Back on the Road Again Blog

50 Campervan Nights in Germany & the Netherlands: Is Everything More Expensive in 2022?

On social media sites I have read posts from fellow campers who have experienced price rises on their trips to mainland Europe this year. Everyone’s holiday experience is different but I was prompted to compare our spending during our 50 days travelling around Germany and the Netherlands in May and June against previous trips. As I say, everyone spends their money in their own way and so comparisons are hard but we are fairly consistent in what we buy. As usual on this trip we stayed on campsites and stellplatz, making as much use of our ACSI card as we could; we consciously didn’t drive as far as we might have done in the past and we are two wine-drinking vegetarians who mostly cycle and walk all day. We have a budget for our trips but, apart from the diesel, didn’t actively cut back on our holiday spending as we were so excited to be back in mainland Europe! Below is the detail of what we spent and my thoughts on increases.

Diesel €429 / £369

Of course, diesel prices have increased over the last few years but we only drove around 2,000 km while we were away on this trip [we could have travelled that far in Scotland]. We were never in a rush and this slow travel approach kept our diesel costs down. Also, our Renault Master likes being in mainland Europe and gave us its best mpg ever at around 39 mpg!

Supermarkets €664 / £571

The cost of food in Germany and the Netherlands varied compared to the UK for individual items but overall we spent about the same as we would have had we been at home. We are both vegetarian and have a weakness for delicious German veggie frankfurters, garlicy vegetable spreads and German beer so stocked up on these. We do take teabags with us!

Including the two dozen bottles of beer and half-a-dozen bottles of German wine we returned home with, our supermarket spending was the equivalent of €13.28 / day and 20% of our spending. Looking back at previous trips comparison is complicated. Last time we were in Europe was 2020 in France and we spent an average of €18.87 / day but we did return home with around two dozen bottles of wine. In 2018 in Spain we averaged €12.05 / day and also came home with a similar amount of wine. From these figures I would say that food and drink has increased a little but no more than in the UK.

Cafes, ice-creams and eating out €616 / £530

Wow! That is a lot of treats but it is one of those things I am loathe to give up. Stopping for coffee or beer and cake at a German cafe or bar is a fun part of our holiday experience and it looks like we did this loads. If we were trying to save money we could definitely have cut down on this. This amount is about 30% more than we would spend at home but this has nothing to do with it being more expensive than the UK. We just couldn’t resist the lure of a cafe and it soon mounts up. We had some lunches out, lots of ice-creams, some beers, plenty of coffees with cake but didn’t have an evening meal that wasn’t cooked in our campervan and this is something we would normally do. Given this, the €12.32 / day we spent is quite a staggering amount and appears to represent increased cost in Germany and the Netherlands as we have never spent anything like this amount in the past.

Overnights €1,137 / £997

It is a couple of years since we have travelled in mainland Europe and we certainly noticed how the cost of campsites has increased, as it has in the UK. Even making as much use as we could of our ACSI card this was a big chunk of our holiday spending, averaging about £20 / night and 32% of our spending. Even the stellplatz we used were around €15 a night and others could save lots of money if you sought out free stellplatz with no EHU and used your own facilities.

We use campsites for a number of reasons and the first one is that I love being on campsites! I enjoy meeting people, nipping out to collect the morning bread rolls for breakfast and I am happy going out cycling or walking for the day feeling confident that the Blue Bus is safe. That said, we do like to find a quiet and isolated pitch! What has changed me is Covid-19. We appear to have been extremely lucky and neither of us have suffered from Covid-19 but we could have caught it while we were away and quickly become too poorly to travel. Being ill in the ‘van isn’t a lot of fun and with no solar panel my anxiety levels would have been sky high without at least having EHU if we had to isolate in the ‘van for a week!

In 2020 in France we averaged €17.61 / night during August. The cost has probably gone up there too but German campsites have always been more expensive than France.

It would be hard to average £20 / night using campsites in the UK in 2022 and the reasonable cost of overnights is a big plus for travelling in the EU.

Trains, buses and ferries €210 / £180

We just missed the bargain €9 a month rail travel tickets in Germany as by the time these were available we had no plans to catch more trains. C’est la vie! The trains got us into cities, we crossed the Elbe on numerous ferries and used the Edam to Amsterdam bus service. We rarely had to pay for parking and train fares were generally cheaper than the UK.

Entrance fees €113 / £97

We were exploring so we paid to go into a few places as we travelled around. Prices for castles and museums were similar or less than in the UK.

Miscellaneous €143 / £122

This covers occasional wi-fi, washing machines and a few gifts for folk back home. Wi-fi availability in German was patchy, some campsites provided it, some didn’t, sometimes it was excellent and sometimes it was only just better than dial-up!

DFDS Newcastle to IJmuiden ferry return fare for two and a campervan with all meals £705.

When we first stopped working the nine-to-five jobs in 2017 we budgeted to travel across to mainland Europe twice a year. This was when the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge cost about £500. This 40% increase in the cost of the ferry means that in 2022 we decided to only travel by ferry once during the year as our savings, while resilient enough, are feeling a stretch as everything increases in price

The cost of the DFDS ferry seems reasonable compared to the cost of our Brittany Ferries Portsmouth to St Malo trip in 2020, which cost £864 in high season!

Total cost of our 50-day trip – £3,551 / £71 per day

At £71 / day you can’t call our Germany and Netherlands trip a cheap holiday. Our August Brittany trip in 2020 cost us £84 / day but this was partly due to the ferry and wine stocks. A more similar length trip of 50 nights in Spain in 2018 cost us about £500 less. On this trip we spent £3,084 [approximately £60 / day] and given that the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry was around £200 more than our DFDS ferry that seems like good value.

Inflation is here and doesn’t look like it is going away in the short term but the enjoyment we get from travelling around mainland Europe makes the cost worthwhile and I know we are lucky to be able to afford it.

The Netherlands in a Campervan

We had never visited the Netherlands before this year. We had not even had a cheeky cheap-flight weekend to Amsterdam before 2022. Of course, we meet Dutch people in France, Spain, Italy etc. They are keen campers, often speak excellent English and like to chat, but this was our first chance to see them on their home turf.

