# Wildcamping in Brittany and Sat Nav



## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Hi All

We are hoping to set off to France sometime in May for around 2 months. This will be our first trip abroad in the MH and we are going to start in Brittany. In the 10 months we have had our MH we have established that we prefer wild camping or when we can’t do that, CL's. We have just come back from 16 nights in Scotland, spent the first two on a CL and then 14 wild camping, loved every minute of it. We are hoping that we can do a similar thing in France and perhaps Italy, Austria and wherever else we may end up. We like waterside spots out of town that are quiet. We have a scooter so being within walking distance of towns, shops etc is not an issue. Any recommendations of spots to stay would be great. I have also got a copy of all the Aires and will use them if we have to but is there a French equivalent of a CL that’s as cheap as ours? Again any recommendations welcome.

I notice in a lot of the guides they give long and lat coordinates. We have a Tom Tom one (think that’s what it is) which I have had for ages. I don’t have the European maps but presume I can buy them but I can’t see any way of putting anything in other than a postcode, city centre or address. Can any Sat Nav gurus out there tell me what I need to do/buy?

After Brittany my rough plan was to meander south down to the coast and then across to Italy, the Italian Lakes, and then back through Northern France.

I’m sure there is loads of stuff I can find myself but I figured if there were any others out there with similar tastes to ours that have "been there and done it" they may be able to give us a head start.

I was going to get the fast ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg and then come back via Calais.

This is a trial trip for us where if its a success we will hopefully eventually go full timing so I want to treat it as a way of life rather than just a holiday and also keep the costs down. 

Regards
Barry


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## DTPCHEMICALS (Jul 24, 2006)

Plenty of AIRES to use. Some in delightfull settings.

St Pol de Lyon - Monte st Michelle etc.. Get yourself an aires guide well worth it

Dave P


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## rugbyken (Jan 16, 2006)

*brittany*

toured brittany last year using ;all the aires ; found it an excellent book a lot of the aires are as good as a cl/cs site's, a couple we found with free electric as well, time of year is a big factor as that decides how busy etc 
don't discount municipals although the exchange rate has reduced their appeal most are still between 5-11 euros depending on the tourist appeal of their town and are normally good 2/3 star or better, have'nt discovered a good guide for them but they are so well sign posted in most town's not really been motivated to look, 
just go and enjoy too much too see to recommend any one spot all special


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## idexnz (Jan 16, 2008)

We'll be going in much the same direction during June/July, so our paths may cross somewhere. Our plan is to stay on Aires and France Passion sites as far as possible. We will be using a fully self-contained van and are really looking forward to it.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

*France Passion sites*

Thanks for the tip on the France Passion Sites. They sound like a good idea if you cant find a wild camping spot easily. I dont understand why they do it though if its free, whats in it for them? Do any of them offer electric for an extra few Euros? So really then you could pretty much either wild camp, use a France Passion site and an occasional Aire to charge up and dump your stuff! Spending very little on campsite fees. Are there any small sites with dumping, water and electric and not much else where you could stay for a few days for say 10 euros a night? Im just think along the lines of if we get sick of moving on each day when wild camping, at an aire or a Passion site and if we find somewhere we want to spend a few days or even a week as a base. I dont want to pay through the nose though as we require very little from the site. Its not that I am being tight but as I said we want to sample this as a way of life and get an idea of costs. It does look like our requirements are going to be well catered for though, now if someone could just tell me what I need to do with my sat nav to find all these places!!

Cheers
Barryd


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## tonyt (May 25, 2005)

No doubt a Tom Tom expert will be along to tell you about yours but in the meantime I can tell you that some sat navs do have the facility to input co-ords. If yours doesn't maybe you should look at the cost of upgrading it or investing in one that does.
Personally, I find that facility extremely useful.


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## Mike48 (May 1, 2005)

Britany is great for aires- there's one in virtually every town and sea location. For a comprehensive list see here:

www.campingcar-infos.com


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

*Sat Nav*

Thanks Tony

I did buy it about 5 or 6 years ago and its been the best technology investment ever! I think your probably right I may need to upgrade. Dont think they are very expensive anymore and I can probably flog the old one on Ebay!


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## tonyt (May 25, 2005)

Well if you get into the sat nav section of this forum there's enough information and recommendations to confuse (sorry, I meant inform..) you and keep you busy for the rest of the day.  

I've had my old Mio for about 5 years and still very happy with it.


