Camping in France and Italy

Thank you for all the comments. The idea of a tent has been dumped, and they've decided to go chalet camping with Brittany Ferries who have a 20% off deal.

It's incredibly easy to camp in France and wonderful too. French campsites are abundant, well equipped and beautifully kept, usually with a free swimming pool to boot! We went year after year with ours and had a fabulous time.

We did camp in Italy though not so much but again facilities were wonderful. It's a great holiday with a young family, lots of safe freedom for the kids and they can help with erecting and dismantling the tent, very good experience.

There are national websites listing all the campsites with directions and information. Find through Google. We had to buy a guide of course! Mostly you used to just be able to turn up on the day, it may not always be possible to do that now.

Wonderful times, I wish I could do it again.

Our GCs go camping in France very year, but they stick to one or two sites, usually with Eurocamp.

Moving around with young chidden can be tedious. Lots of setting up and packing away. On the sites Eurocamp use there are pools, children's clubs, playrooms etc. It is nice for the children to make friends of all nationalities rather than be dragged off to a different site every few days. They usually have different activities every day of the week, so there is no chance of getting bored. Our DD and SiL just count this as a family holiday and appreciate that the children don't really want to see new places and scenery all the time. After a day or two of settling in they feel it becomes like a second home. They also go out on trips to local places and sample the specialities.

I should add that we had our own tent and a loaded trailer. We sometimes bought plastic garden chairs at a supermarket then left them behind when we moved on.

Camping on the continent yes, definitely. Going as far as Italy, no definitely not. A friend who did this sorely regretted it.
I took 2 boys camping in Europe several summers, sometimes with OH too. The best one was unplanned in that we had a map of Europe and the boys decided where to go. They got a great feel for the continent, distances, languages etc. Luxembourg was best. We had a Eurocamping brochure with us, plus a directory of campsites (possibly Alan Rogers).
Are they dead set on Italy? There are some great camp sites much closer.

never did italy but France and Spain were standard camoing holidays for me as ateen and for our kids too great times.

I loved our camping holidays. We used Eurocamp but I'm sure there are others. We stopped once or twice on the way down to the South, and the same on the way back. Would love to do those holidays again. Everyone was always happy, the girls enjoyed the pool and the freedom, sorties to the local village to eat lovely local food. I think if you are going with others it would be a chore to have to put up and take down a tent. Take the easy way out. Yes there are campsites in Italy - take a look at google. We often used to drive down to Italy staying at small Logis de France, and b&b places in Germany, then South and over the Brenner Pass. Wish we could still do it. ?

Wing it. Continental road trips were some of the best holidays we had with our sons. Too many plans prevent the great memories of the unexpected.

www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/travelabroad/camping-in-europe/

This might help!

Sunnyvale? ! Where's that, iPad!

Be prepared for all weathers! It is not always warm and Sunnyvale! A couple of wet day en route will leave you with damp tent, clothes and children.

When we did similar holidays we always rented tents/ mobile homes at the sites. It made it a holiday rather than a chore, but it depends how you view the camping.

We did it with Canvas Holidays many times while our children were young but the tents were fully equipped and erected when we got there. They also organised stop overs in tents, static vans. Hotels en route if you wanted. We quite often went for 2/3 weeks at a time. We went to Venice using that company taking 3.5 weeks.

I don't think it would be feasible to do it with your own tent.

I think Canvas Holidays is part of Eurocamp now.

There are plenty of them I. France but no idea about Italy. France has a lot of good ones which are run by the local councils and have great facilities. We have a friend who goes to just south of Lacanau in the summer - the site is in a woodland and you can walk to the beach etc.
There is a campsite near Orleans at a place called Olivet which I believe is a nice place. Depending on what they wanted to do there is countryside around but also Orleans and not too far from Chartres. About 4 hours from Calais whether you tackle Paris or drive to Rouen and down.

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