Part of the reason why we have previously skipped the Netherlands was about ferries. We have been loyal customers of the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry run by P&O. This service ceased in 2020 and after the appalling way P&O treated their staff earlier this year we don’t plan to use them again. For the first time we travelled with DFDS from Newcastle to IJmuiden [the IJ isn’t a typo and it is pronounced eye] an overnight ferry that takes you within a few kilometres of Amsterdam. From IJmuiden it is an easy drive into Germany and after some weeks pottering around eastern Germany we opted to head back towards IJmuiden and spend the final week of our time away exploring a little corner of the Netherlands north of Amsterdam.

I hastily learnt a few words of Dutch before we reached our first campsite but I only ever had to use these to be polite. The receptionists at each campsite spoke English, as did the assistants in supermarkets, waiting staff in cafes and pretty much everyone else. Their competence in a second language humbled me every day! It certainly does no harm to learn how to say hello, please, thank you and sorry but I was relieved I never had to get my tongue around all those Dutch double vowels and say much more.

The Netherlands is home to ACSI and each of the campsites we stayed at was part of the ACSI card scheme and offered a discount in the low season and they were all good value. We were there towards the end of June and there were some campsites that had moved onto high season but still plenty of choice of places to stay. Each campsite was also well organised, handing us leaflets about the local area and, most importantly for us, had local cycling maps.

To say the cycling in the Netherlands was blissful is really an understatement. For this English cyclist I felt I must have entered a parallel universe where cyclists, pedestrians and car drivers all moved around in transport harmony. Most cycle lanes were segregated from cars but were often shared with pedestrians. Occasionally on a country lane we had to share a road with car drivers but the mass of cyclists ensured the cars had to drive carefully. At junctions, cycle route signposts used a numbering system that was mostly easy to follow and I was impressed by the superb way the Dutch ensured smooth cycling.

I expected the Netherlands to be crowded as there are over 17 million of them packed into a smallish country but the areas that we travelled in were often rural and green and we were pleasantly surprised by all the wildlife we saw. Hares lolloped around fields, geese were everywhere and sitting on our pitch at the campsite at Lelystad on the shores of the Markermeer, a vast freshwater lake that was once the sea, we were entertained by a flock of sparrows who flew bravely in for crumbs, some even sitting cutely in the Blue Bus’ doorway.

Cycling around the Oostvaardersplassen, a large nature reserve by Lelystad, we followed the dyke around the Markermeer, joined by terns flying and diving overhead. On the pools and reeds of the Oostvaardersplassen a marsh harrier caught our eye and as we were accompanied by a cuckoo call. Taking the well-signposted cycle paths inland, I was excited to see a grass snake slithering off the path just in front of my bike and disappearing among the giant hogweed plants. To top the day off, we pulled into the visitor centre and sat on a bench watching a stunning pair of sea eagles circling overhead, catching the sun as they tilted their wings.

We were once again on the Markermeer when we camped by the elegant town of Edam, this time on the opposite shore. Here there was plenty of bird life too. Geese called as they flew overhead, oystercatchers screeched along the shore and swallows swooped around the ‘van. We both really took to Edam, it is a charming town that was perfect for wandering around and stopping for a relaxing beer. It has pretty canals, wooden bridges, smart houses and, of course, cheese shops and seemed a charming [but expensive] place to live in.

I enjoy a chunk of well-matured gouda but wasn’t prepared for the Dutch enthusiasm for cheese. We were inducted into this passion at Alkmaar’s cheese market. This is held on Fridays and has a lively and festive atmosphere, with the baffling traditions explained in Dutch, German and English. The most exciting part of the event is watching the cheese bearers, wearing colourful straw hats and white trousers and shirts, vigorously carrying large round cheese around the square on wooden barrows and others tossing them onto a wooden cart. The Dutch visitors loved it and couples enthusiastically queued up to be weighed on the large cheese weighing scales and have their photograph taken. I felt we had arrived at a truly special and buzzing occasion and yet this happens every Friday!

Parking a campervan in the Netherlands was fairly straightforward. We didn’t meet any of those dreaded height barriers and only had to pay to park in Alkmaar and at Zaanse Schans, where the windmill photograph at the top of the page was taken. Zaanse Schans is a large and fascinating open-air museum with enough windmills to satisfy everyone, many of them still working. The museum sits along the banks of a river and also has cheese making demonstations and delightful wooden houses. It is only about 25 km from IJmuiden so perfect for your last day in the Netherlands before the ferry, if you are travelling back to Newcastle like us. It cost us €11 to park for the day and entrance to the museum is then free, although you do have to pay if you want to look around some of the windmills. They had a dedicated space for motorhomes and campervans and we had plenty of room to park. If you arrived here by bicycle you would save on the parking charge.

We used the DFDS Newcastle to IJmuiden ferry, an overnight service that suited us well as Newcastle is only a few hours from home. IJmuiden is just north-west of Amsterdam. The ferry is comfortable and with evening buffet and breakfast it cost us about £700 return in 2022. It arrives in IJmuiden in the morning giving us all day to drive to our first campsite. We found the roads across the north of the Netherlands to be excellent with no tolls and no traffic jams. I enjoyed exploring the Netherlands so much I am sure we will be back to visit other parts of the country in the future.

A Romantic Return to the Isle of Skye

This is a story that I hope will make you smile or [if you’re an old romantic like me] might even bring a lump to your throat. Buy the September 2022 edition of Campervan Magazine [in the shops now or subscribe] and you can read about how we revisited our budget honeymoon-in-a-tent destination in our campervan and compare how the Isle of Skye was then [it was the 1980s when we got married] and now.

Big weddings were less of a thing in the 1980s but even so there was little that was conventional about our honeymoon. The article begins …

To be honest I can’t remember how the conversation went but somehow I was persuaded to spend our honeymoon camping in a tent on the Isle of Skye along with 14 other people!
Campervan Mag September 2022

Back in the 1980s we had just purchased our first house, had little spare cash and we travelled to Skye on the cheap. We packed the tent and scrounged a lift in our friend’s olive-coloured Vauxhall and along with those 14 other people, we camped at Glenbrittle Campsite for a week. It possibly isn’t the start to married life I would recommend but we’re still together 38 years later!

In 2022 we returned to Skye in our relatively luxurious campervan, the Blue Bus. Crossing the bridge to Skye I thought wistfully about the ferry journey we had made back then.

