# All the aires France 2nd edition



## lookback (Dec 4, 2005)

I have read on the Motorhome Fun website that this book, recently published by Vicarious Books contains a large number of errors - non existence of aires, GPS c oordinates wrong etc. The writer went onto say that these mistakes have been admitted by the book company.
If this is the case then I am one unhappy bunny! I bought the book solely to have a trouble free tour around France without the hassle of turning upto an aire that does not exist or find that I am miles away from it.
Can any MHF confirm this?  If it is correct one would expect Vicarious Books to publish an immediate amendment


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## 101405 (Oct 15, 2006)

If you want the Guide to Camping car stops, Aire de services 4.500 etapes . this can be had from Amazon , or direct from *Motor presse. fr for about 12/13€ with postage, *camping car magazine. this is the bible?


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## carol (May 9, 2005)

lookback said:


> If it is correct one would expect Vicarious Books to publish an immediate amendment


lookback - I have just returned from 8 weeks away, using this book and have actually no problems with it, we never stayed on a site for even a night, and we only found one minor error, it took us virtually there, but not quite, but it was visible...so I found no problem.

TBH, I have a lot of new ones to send to them, along with pictures for their next update.

It will only be improved if people let them know the correct information

What you must be aware of though, aires, open and close, they do get vandalised and during the winter they may not have water on, due to frost damage....

I prefer it now to the French version - although I still have 2007 of both the CC and the La Monde ones, and each is different and each has different aires as well, which Vicarious doesn't yet have.

They took on a mammoth task I reckon and I think it should be viewed in the light that none of them are entirely accurate and when they did their first edition, they were the ONLY ones putting in GPS info.

I do understand that the Le Monde one for 2008 does have it as well now..

Carol


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## GerryD (Sep 20, 2007)

You can't beat the DVD Rom from:
www.campingcar-infos.com
Gerry


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## Vennwood (Feb 4, 2007)

Hi Lookback,

I think you may be referring to the 1st edition of All the Aires - that version was very poor, full of errors and had a majority of names to fill up the pages. The second edition is much much better however by the 3rd or 4th edition it will be the best.

You do need at least 3 books to get by - this one, camperstop and the French officiel one in addition to All the Aires.

MHF has over 3000 aires/campsites in its database all compiled by motorhomers - try planning your trip and adding sites from MHF to your virtual folder and printing them out

Pete


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## SidT (May 9, 2005)

Hi Carol. very true what you say about letting them know about errors etc.
We used the latest edition and only found one error, which was the co-ords for the aire at Florac which were exactly 26 miles out, but as they were so far out it was obvious.
I am ashamed to say I keep forgetting to let Vicarious know.   
Cheers Sid


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## ianhibs (May 1, 2005)

lookback said:


> I bought the book solely to have a trouble free tour around France without the hassle of turning upto an aire that does not exist or find that I am miles away from it.


I'm afraid that goes with the territory as nothing will ever be 100%. We use a combination of Camperstop and the French Aires book (the latter is very difficult to use though) with the attached POI's on our TomTom. In the last 18 months we've probably been to well over 100 aires/stellplatz in France and Germany. Having found that a lot of the information was incorrect, I conceived the idea of correcting this and photographed every one together with an accurate reading of the GPS position. I then contacted Camperstop and Vicarious Books but zilch interest. All right, the subject of a small sum of money was raised by me so I don't know whether it would have been any different otherwise.

As a general rule in France we find that the further south you go the less accurate is the info. I have no idea why.

Ian


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## zulurita (May 9, 2005)

We have submitted items to this book and have more to send to Vicarious Books for the next edition.

I have written down updated info for some places we visited this year.

We have found using the book ok, it is more reliable than poi for tomtom that I downloaded from MHF downloads as often we were not taken to the aire and so once I did find the aire I have had to correct the entry in tomtom.

We also use Camperstop (again not alway correct GPS), French aire d'Service both editions and new aires found in the French motorhome magazines. and last but not least Camping-Car infos.


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## homenaway (Jul 27, 2005)

Hi,

We also submitted many of the aires and some corrections to Vicarious Books - haven't any for this this year as we only passed through France for one day  also many photos!

I think the second edition is much improved and we are more particular about recording the GPS co-ordinates when we stop at aires nowadays.

We found several errors in the BordAtlas book in Germany this year.

No printed publication can be fully up to date and even the camping-car infos website has many aires with GPS co-ordinates "non-verifee".

I think it's a good guide especially for beginners and we use it alongside the French guide and lists downloaded from various websites

Steve


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## 96706 (Nov 13, 2005)

I agree with all the above comments. No one publication is ever going to be 100% accurate.

We generally take 3 or 4 guides with us and still are coming across new locations not covered by any of them yet. 

They can only ever be considered a 'guide' to locations and must be used in this way, whatever country you are travelling through.


