The Blue Bus, our Renault Master Devon Tempest campervan, is now eight years old and has travelled almost 70,000 miles. In 2022, with no lock downs and Covid-19 restrictions, we enjoyed 124 nights in our campervan in 60 different places, stretching from Meissen in south-east Germany to the Isle of Skye off the west coast of Scotland.
We spent at least one night in the ‘van in every month of 2022, from a chilly weekend with friends in the Ribble Valley in January to a night parked on a Manchester residential street on New Year’s Eve. Using our campervan all year keeps it aired and means that I always have a camping trip to look forward to.
Looking through our log book of our nights away we paid between nothing for an overnight when we free camped to £38 a night at Pinewoods at Wells-next-the-Sea. Spending a night off-grid for free is a big plus to owning a campervan and we have parked up and had some enviable views to ourselves. Pinewoods is a beautifully positioned campsite within walking distance of Wells-next-the-Sea that came highly recommended and was a bit of a one-off treat during our Suffolk and Norfolk trip.
As we all know, campsite overnight costs have increased in 2022 and we mostly paid between £20 and £25 a night, even on Certified Locations [Caravan and Motorhome Club] and Certified Sites [Camping and Caravanning Club]. Due to our age we receive a discount on Camping and Caravanning Club sites and these often work out cheaper for us than Caravan and Motorhome Club sites. For the most part we are lucky enough to have enough money to be able to choose on location rather than cost. We have also found that, when it comes to campsites, the overnight charge seems to have little to do with the standard of the facilities!
During our trip to Germany and the Netherlands in May and June we made good use of our ACSI discount card, although, as we were sticking to the River Elbe, we also used sites not part of this scheme. ACSI discount sites were a maximum of €21 a night, including EHU, in 2022. I noticed when our new ACSI book arrived before Christmas that you can now pay as much as €23 a night. Germany also has a couple of public holidays in May and school holidays and some sites were full price [and very busy] during this period. German campsites generally have high standards but there are always exceptions and we found one or two of them!
We stayed on plenty of idyllic campsites while we were in Germany but our favourite was Campingplatz Rehbocktal near to the gorgeous city of Meissen. This small site tucked into a valley with a babbling brook running through it is immaculately kept, friendly and just a short distance away from Meissen. I didn’t really want to leave this delightful spot and it was well worth the £27.50 a night [the most expensive campsite we stayed at in Germany].
It is hard to pick a favourite UK campsite from 2022 but if I was pushed, Silverburn Park near Leven has to be up there and not just because we had a light covering of snow when we were there and also had the small site to ourselves. The friendly welcome, the open views across the beach and the Firth of the Forth, the campsite cat and the birds in the walled garden all made it perfect. Add to this the knowledge that you are supporting a charity and happiness is off the scale.
Here’s to a 2023 of more happy camping.
Back on the road again 
Some gorgeous scenery to wake up & enjoy your morning coffee to! What a blessing!!
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Thank you. You are right, I love the different views every morning and I am blessed.
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Sounds like a fabulous year!
I have noticed that site fees have rocketed after COVID.
Now we have The Beast, we mostly wild camp, although we’re on a lovely sosta yards from the lifts in an Italian ski resort at the moment. It costs the princely sum of 10 euros per night plus 3 for EHU. With the lovely Italian sunshine, however, our batteries are fully charged an hour after the sun peeps over the mountain!
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Hang on to that bargain! And enjoy that sunshine 🙂 I have been looking at your photographs on FB with some envy, although skiing is not my thing. We plan to go to France in 2023 and hope (expect) that to be cheaper than Germany with municipal sites and aires. I’m not sure there is anywhere that is as expensive as the UK for camping.
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We found Germany quite expensive, since many sites charged separately for absolutely everything. Our record was over 40 euros (while we were still in the caravan). We even found a site that charged 8 euros per dog per night. With four in tow, we decided what they really meant was ‘dogs not welcome’.
France is so well set up for budget camping. We’ve stayed on free aires, even with The Beast!
The Italian Alps are just a lovely place to be in winter, no matter whether you ski or not. We get so many sunny bluebird days! Our friend is here with us and his wife doesn’t ski, but she loves walking and there are so many ptions for that. Ski mountaineering (walking up hills with skins on your skis) seems to have really taken off in recent years, so there are pisted tracks all over, which you can walk on without snow shoes, confident in the knowledge that you won’t collide with hurtling skiers! There’s also cross country ski areas nearby which are great for walking.
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Ski mountaineering sounds amazing! We did some cross country skiing when I went on a school trip at the age of 13 to Austria and I loved that.
After days and days of rain we have blue sky here today. Hurrah!
I do love visiting Germany so we put up with the cost and the beer is the best!
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Ski mountaineering looks like fun, but hard work, although we do walk up the SkiMo tracks, so I suppose it’s not much different.
We’ve never tried cross country skiing, apart from on wheels at the ski show in Earl’s Court. We were hopeless, fell over, and it really hurt. (It was a concrete floor – although we did see Ben Fogle and Graham Bell, which made up for it a bit!)
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We’ve obviously sent you the blue skies – we’ve got snow here today, although that is most welcome.
As a former professional beer taster, I can’t argue with your stance on German beer!
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A top up of snow and a rest day must be welcome!
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Always! We skied quite hard last week, and it’s always busy here at the weekend, so we take a few down days.
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124 nights is impressive! We’re thinking of heading to Germany in the summer so interested in your take on it. Where is the site in the first picture? Skye I guess but it looks great.
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Thank you. You’re right the picture is on Skye at Glenbrittle campsite. Well done! We were so lucky to have such good weather there. I have a recent post on the blog about our 2022 trip along the Elbe in Germany which was a fabulous trip. Among my MMM Travel Articles there are also a few in Germany for more ideas and detail. You have to scroll down to 2016 for the earlier ones. https://backontheroadagainblog.com/carol-kubicki-travel-writer-mmm-travel-articles/ Having a fantastic time in Germany. I’ll be following your blog so look forward to reading about your walks.
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