The Fairy Pools, a series of clear waterfalls and pools from Coire na Crieche, are along the road through Glen Brittle. We must have passed them every time we went away from the campsite but back in the 1980s we didn’t give these a thought, they were just another of Skye’s picturesque corners. Driving by in the 21st century it is clear the falls have become a tourist hot-spot. I had read about this but hadn’t realised the scale of their attraction until I saw the mind boggling size of the car park.

Not surprisingly the cost of camping has increased somewhat in the last 38 years. Glenbrittle Campsite is not the cheapest and as I wrote in the article, we paid, ‘£32 for one night and calculated we could have enjoyed a three-week-long honeymoon for that much in the 1980s and still had change for beer!’

What never changes is the jaw-dropping landscape and revisiting our romantic walk up to Coire Lagan [in the top photograph] was as impressive as I remembered. We followed our youthful newlywed footsteps to this wonderful place and remembered how awestruck we were when we escaped the group and first came here. Sometimes it is a mistake to return to somewhere with special memories but it can be a positive thing too.

If you can’t get hold of a copy of Campervan Mag, you can read the full September 2022 article from this page of my blog.

The River Elbe in Germany

This year we explored the River Elbe from Dresden in the south-east of Germany to Cuxhaven in the north. Following this long river in our campervan turned out to be a fantastic way to be both focused and relaxed on a trip. We explored so many attractive towns and cities and spent days cycling and walking through glorious nature reserves. The Elbe took us to parts of Germany we might not otherwise have reached and broadened my knowledge about this fascinating country.

I first travelled along the banks of the River Elbe in 1992. We arrived on the overnight train from Köln, changing in Dresden for a train to Prague. While our six-year old son charmed the other passengers in our compartment, shyly accepting sweets and drinks, I was enchanted by the river. The railway line follows the Elbe through the rugged narrow gorge of the Sächsische Schweiz, it was magical and I knew I would return. Roll forward a few years and our summer holiday began with a ferry from Harwich to Hamburg. This time I was on [rather than alongside] the River Elbe and I stood on deck as we chugged along the wide river into the massive port of Hamburg. This has to be up there as one of the best ferry trips I have ever taken, it is a shame it no longer exists.

The River Elbe is 1,094 km long. It rises in the Czechia mountains that border Poland, winds through Czechia until it eventually settles on heading north and crossing the border into Germany. After Dresden and Meissen, the Elbe flows across the North German plain towards the North Sea. The cities of Wittenberg, Dessau and Magdeburg sit on the Elbe before you reach Hamburg. And yet, it is the pasture and marshes of the Elbe’s floodplain that characterise the river through much of its German journey.

For the most part the Elbe was either in the DDR [German Democratic Republic or East Germany] or formed the border between the DDR and West Germany from the end of the Second World War until 1989. The legacy of this is lush riverbanks of wildflower meadows, farmland and wetland wildlife reserves with dykes to try and stop flooding. These dykes are often well away from the river, giving it space to flood naturally while still [hopefully] protecting villages.

When I learnt that the Elbe [like many / most German rivers] has a cycle path alongside it, I bought the guidebooks and started planning. In 2020 [BC – Before Covid-19] I had a pile of guides and maps and notes galore from my research for a trip from the source of the Elbe to Cuxhaven and the North Sea. Of course, that didn’t happen and in this AC [After Covid-19] world and taking into account the high cost of diesel following the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine the trip became something simpler. We concentrated on the section of the Elbe from Dresden to Cuxhaven, saving a considerable amount in diesel.

We used the Bikeline Elbe Cycle Route Part One and Two guidebooks in English. Cicerone now produce an Elbe Cycle Path guide that I am sure is excellent. I also got hold of useful brochures from this website. In many places the cycle route runs on both sides of the river and this, and the many ferries [see the end of the post for more on ferries], made circular day rides easy to plan. We travelled up and down the Elbe for about four weeks, often only driving about 50 km between campsites. You could do the trip more quickly!

Maybe it was because we weren’t in a rush, or the flat landscape or the rural areas with less urban stop-start driving but our campervan gave us the best mileage per litre of diesel we have ever got from it [the equivalent of about 39mpg]. Maybe with about 65,000 miles on the clock our Renault Master is just run in! Either way, we only filled up four times in our whole seven-week trip and one of those was just to take advantage of slightly cheaper diesel!

The cycling was really the highlight of the Elbe and I would recommend the river to anyone who enjoys pedaling through flat green countryside, stopping in pretty towns and villages for a beer or an ice-cream. Below are brief overviews about some of the wonderful places we visited as inspiration for anyone considering a trip to Germany as well as a section about the Elbe ferries at the end. This previous post has the list of campsites we used.

Dresden

This city has changed since 1992 when the Frauenkirche was still a pile of rubble and the pedestrianised Prager Strasse a wide Soviet showpiece boulevard. Don’t miss the transformed Prager Strasse and a walk around the roof-top terrace of the late Baroque Zwinger Palace.

Meissen

Meissen is delightful and I should never have left visiting it for so long. The view of the town from the Elbe is spectacular, the streets are attractive and if you like up-market window shopping or sipping a glass of local wine in a pretty square then this is the place for you!

Mühlberg & surroundings

This sleepy little town surprised me. Mühlberg has a magnificent convent church, a pink town hall and other inviting corners along its cobbled streets. Our campsite pitch was idyllic and from Mühlberg we cycled up and down stream through a rural area that was packed with wildlife.

Torgau

Celebrated as the place where American and Russian forces met at the end of the Second World War this is an exceptionally attractive town with a striking castle and a big square that is perfect for people watching. The only thing that spoilt our visit was the heartbreaking sight of magnificent brown bears that are kept in the enclosed moat.

Wittenberg

Internationally known for its association with the Protestant reformation, Wittenberg is lovely enough to visit whether the activities of Martin Luther in 1517 interest you or not. The main streets, lined with open water channels that were once part of the Medieval water system, take you to a handsome square and the town has a ring of parks.

Wörlitz Park

On a sunny day a visit to the fairytale gardens of Wörlitz Park are hard to beat. Rowing boats slide under elegant wooden bridges, a flat-bottomed ferry crosses the lake from a kneeling Venus statue. Across lawns you catch glimpses of follies and peacocks potter around the Gothic House. I am not sure if it is real!

