# CamperStop or Aires France.......



## Bern2544 (Sep 15, 2012)

Was looking at buying the Aires France guide and came across the Camperstop Europe guide, is it any good it obviously covers more countries but does it have the same detail as the Aires book????

Bern


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

We use the aires book in French - it is good on detail and the details are accurate in our experience,

BUT I have yet to find ANY book or website that has all of the aires and is up to date with those that have now closed or opened. Books of course take time to publish, websites can be quicker but both rely on information being fed in and that is the weakest link.

IMO if a book covers a larger area it is less likely to be up to date or have as much detail, I may be wrong but that is my opinion..... in exactly the same way as the OS Maps have more detail on the 1:25,000 maps than on the 1: 50,000 versions and MUCH more than on the map books of the UK.

We have driven through many towns and been surprised to spot emptying points and aires which no book has given any hint at.

Once the decision has been finalised about the MHF database I have some to upload but I don't think we have had a final answer yet - and that is not a criticism of either Nuke or Phil, it probably means I have not spotted the announcement (if one has been made that is.....)

Dave


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## Glandwr (Jun 12, 2006)

Bought a second hand 2013 Camper Stop book, it arrived yesterday. First impression excellent, as Dave says less writing about each entry, photos of most. However the amount of info is in my mind sufficient. It has the advantage that it covers the whole of Europe.

Up to now I have used the All the aires books. The one for France is OK but the others can be woeful. Camperstop for me from now on 

Dick


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## Glandwr (Jun 12, 2006)

Penquin said:


> We use the aires book in French - it is good on detail and the details are accurate in our experience,
> 
> BUT I have yet to find ANY book or website that has all of the aires and is up to date with those that have now closed or opened. Books of course take time to publish, websites can be quicker but both rely on information being fed in and that is the weakest link.
> 
> ...


Both Phil and Nuke seem remarkably obtuse regarding the Database Dave.

Myself I think its promotion and relaunch to members should be a central plank of any business plan for the site

Dick


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## rugbyken (Jan 16, 2006)

Chalk or cheese comes to mind, all the aires are the best for detail but unfortunately are limited barely a third of the available stops, the French version covers about 95% of the stops in France but is in French LOL, 
The cc Infos site online is the most detailed and if you know a French resident you can get the info on a memory stick but again all in French and the stick doesn't have a map for reference,

I think the Camperstop book is the best if you are not restricting yourself to France only, if you are then go for the French version recommended by penguin the essential information name grid ref etc are easily understood with minimal language skills.


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## Glandwr (Jun 12, 2006)

Camper Stop does an English language version. It's the one I have.

Dick


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## TheNomad (Aug 12, 2013)

Used to use "all the aires" but since getting our first "Camperstop Europe" (English language version) book a couple of years ago now, we are total converts to Camperstop.
We find it much better.
One book covering more or less all of Europe. Seems to us to be kept more up to date too, and aire/parking areas seem more accurately described.
We use it all the time, and I'd highly recommend it.


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## Geriatricbackpacker (Aug 21, 2012)

We used both this year when we went on our France/Germany jaunt as we didn't want to buy a Stellplaz/Aires book for Germany for possibly a one off visit to the Black Forrest area. We found that the prices and some of the information listed in Camperstop for Germany were out of date and a lot of 'free aires' were in fact 7-8 euros upon arrival. The co-ordinates were up to date and the sites were generally as described. 
I was pleasantly surprised though to find that the Camperstop book listed some really good aires in France that our All The Aires book didn't cover and this gave us another dimension in stopover coverage
. 
We will continue to use the two in future travels.

Terry


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## Graham101 (Jun 26, 2007)

I used both the Vacarious books "Aires in France and the Spain/Portugal edition, plus the Camperstop Europe books - both in English in the past two years. Both are very good. The large map with the Vacarious book helps better with route planning. However, I also have a Snooper GPS which includes the Camperstop Europe database, which I found to be excellent. You can download this database for other GPS models at a relatively small cost for each country, but I had difficulty loading this onto my TomTom and TomTom were not very helpful!! Inevitably, some aires/stops open and close after the book publication dates, but both my trips were made much easier with these books and even more so with the database already on my GPS.


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## mandyandandy (Oct 1, 2006)

Camperstop without a doubt, with the downloads for the TT it is unbeatable. Used it for 7 years and have tried others always ended up using it. 

Mandy


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## Solwaybuggier (Mar 4, 2008)

rugbyken said:


> The cc Infos site online is the most detailed and if you know a French resident you can get the info on a memory stick but again all in French and the stick doesn't have a map for reference,


I'm pretty sure you can order the USB stick version from the UK - in fact the website specifies a longer delivery time outside France (here) - or you can download it yourself.

As for the All The Aires guides - never been very impressed by the French ones, should really be called "Some of the Aires" - but we were even less impressed by the Spain & Portugal version - someone gave us an old 1st edition. If an entry (for San Sebastian) has a photo of the aire noticeboard including the GPS coordinates, you might have thought the coordinates in the book would have been right. They weren't - fortunately the ones on the photo were!


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## Geriatricbackpacker (Aug 21, 2012)

We found that having AutoRoute running on my netbook (sits nicely on the dash) gives us a good overview of aires, stops and wildcamps. Being able to increase the scale when we are near coast roads etc helps when we are looking for beach access as TomTom and the paper maps we carry are not that detailed for 'at a glance' reviewing. 

Terry


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