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## carol (May 9, 2005)

ianhibs said:


> lookback said:
> 
> 
> > I bought the book solely to have a trouble free tour around France without the hassle of turning upto an aire that does not exist or find that I am miles away from it.
> ...


Ian

I've spent a few hours this afternoon sending emails for each aire and I will put my photos on a DVD and send them, then if I have missed something, they may see it in the photos....all the little bits help I fancy but there again I didn't ask for anything when they did their first book, and as they used a lot of my photos and info, they kindly sent me a book when it was published. That was fine by me....

I had loads of photos of all the aires we had ever stayed on, but no gps info, as I had used campingcar-infos DVD and the POI's from Brian and wherever I found them....

Carol

Carol


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## andyangyh (May 1, 2005)

Things change. Our favourite aire used to be Cognac but friends who stopped there last year reported that parking was now restricted to a few hours as opposed to the 48 hour limit that had been in operation before. We've been to Le Touquet and found it closed for work. The aire at Donzenac has migrated from the middle of the village to just outside the campsite about a mile away. It's all part of the fun and the main reason why we try to arrive well before dark so we can have a Plan B.


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## carol (May 9, 2005)

Hi Andy

We went to the Cognac one a while ago, as you had recommended it, shame how they move/change isn't it, though sometimes for the better...one thing we have noticed this year, was more and more are now charging a nights fee... We noticed two years ago it was common on the coast around the north and Britanny, but it has been happening in many places now.

We found a lovely site €6 or €7 a night with electric at Baume Les Dames. Boulanger comes every morning and their is a lovely charcuterie in the town. Near to a Super U as well, it is alongside the canal or a branch of a river, I now forget without going back to the map....

We always try to get to aires by 1600, time for a cuppa, and time to make sure of a place, we have never yet not got one, we may have got the last one though.

What we hate, is people arriving as late as midnight, squeezing in next to you, making loads of noise, even getting on to their levellers....very inconsiderate I reckon....

If you arrive around 1600 it gives you time for a wander around the town that evening and you can see if you want to spend more time looking next day before moving on.

Carol


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## C7KEN (May 27, 2005)

I only bought the book at septembers show at shepton Mallet but have to say that every aire I have ever visited in France is in this book. Because its in english it suits me fine. I have promised to detail aires in spain for them and am busy doing this but it takes time as spain is a big country and aires are appearing faster than I can get to them. I may pick the ones I think will be most usefull for starters .The spanish ones will be absolutely accurate and I will have visited them personally or they will have been visited by other MHF members. Naturally they will be posted on here when I have got it all together


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## Vennwood (Feb 4, 2007)

Hi Carol/Andy,

I agree with you about arriving early and as I said in my earlier post All the Aires is much better this year.

In addition to many aires moving or closing, even new ones opening what we have noticed this year is how much more busier it has been since last year. We returned to several sites we had visited last year and even arriving mid afternoon were surprised to find them full or nearly full and by early evening they were stacking up 3 deep and that was mid October. Charges too are on the increase. (we were amused on one occasion when the French contingent were complaining bitterly to the site fee collector about paying for a night that had previously been free. We were in Le Lavendou in Feb and counted over 70 MH's on one night (for a site restricted to 40)

All part of the joys of MH'ing

Pete


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## ianhibs (May 1, 2005)

I certainly endorse what Venwood and others have said about aires being busy. IMHO the French have created a bit of a monster with this motorhoming business. It’s November now and the weather is pretty awful here around Saintes. Despite that, the roads are still full of vans and any aire that’s half decent is pretty full at night particularly at weekends. We went down the Moselle in August and it was touch and go whether you could get in even early in the afternoon. We went to places that had, say 10, allotted places and there were twice that number there spilled over onto the adjoining car park/grass.

While travelling up from Biaritz recently we tried a number of aires along the coast south of Bordeaux. A number no longer exist and it’s just my, albeit very subjective, feeling that in certain places the local mayor, while welcoming a small number of vans in the past, is less keen to have vast swathes of them cluttering up the place.

Ian

PS Carol! I note you have an mpg of 39.06. Can you walk on water too?


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## rugbyken (Jan 16, 2006)

i have also just had fortnight around brittany mainly using the new aires book every one that i called into were well referenced , the G P S and tom tom took a lot of the fun out of hunting the aires [i didn't shout at the wife once and she never threw the map's at me] one small misprint on a gps reading was obvious three sites at camaret 2 with the same reading, the third a whole digit different found a few on il de re to send in must get the photo's sorted but if we all do this should be fantastic by the time we reach tenth edition


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Thanks GerryD,
Just bought the CD and hope it's everything you say it is.... :lol: :lol:  

Ray.


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## carol (May 9, 2005)

ianhibs said:


> PS Carol! I note you have an mpg of 39.06. Can you walk on water too?


:BIG:

No - I had entered the info, but our figures were in kms - and Dave's weren't at the time, but he amended it later, so I went back and corrected it.

Wish I could, would save me ferry fares...

Carol


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