Oranienbaum

In the 17^th century the Princess of Orange-Nassau chose to put her summer palace near to Wörlitz and insisted the village name be changed to Oranienbaum. Orange trees line the garden walks and the palace faces a square with a metal orange tree sculpture. Beyond this House of Orange symbolism there is an Chinese garden with a pagoda and a charming tea house.

Dessau

The Bauhaus art school was a radical movement that combined art, crafts and technology in 1920s Germany. The Bauhaus Building in Dessau is an icon of modern architecture and the innovative Master’s Houses, that can also be visited, are inspiring. I was thrilled to be there.

Magdeburg

The city of Magdeburg is lively and energetic with many fine sights. For me the most inspiring was the last building the architect Hundertwasser designed, Die Grüne Zitadelle. Taking a tour around this amazing unsymmetrical structure with lush garden roofs is an opportunity to see a different future for city housing.

Around Jerichow

North of Magdeburg we spent a few days cycling through the woodland and flower-rich wetland meadows between Jerichow and Burg. Jerichow has a large and impressive brick-built monastery and the town of Burg retains some of its medieval fortified walls.

Tangermünde

We only spent a morning in Tangermünde but could easily have stayed longer. This historic town on the banks of the Elbe was at its height in the 15th century when it was a member of the Hanseatic League. Numerous brick Gothic buildings tell the story of the town’s wealth, along with the almost entirely preserved city walls and fortified gates. I want to return and stay in one of the town’s pretty timber-framed houses on its cobbled streets.

Havelberg & Werben

We cycled to the quaint town of Werben from Havelberg [on the River Havel where it joins the Elbe], taking the ferry across the Elbe. Werben celebrates its storks and has plenty of them. I felt privileged to get the chance to look down on tiny chicks in a stork’s nest from Werben’s gatehouse and tower.

Dömitz

The town of Dömitz has large star-shaped 17^th century fort. The elbow-shaped defensive entrance tunnel proved useful for shelter in a hail storm. We watched the hail bounce off the cobbles while staying dry. From the fort’s remaining bastions there are views of the Elbe and the new road bridge. When the sun returned Dömitz was also the place to try DDR softeis [ice-cream].

Hitzacker

The picturesque island town of Hitzacker has a long history of tourism and it is still a popular place to visit with a car park big enough for motorhomes and an overnight parking area too. The small touristy town of timber-framed houses has plenty of places to eat and some interesting independent shops.

Around Lauenburg

We stayed a few nights on a campsite between Bleckede and Lauenburg and enjoyed some glorious days of cycling. In a country full of attractive towns, Lauenburg, strung along the bank of the Elbe, stands out for being particularly delightful. The countryside is green and dotted with handsome farmhouses and tidy villages. We were lucky enough to watch a barge being carried up the massive boat lift at Scharnebeck too.

Hamburg

The Elbe is a busy shipping waterway by the time it reaches Hamburg, which might be my favourite German city [although there is lots of competition]. I find the huge container port fascinating, the city’s energy addictive and the number of beautiful historic sights captivating. We arrived by ferry from Finkenwerder and walked through the Old Elbe Tunnel under the river. If you’ve never been, put Hamburg on your list!

Stade

Across the Elbe from Hamburg is an area called the Altes Land. This large fruit-growing area is both wealthy and scenic. We cycled around the numerous orchards and spent a day in the town of Stade, pottering around the historic centre and visiting the open air museum learning about the symbolism of the decorative features on local buildings.

Cuxhaven

Cuxhaven is the end of the road for the River Elbe. Here the wide river is busy with shipping as it flows into the North Sea. Cuxhaven is a fishing town and seaside resort. Along the coast the sandy beaches are vast and you can hire a strandkorb, a covered seat for two, for protection from the wind.

Bridges and ferries

All of the Elbe ferries we used carried bikes and passengers, even the small ones, while larger ferries carried a few cars too. We paid between €3 and €5 to cross the river, the price seeming to have nothing to do with the width of the river!

Many Elbe bridges were destroyed during the Second World War by retreating German troops. With no need or desire to re-establish those connections across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War there are still a relative small number of bridges across the Elbe. Another factor is that the Elbe regularly floods and bridges need to be long enough to span the floodplain and have an elevation that can cope with high water. This makes them expensive to build!

At Neu Darchau, which found itself in West Germany after the Second World War, we came across a campaign to stop a new bridge across the Elbe. On the opposite bank is Darchau, which was in the DDR. The re-connection of the two villages when Tanja, the local ferry made the first trip in 1989, is remembered and celebrated. At the ferry slipway we read about the ferry, admired the lovingly-made model Tanja, and learnt why these small communities see no need for a proposed massive bridge across this green section of the Middle Elbe Reserve.

Tried & Tested: 21 German & Netherlands Campsites

In May and June 2022 we spent seven weeks touring Germany and The Netherlands. We caught the DFDS ferry from Newcastle to Ijmuiden and explored at a slow pace, staying at 21 different places during our trip for up to four nights. We made good use of our ACSI low season discount card.