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## Boff (May 10, 2005)

*Re: France Passion sites*

Hi!



barryd said:


> Thanks for the tip on the France Passion Sites. They sound like a good idea if you cant find a wild camping spot easily. I dont understand why they do it though if its free, whats in it for them?


Well, it is not totally free. You have to make a one-time payment per year to get the windscreen sticker and the guide book. And the sites? See it as a kind of advertizing: They have the area available which would otherwise be not used, and if they invite motorhomers then some of them might find their way into their farm shops or restaurants, bringing some extra income. Other motorhomers might not, but then the site owners don't loose anything.



barryd said:


> Do any of them offer electric for an extra few Euros?


A few of them do, but this is nothing you can rely on if going for France Passion. Your leisure battery should be in good condition if you want to do this kind of trip.



barryd said:


> So really then you could pretty much either wild camp, use a France Passion site and an occasional Aire to charge up and dump your stuff! Spending very little on campsite fees.


Yes, that is possible. This is the way we spend our holidays in France.



barryd said:


> Are there any small sites with dumping, water and electric and not much else where you could stay for a few days for say 10 euros a night?


Yes they exist, they are called "Camping Municipal". Camp sites run by the local councils. Most of them are simple but clean "no-frills" camp sites. Albeit the fee might be a little higher than 10 Euros. Check the signposts, as camp sites in France are - like hotels - classified by a star scheme: Maximum is 4 stars, this means a camp site with all whistles and bells, and the appropriate price (though still usually considerably cheaper than in UK). For a motorhome with all facilities on-board a 1- or 2-star site should normally do.



barryd said:


> ... now if someone could just tell me what I need to do with my sat nav to find all these places!!


I don't know which model you have, but all _modern_ Tomtoms allow direct entering of co-ordinates. Maybe your device is in need of a software upgrade? Usually Tomtom provides the latest software free of charge for download, only map updates are charged.

Best Regards,
Gerhard


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## 121772 (Mar 27, 2009)

I was in the same situation as you 2 years ago, regardinng tomtom. To buy continental maps seem extortionate so I opted to ugrade to a TomTom 910. got it on ebay at a very reasonable price, £125 + postage (cant remember how much).
The 910 has a built in hard drive and all the maps of the continent.(See tomtom.com for all tomtoms then go to ebay to get a bargain (if you can)
p.ss It never put a foot wrong in France that year !


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## Solwaybuggier (Mar 4, 2008)

There is a thread on here for links to TomTom POIs for France Passion - it's at http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftopic-26547-days0-orderasc-0.html - but from memory the data set is partial - ie it only has full coordinates where someone has sent them to the guy who set it up.


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Thanks for all this useful advice. It would appear with Brittany we have picked a very MH friendly place to break our Euro Zone Cherry!

Just having a quick browse through the web at some CL and small sites and they are around the 13 Euro per night mark which is ok. With all the wildcamping, Aires and France Passion sites its not going to be expensive (havent priced the booze and food yet though!). We have also found on our last trip that we can eak out our battery life quite well. We did 14 nights wild camping without charging. The longest we stayed in one place was two nights but we only had one long three hour drive in between, most days we just either ran the engine for half an hour or drove on for between half to one hour and this kept us topped up. What I have discovered is that our big 15" TV zaps the power so most of the time I have a small 8" flip top LCD tv when on battery and it seems to use next to no power. We dont even have solar panels so god knows how it keeps going!

Cant wait to get to France now

Cheers
BD


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Thanks everyone

I went on the Sat Nav forum and as usual got a solution. Just in case anyone else has the same problem, I downloaded and installed the TOMTOM Home software, Plugged the device into the PC and it gave me a list of stuff to install. I went ahead and did it and I now have Lat and Long as an option. I just need an excuse to get out of the office now and navigate somewhere!

Regards
Barry


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## cadi-1 (Jan 24, 2009)

Hi, get yourself an Aire guide,[Post codes are printed next to details] my husband and I bought our first MH last July, been over to Europe 4 times and are going again in May for 5 weeks, Went skiing to Italy February fantastic, should have done it years ago, have bought the French Passion book/sticker and are looking forward to it. Shame that this country is so far behind in accommodating MH's.
Can't help you with the satnav sorry!


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## barryd (May 9, 2008)

Thanks Cadi

I bought All the Aires guide a while ago and it seems like a good guide book. Just noticed the postcodes which seem to be 5 digit numbers. The only issue I have now is that my TomTom doesnt appear to be powerful enough to download the western Europe maps!


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