I mentioned that was on Mont Blanc, at the foot of it. That was, I think it was like €10 for the night, and that's for the van and all of its occupants. So you're not paying per person or anything like that. Most of them, there's nobody around at all. You pay some sort of ticket machine, or you might pay at the local restaurant or shop or something like that, and you literally just pay it. Sometimes you get a little ticket to display in your window to say that you have paid it. Aires are fantastic because they allow you to tour around. They allow you to go and explore. You cannot book them in advance. And And it's basically first come, first served. Like I said, services compare— vary, and I'm gonna go through Park4Night in a minute and show you how I find all of these places. Now, if the thought of driving somewhere like Utah Beach and not knowing for sure that you have got a space there, and perhaps the aire will be full or shut down or something like that, gives you anxiety, but you don't wanna pay €50, €60 a night for a campsite, there is a really good halfway house. called Camping Car Park, and Camping Car Park are a fairly new scheme, and they have bought up a lot of the AYRES from local councils who haven't got the money to maintain them anymore. So places— not, not this one, but places like this where the local councils are like, we, we just can't keep it up— the Camping Car Park have bought it. So they basically, they are AYRES. Sometimes they've put in more facilities, uh, sometimes they've left them exactly as they are. And again, you'll be able to see what facilities are available on their app. And what they have done is they've given you a way that you can log on to their app. You've got to become a member, and then you can literally reserve a pitch. So, you know, when you turn up at that particular spot, you have got a pitch there. They're brilliant. Such, such a good idea. They usually got some sort of barrier entry, so they're often a little bit— you often get less people sort of that could just turn up late at night or anything like that, because they often— the barrier will have a cutoff point that you have to get there for. So that's something to be aware of. If you are gonna, say, come off a ferry at 9, 10 o'clock at night, make sure that you can get into the one that you have booked. But they're really, really useful. And like I say, you can use the Camping Car Park website or app to find them. They are pretty much all paid because obviously it's a paid service, so there will be a cost for them. Still less than there would be for an all-singing, all-dancing campsite. The next thing then is obviously wild parking, off-grid, whatever you want to call it. And this is basically saying here, so this was in the Pyrenees, and it's staying away from everywhere for a night, turning up fairly late in the afternoon and leaving in the morning. It is easier to do away from the beaches. It is banned in the national parks. And if you try and do it near— trying to think of a popular area— Disneyland Paris, you're gonna struggle because obviously the world and his dog wants to go there. So yeah, again, I try and find these on Park4Night, and I look to be sure. of recent reviews and what people have said about them, and that is how I find them. Was there another one there? Oh yeah, so we mentioned this earlier, but there's plenty of service points. So if you do want to use Aires, or you, you do want to use off-grid wild places, and even some of the camping car park places, if you use them enough, then you'll be like, well, where do I go and empty out my waste and get fresh water and stuff? That's where these service points come on. So you often will find them on the big motorway service stations. You will fill up with fuel, then be some sort of like shop or eating area or something, a building, and behind that is normally a big car park, and somewhere in there will often be a motorhome service point. You don't have to drive into every motorway service place to see if there is one. There is an app and a way of finding these, but that's where— keep your euros on €2 coins, and then you can literally— there'll be a grate somewhere that you can drive in and empty out your grey waste, and then there'll be a place that you can empty out your black waste, your toilet waste. That's normally paid. And then there will be somewhere, hopefully, where you can get fresh drinking water from. Not all of them have all of the service points, but that's how you can then use these Aires. And I've toured for weeks without going into a proper campsite because you don't need it. They've got these really, really good facilities. I hope you found that helpful. That was an extract from my recent Touring in France workshop. If you would like to watch the entire workshop, we go into all the gear. I break down all the different areas in France and share my favorite and also some hidden gems that you might not know about, and also you can find some things that you have to do and things that you should avoid as well. I will leave the link so that you can watch that entire workshop below. You can also get the Europe checklist, which is free. That is in the show notes as well. And if you want to know more about Park4Night and how I use it to find all these places, this is the video to watch. It walks you through that in great detail. I will see you there. Take care. Bye. Bye.