Campsite name	Comments
Germany
Wilsumer Berge, Wilsum	This is a large grassy site surrounded by trees. It is mostly level but some pitches can be slightly uneven. The facilities are cleaned regularly & the five minute showers are roomy & hot. The free wifi is good and the site is peaceful. The check-in process seemed a bit long winded & the automatic barrier wouldn’t recognise our number plate. We stayed here on the way there and back & walked through the forest to the nearby village. It was about £25/night in May and a couple of £s more in June.
Camping Bambi, Bosingfeld, Extertal	An extremely peaceful & green site with marked pitches. We had a view over a pond from our pitch and there was lots of birdsong here. No bread is available & the facilities are dated but clean with hot showers & indoor wash up sinks. There are walks and cycle routes from the site. The ACSI price includes 4 kw/day of electric which was enough for us in summer and the site is around £15 / night with an ACSI card.
Wohnmobilpark Stadtbad Okeraue, Wolfenbüttel	This is a level & nicely laid out parking area with clear pitches. On arrival you need to book in at the sports centre. There is some road noise but trees do screen it. The facilities are 2 toilets & 2 showers for each sex and these are clean with hot showers. A pitch costs about £12.50 a night.
Campingplatz Barleber See near Magdeburg	This large site is by a lake with a number of camping fields, no defined pitches & a long cable might be needed. There is some road noise. The facilities are clean but the showers a bit hit & miss for temperature. No bread was available when we visited. There is good cycling from the site & the railway station for Magdeburg is about 2kms away. The site cost around £20 a night in May.
Heide-Camp Schlaitz near Bitterfeld	This is another large campsite where long electric leads are needed. We received a friendly welcome in German & bread was available daily. The facilities are clean with hot continuous & adjustable showers but just 1 hook to hang your clothes & the shower heads are at chest height (we got used to this)! The cycling and walking from the site are fantastic. It cost around £17 a night in May.
Rast-und Campingplatz Marina Mühlberg	Situated on a small lake and on the Elbe Radweg (so plenty of cycling options) this is a grassy & fairly level site with facilities reached by a flight of steps. If you can’t manage the steps there are a few hard-standing pitches on the same level as the toilets. No English was spoken at reception. The facilities are clean & modern & the showers hot, adjustable & roomy. The site is by a small town with a convent church, a supermarket and bakery and cost about £20 a night.
Campingplatz Rehbocktal, Meissen	This green & tranquil site with marked out pitches was a big hit with us. English was spoken at the friendly reception, bread was available & the facilities were clean with hot adjustable showers. The site is on the Elbe Radweg and just 4kms from beautiful Meissen This was the most expensive campsite we stayed at, costing about £27.50 a night but still our favourite.
Camping Am Grossen Lausiger Teich, Pretzsch	This large site is by a small lake and has mostly marked out pitches. The showers were cramped with poor lighting, were €1 for four minutes & were hot. The rural site has plenty of walking and cycling options. We paid around £22 / night which includes approx £3 for 3.5kw of metered electric.
Wörlitz Park car park	There is a stellplatz at Wörlitz with EHU but that gets busy & is around €15 so we opted to have our own space on the large level car park for €5 for 24 hours. There are toilets from 07.00 until 19.00 and the car park was quiet and is very near to the beautiful park.
Campingplatz Magdeburg, Schönebeck	We stayed here for a night during a holiday weekend and so didn’t see it at its best & had a small cramped pitch. The campsite is by the Elbe and there are some lovely pitches with views. The showers are €1 each & are hot but you don’t have much room. The electric is metered & the owners are friendly but don’t speak much English. To get hot water at the washing up sinks you have to pay 50c. The site has a small bar and is about 2kms from the centre of the town in an industrial area. This cost around £21.50 / night.
La Porte Wohnmobilstellplatze Bertingen	This newly developed 50 place camping area is in trees & by a hotel. The site has new modern facilities & self-service touch-screen check in (available in English). The check-in machine gives you a card that is used to access all the facilities (EHU, toilet emptying, water, showers) & updates to show what you have spent. We had some difficulties figuring out how to use this for the showers but eventually got there and had excellent hot showers. We saved money by switching the shower off while we lathered up & this way could shower for around 30c. The automatic system went wrong somewhere & didn’t charge us for extras & so it was good value at just the basic €15 / night!
Campinginsel Havelberg	While reception is lovely, the rest of this site is slightly rundown. It is near to the town with reasonable sized pitches that are marked. The facilities are also scruffy but we appreciated the good hot showers that are adjustable, continuous & spacious & have a sink. The site is near the river & has a small cafe at reception where bread is available. With the tourist tax we paid almost £27 a night.
Wasser-Wander-Zentrum Dömitz	A small & pleasantly arranged site with some marked pitches that slope a little, 4 bathrooms & additional toilets. The showers are temperature adjustable, hot & clean. The site is near to the large fort & by the town. With showers & metered electric this cost around £22/night.
Camping Elbeling, Bleckede	A prettily laid out rural and grassy site that is Dutch run, this is a well organised campsite with morning bread & a restaurant. The facilities are kept clean but the showers were only just warm enough for me & cost 50c for 2 mins, so if you have long hair you need lots of 50c pieces! It is on Elbe cycle path and there is plenty of good cycling. With an ACSI card this was about £19/night.
Freizeit-Camp-Nordheide, Garlstorf (west of Luneburg)	A large woodland campsite that is geared up for transit overnights. It has a large sanitary block that is dated but functional with good hot continuous showers. Toilet paper is on a large roll outside the cubicles. With an ACSI card this site cost around £15.50 / night.
Camping Nesshof, Guderhandviertel	This rustic and green farmhouse site has bushes & trees around the narrow, somewhat cramped pitches. The showers are dated but very hot & adjustable. Bread is available & the site sells local apple juice & a few other food items. The site is just 5kms from the train station for Hamburg & on the Elbe Radweg so there is plenty of good cycling in the area. Around £21/night.
Beckman Camping, Nordholz near Cuxhaven	An ACSI discount card site with marked pitches, clean & modern facilities & indoor wash up. It is by an airport & planes took off during the daytime. Fresh bread is available at the snack bar. The push button showers were only just warm but the facilities were clean. The site was around £17/night.
Campingplatz am Königssee, Zetel	A busy site by a lake, the reasonable-sized pitches are grassy & some were marked with hedges. Tokens give a four minute shower which were good & hot in clean & modern facilities. Reception was friendly although no English was spoken. No bread was on sale & there are no nearby shops. Excellent cycling in the area. The site was around £17 / night.
Campsite name	Comments
Netherlands
Camping ‘t Oppertje, Lelystad	The pitches are laid out in small groups on this campsite with central facilities that are clean, with roomy showers for five minutes that are just warm enough. There are trees and bushes and lots of sparrows & geese on the site. Free wifi that is fast is provided. Fantastic cycling from the site around the nature reserve & into Lelystad. With an ACSI card this cost about £20/night.
Camping de Kolibrie near Alkmaar	A large rural site with unmarked pitches mostly arranged around the edge of fields. The free wifi was good. The facilities are clean & it cost 50c for a four minute shower in a roomy cubicle but the water was only just warm enough. Bread is available at reception every day. There is good cycling in the area including to Alkmaar and the coast. With an ACSI card this cost under £19/night.
Camping Strandbad, Edam	This is a large popular and crowded site on the Markermeer. Tokens provided timed showers that were variable, the block near reception was better & cleaner with hotter water. There is access to the beach & the site has a bar & restaurant. Edam is a delightful town & is about 15 minutes walk away. Regular buses to Amsterdam leave from the bus station This site cost around £20/night with an ACSI card.

