Updated November 2024
Prompted by a fellow Devon ‘van owner I have given some thought to the baffling array of guides out there for motorhomers to use, buy or download to help you find a campsite in mainland Europe. Very few motorhomers have unlimited amounts of space to store numerous guides and unlimited amounts of money to purchase them so how do you choose what to spend your hard-earned on? When travelling we generally plan on a day-by-day basis and out-of-season and in more remote areas you can’t always rely on just coming across somewhere suitable to stay [either a campsite or wild camping pitch] without a bit of planning. Below is a guide to the resources we have found most useful when we travel abroad. Each guide or app has its plus points as well as its limitations.
Guides, apps and websites
Since I wrote this post in 2018, finding a campsite has changed dramatically. We now use Search for Sites app and the ACSI Card books and app {see below], almost excusively.
ACSI Card – Available from Vicarious Books in the UK, this is great value for out-of-season touring (from September to June) and this is our first port of call when we are looking for a campsite so that we can get maximum value from it. You pay for the card and books and campsites in the scheme charge a set fee for a pitch with electricity. The number of sites in the scheme various by country. There are few in the UK but plenty in France.
Caravan and Motorhome Club Guides – We used to have these guides for our European trips. The entries and campsite reviews are from members and can be quirky and brief. We like to read between the lines of these reviews and do find these books of assistance, even though the information is not always up-to-date.
Aires and Camperstop Guides – We used to carry some of these guide books with us, relevant to the country we were travelling in. The books are fairly comprehensive and kept as up-to-date as a book can be and give an honest review of each aire, its facilities, its outlook and how comfortable it is. Nowadays we rely on apps and the internet.
In France we will look for municipal campsites in small towns as these are generally good value and near to the town centre for [the essential] bakeries and bars.
Home-based research & recommendations
In addition to the above we will research areas we are fairly certain we will be going to, particularly national parks and mountain areas where there are often few campsites and we are looking for the best situation for walking. This might be Google searches, Rough Guide / Lonely Planet information, some Cicerone Guides include campsites and we sometimes ask a question about an area on a motorhome forum or Facebook page where there are generous well-travelled people with a wide range of knowledge.
You also can’t beat personal recommendations from other campers you meet on the way and these have sometimes taken us to interesting places that we never expected to visit when we set off.
To book or not & the one house rule
Until 2020, we generally never booked campsites when we were abroad as it was rarely necessary. Since 2020, owning a campervan has become more popular and campsites have become busier. Even in May, June and September we have come across full campsites in France, Germany and the Netherlands, particularly during public holidays. We now try and keep some flexibility and book sites a day or two in advance. In 2024 in France, we never managed to get a pitch on the popular campsite in Bayeux, despite turning up on a wet Sunday and then trying to book ahead online. If you really want to stay in a particular site, it may be worth booking.
Our house rule is to start looking for somewhere for the night by around 17.00. This is just because we did get caught out in Mecklenburg in northern Germany on one trip. There were plenty of campsites around the Mecklenburg lakes and none of them were full as it was only June. The mistake we made was to be too busy enjoying a lovely sunny evening and leaving looking for a campsite until after 18.00 and German campsites don’t keep the evening hours that are common in southern Europe [and even Poland where we had just come from]. At each campsite we arrived at reception was closed and the barriers were down. We eventually got a pitch on a site that we could drive in to but we didn’t have the key for the toilets and had to hang around for another camper to show up to use them, which was somewhat disconcerting for other campers!
Back on the road again 