Packing Europe into our Campervan

Taking a photograph of our breakfast table for the #warcoffee community on Twitter [check out Yaroslava Antipina @strategywoman to get a feel for life in Kyiv during the war] I realised how many gorgeous and useful things we have in our campervan that are regular reminders of our happy travels around Europe. Of course, we drive a French Renault van but the European theme doesn’t stop there, we have picked up things we like and need in many different countries.

Our rustic wooden bread bowl in the photograph is used for our continental breakfasts and came from Slovakia, back when it was part of Czechoslovakia. We took a backpacking railway trip to the Tatras in 1992 and managed to squeeze this beautiful bowl into the rucksack, along with a bottle of Czech beer! It is perfect for breakfast and dinner bread.

Our honey of the day might be from Shropshire [we always pick up local honey when we are travelling] but the wooden honey spoon was bought in the idyllic Italian village of Sorano in southern Tuscany. We were visiting a friend who lived there at the time and she showed us the sights and took us into the town for a meal. Browsing around a shop packed full of wooden chopping boards and spoons I admired this honey spoon and she generously insisted on buying it for me. I am so glad I didn’t point out anything more expensive in the shop and feel sad that we have lost touch but I think of her everyday when I use the spoon.

When it comes to slicing those large crusty continental loaves we use a steak knife from a village shop in Slovenia. A bread knife isn’t something we have room for and the steak knife does the job. The glass plates with blue swirls are from one of those interesting French hypermarkets that I could browse around for hours and the jolly teacosy with the stylish red radish pattern is from Denmark. We slum it with teabags when we are camping but still use a teapot. Our camping teapot is from Blomus, a German company who make quality stuff that we grabbed as a second-hand bargain on Ebay. The handle folds down making it perfect for stowing in one of the cupboards in the campervan.

While my mug with the blue flowers is another Italian find from the beautiful Malcesine on Lake Garda and gives me pleasure everyday, Anthony’s mug is from the Serra da Estrela in Portugal. We enjoyed our time in this stunning mountainous area of Portugal so much it is lovely to have a reminder of it on a daily basis wherever we are. The tray our teapot sits on has a map of Salford that includes our former home. This was a thoughtful retirement gift from a friend so we could show people where we lived.

Our evening hot drink mugs [yes we have mugs for different drinks!] are Morecambe mugs, so we never forget where home is now! Mine has a picture of the Midland Hotel and Anthony’s has Morecambe in big colourful letters and Eric Morecambe’s iconic specs.

These are all small treasures that are both useful, hold precious memories and make me feel blessed. None of them cost us an arm and a leg but all of them are cherished.

A Dozen Scottish Campsites Tried & Tested 2022

In March and April this year we travelled around Scotland for four glorious weeks. For anyone I have to convince that Scotland is an amazing place to visit, I will just say that it snowed, it was sunny and occasionally it was wet and windy. If that doesn’t persuade you to go to Scotland, on this trip we saw golden eagles, red squirrels, seals, otters, siskins, red deer, dolphins, red kites and so much more wildlife. We climbed some mountains and walked some stunning miles of coastline.

Everyone looks for different things in a campsite. My priorities are a level pitch, a hot shower and peace and quiet. This is the list of where we stayed with comments:

Campsite name	Comments
Tantallon Caravan and Camping Park, North Berwick	This sloping site has amazing views over the Firth of the Forth and Bass Rock. The showers and bathrooms are a high standard and the showers have hot water but there was no heating in March. The wash up area is covered but outdoors. The site is a short walk into North Berwick, an upmarket town and the Scottish Seabird Centre, which has plenty of fun, interactive and interesting displays. The walk back is uphill through the golf course.
Silverburn Park Campsite, Leven	This campsite has four level campervan pitches and is in peaceful setting in a park. The sea and a sandy beach are just across the golf course. You receive a friendly welcome and the facilities are good and clean. It is about a half an hour walk into Leven and shops and a supermarket and a bit further to the charming coastal village of Lower Largo. I have written a full review on the blog.
Stonehaven Queen Elizabeth Park CAMC Site	This is a favourite campsite of ours that is close to the beach and the harbour and near the centre of Stonehaven. It wasn’t too busy on this visit. The site is level and the facilities are excellent.
Fraserburgh Caravan Park	This is a small level independent site that is right by the sea and if you are lucky to get one of the pitches overlooking the waves and the beach you will be happy! Our welcome was friendly and the facilities are kept spotlessly clean. The showers are good and hot and the only thing that let it down was the lack of heating. It is a short walk to the busy fishing harbour, the small town and the Scottish Lighthouse Museum. The latter is certainly worth a visit as it includes a chance to climb up an old lighthouse. The walk along the sandy beach and dunes is fabulous too.
East Beach car park, Lossiemouth	This level tarmac car park has toilets available nearby in the daytime. It was quiet when we stayed here and there was just one other campervan there. The town is pleasant and there are places to eat and drink nearby. There is an honesty box in the toilets to pay what you can for using the facilities.
Rosemarkie Camping and Caravanning Club Site	The position of this campsite is hard to beat, sitting on the coast of Chanonry Point. We received a friendly welcome and got a sea view pitch! The grass is a bit lumpy but we managed to get the campervan level. The facilities were heated, the wash up is indoors but the showers are not the best and probably need an upgrade. We saw dolphins from the point, went to the nearby coffee shop and walked up the Fairy Glen.
Dingwall C&CC Site	We really liked this campsite. The wardens are friendly, it isn’t too busy and the site is level and arranged in small cul de sacs. The railway line runs next to the site and the first train might wake you. The facilities were fine and had heating some of the time. The town is very close with supermarkets and other shops, including a warren of a charity shop that is like an Aladdin’s Cave. The short walk along the canal is great for stretching your legs.
Camping Skye, Broadford	This terraced slightly sloping site has open views, friendly and helpful people on reception & a modern facilities block. There was heating in the facilities, hot showers and an indoor wash up area. A ten minutes walk takes you to Broadford which has a supermarket, other shops and pizza place.
Skye C&CC site, Edinbane	This gently sloping site sits on the loch side. It has new owners this year and they were friendly and welcoming. The facilities are fine but lack heating in wintery weather. The lovely view over the loch from the indoor wash up area was very much appreciated. The site also has some yurts and huts and there are cattle and hens around. About 15 minutes walk away down the hill in Edinbane there is a pub and a posh (expensive) restaurant. Otherwise, you have to drive from here or take the occasional bus to Dunvegan and Portree.
Glenbrittle Campsite	This is a large site with a facilities block at one end. The site is on the bay & has spectacular mountain views. The facilities are small but they squeeze in six showers and the room was warm, mostly from others showering and the walls dripped with condensation. The showers themselves were only lukewarm. The wash up is under cover. There is a small shop and cafe onsite, useful as the site is eight miles along a single-track road. This is an expensive campsite if you want EHU and has no phone signal or wi-fi but it does have excellent access to the mountains.
Merkadale CL near Carbost	This Certified Location for five vans is a gravel site alongside the Carbost Road. It has free wi-fi and a functional facilities block with two toilets & one electric shower which was hot. The pub, cafe and distillery in Carbost are about 15 minutes walk away.
Morvich CAMC Site	This Caravan and Motorhome Club Site is a special place. You receive a friendly welcome, it is peaceful, has good facilities and the wardens run a small shop for basics as there is nothing nearby. You can climb mountains or walk in the forest directly from the site. The Chocolates of Glenshiel shop and cafe nearby are worth a visit on your way there and if you drive towards Kyle, make sure you stop at Manuela’s Wee Bakery in Ardelve for some of their delicious bread and cakes.

Silverburn Park Campsite, near Leven in Fife, Scotland

If you crave a small campsite that isn’t wall-to-wall caravans and motorhomes as far as the eye can see then Silverburn Park Campsite near Leven might be just the place for you. This small campsite is certainly a special place and with just four campervan pitches and it’s enviable location near to a long sandy beach it ticks so many boxes.

Everyone receives a friendly welcome at Silverburn Park and the calming and peaceful atmosphere envelopes you straight away. The member of staff we met was helpful and kind and the biscuit-coloured cat with a deep purr made us feel accepted. I was also very politely told how to pronounce Leven correctly, the e is long, like Leeven.

Silverburn Park has a story that you will want to explore if you visit and it is certainly much more than a campsite. The park is the former estate of the Russell family who planted many unusual trees in the park and you can take a stroll to see these. Gifted to Leven Town Council in the 1970s, the park has long been a popular place to visit for local people. In 2019 Fife Employment Access Trust (FEAT) took over the management of Silverburn Park and began to develop the site. They worked hard and a cafe and a campsite were opened the following year. FEAT, a mental health organisation that supports people back into work, now have plans to repurpose the old flax mill at Silverburn as a visitor centre and community hub. You can read more about their plans on their website.

The campervan pitches are hard standing surrounded by grass in a fenced area. The campsite has bathrooms with a toilet, sink and shower and a heated towel rail and there are dishwashing sinks. These facilities are a short walk from the campervan pitches and by the tent area. With the campervan pitches there are bins, fresh water and chemical toilet disposal. FEAT’s plans include adding more facilities and a camper’s kitchen with indoor washing up in the very near future. If you don’t have a campervan or tent, the site has three pods.

Cooking that evening, I could see Bass Rock out of the ‘van window across the golf course and gannets that were diving for fish in the sea. With the site to ourselves it was peaceful and this felt as close to wild camping as you can get on a campsite.

During the daytime there are other visitors, workers and volunteers in the garden, on the allotment and in the workshop and cafe but we never felt crowded, it wasn’t noisy and everyone was friendly. In the evenings and early mornings the campers have Silverburn Park to themselves. Using the map I was given [see below] I explored the walled garden on a sunny morning when no one was around; a real treat and I spent ages watching the antics of the birds on the many feeders.

We had snow and sunshine on our visit and in the good weather we walked across the golf course onto the sweep of beach that stretches for miles. We turned left and walked a couple of miles along the sand with plenty of interesting shells and pebbles to the pretty coastal village of Lower Largo. Bass Rock continued to shimmer in the distance. As well as the gannets there were waders on the shore and cormorants on the rocks that jutted into the sea. In Lower Largo we had good coffee and cake in The Aurrie, a converted chapel and found the Robinson Crusoe statue high on the wall of a house. Lower Largo was the birthplace of Alexander Selkirk, the castaway who inspired Daniel Defoe’s novel. Lower Largo is perfect for a wander, particularly to find the collection of colourful and entertaining gates and sculptures with maritime themes.

Heading in the other direction we came to Leven and its small promenade and shops and a supermarket. We returned on a path through golf courses that wound among bright yellow gorse bushes with views across the Firth of the Forth. We were soon back at Silverburn Park and, after passing a large pond and a deserted house, we followed a woodland trail around the walled garden back to our campervan.

I need to add a special thank you to Em from Vans for the Memories on YouTube and Twitter for the recommendation and inspiration for our visit to Silverburn Park.

I had taken a break from blogging while Russia was invading and bombing Ukraine. I am still unable to process this aggressive act but, unfortunately, the war is going on much longer than I hoped it would and, although in the light of what people are going through in Ukraine, my travels are insignificant I found myself really wanting to share this campsite with everyone. I’m not sure what this says about me and it probably makes me look indecisive and weak. Rest assured, I have not forgotten Ukraine and every day I continue to do what I can to support individuals living through the war.

A Privileged Traveller

It was about 16 years ago, in the days when I worked in a small office for a local charity. One of my two colleagues was a woman originally from Ukraine. She was always fun to be with, sent me New Year text messages long after I had left the charity and at lunch times we laughed together and talked about her home country over a shared jar of gherkins. This connection prompted me to read my first Andrey Kurkov novel, Death and the Penguin. This is the Ukrainian novelist’s best-known book and I was immediately hooked by his surreal, dark humour about life in post-Soviet Ukraine. Since those days I have gradually read every single one of Kurkov’s novels and although these are fiction, with each book I connected more and more with Ukraine and followed the ups and downs of this eastern European country. When it was published in English, I also read his Ukraine Diaries, which covers his observations of the pro-European protests of 2013 and the impeachment of Yanukovcyh in Kyiv as well as Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in eastern Ukraine.

When we travelled around Hungary and Slovakia a few years ago I wondered if we should venture into Ukraine. I navigated our Blue Bus to the border and we took a walk and gazed across the lush Slovakian countryside to Ukraine but decided time and logistics were against us. I wondering when or if I would get there. The photograph at the top of this blog post is one of our campervan on that Slovakian road and my mind has wandered back to that place regularly since the 24 February 2022 as I imagine how much busier it is today as Ukrainians flee the war in their country and seek safety in Slovakia and other neighbouring countries.

The last Andrey Kurkov book I read was Grey Bees. If you get chance, get hold of this most recent of his novels and take yourself to Ukraine. My own mind often spends time with this country I have never visited. I listened to the news of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 with horror, shocked that there were few consequences for Russia, and I followed the news of the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Grey Bees takes readers on a road trip with an elderly man and his bees, driving from an almost deserted village in the Grey Zone, the no-man’s-land between loyalist and separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, to Crimea. It is a mythical novel, well observed and full of humour, humanity, hope and, of course, sadness.

As readers know, I enjoy travel and exploring new places. Being on the road is where I am happiest but I know that this happiness comes from a position of security. My privilege is boundless, not only is no one forcing me to leave my home, I always choose to leave, but I also know my home will most probably still be there when we return. I am certainly privileged in owning two homes, although only one of them has wheels! Watching the current destruction of Ukraine by Russia is heartbreaking. I can only bear witness as I have no words to add to the voices of the people of Ukraine who are speaking out against the invasion, fighting for their country and sharing their day-to-day experiences in war time. My Twitter feed is populated by tweets from Ukraine and cats, and occasionally Ukrainian cats! I want to stand side-by-side with the people of Ukraine and help them all I can but, beyond making donations, I feel helpless. I am proud of the swift reaction by Ukraine’s neighbours to give shelter to the refugees. I have so many friends and family who would not be here if the UK had not given refugees shelter in the past, including my own partner whose dad escaped from Poland after the Nazi invasion. I am deeply ashamed of the lack of care the UK has for Ukrainian refugees at the moment and I hope we find our kindness muscle very soon.

I am counting my blessings, feeling grateful for all the privileges I enjoy and I may be quiet on the blog for a little while as I have nothing to add. Slava Ukraini!

Hello Blog Readers!

Hello blog readers! I am so glad you have come along for the ride. I am certainly not a serious blogger; my blog posts are published irregularly and my subject matter is all over the place. I am happy if just a couple of people read my blog posts and I am amazed when it is often many more. My blog has had some ups and downs during the Covid-19 pandemic but once people were getting out and about again and starting to plan, 2021 was a pretty good year for attracting readers.

I would probably get more blog readers if I wasn’t a tad lazy. During 2021 I only publishing 36 blog posts, not even one a week! This was mainly because we were either in lockdown and there was nothing new to write about, or we were travelling and I didn’t have time to post or I was writing a travel article for a magazine and also didn’t have time to post! The posts I did write varied from recipes and what was going on at home to traveller tales as we toured all four nations of the UK in 2021, spending time in Scotland and England and making our first visit to Northern Ireland and returning to Wales after a gap of a few years. In 2021 we even spent a short time abroad when we crossed the border into Ireland!

I’ve been blogging since 2009 and, although I cringe when I read those early blog posts, I can see it was useful writing practice for becoming a campervan travel writer. I currently write two different blogs, this one and my memorial benches blog, but posting to both these blog has to take a back seat when I am working on a paid article.

My blog is put together via WordPress and this platform generates all sorts of data for those who are interested. On a wet day in January I checked the stats for 2021 and was interested to see that the post that received the most attention was one I wrote back in 2019 about our trip to the amazing Shetland Islands. Making a return trip to Shetland niggles in my mind regularly, so I am not surprised that other campervan and motorhome owners are planning trips to those northerly islands.

Next up in the rankings [down from number one in 2020] is a post from a few years ago about cooking with an essential piece of kit in our campervan, our RidgeMonkey grill. I am pleased to see that this wonderful cooking pan is gaining popularity and seeing plenty of sales, I wouldn’t be without mine.

Two travel writing posts have remained in the top five since I wrote them. One focusing on my thoughts on the quote, ‘Normality is a paved road; It’s comfortable to walk but no flowers grow‘ feels particularly relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic and I looked at this post again last year and added to it. During lockdown I couldn’t wait to leave the mundanity of normality behind! The second is titled, ‘One’s Destination is Never a Place but always a new way of seeing things.’ This is a Henry Miller quote and in the post I considered how travel keeps my wonderment muscle supple. Since I wrote this piece two years ago I have had to exercise those muscles closer to home and I have learnt that, although I don’t have to travel far to be filled with wonder, I continue to have a need to keep filling my life with new experiences.

A remarkable post that remains popular is one from my long-running Surprising Salford series. This is a post about the astonishing and amusing Gnome Island. This island of gnomes [what else] in Salford Quays received little attention from the public until the new tram line to the Trafford Centre opened and suddenly it was much easier to see the gnomes from the stop near Old Trafford and, if you search for Gnome Island in Salford my blog is one of the few resources that pops up. I am glad Gnome Island hasn’t been cleared away by the corporate giants around Salford Quays and that its creator remains, as far as I know, a mystery. If you’re in Manchester or Salford go and take a look.

The pages where visitors can download articles I have had published in MMM and Campervan Mag are also always popular too and the lists just keep getting longer. The top download for 2021 was my fun piece I wrote from our campervan’s point of view about a trip to Wharfedale meeting the Blue Bus’ siblings [other Devon Conversions vans] and fellow campervans. This was published in Campervan Mag during 2021. Writing this piece was a blast and maybe this comes through in the words and is why people enjoy reading it. The second most popular download was the RidgeMonkey article in Campervan Mag. After that it is my reports on our Devon Tempest in MMM and Campervan Mag that attract most readers who, presumably, are researching what campervan to buy.

I am hoping that 2022 takes me, my partner and our Blue Bus to some fabulous places in the UK and across the Channel. I have no goal for the number of posts I will write on my blogs but I hope you keep reading about the things that inspire me and enjoy joining me back on the road.