Do you think 2 small 2man tents are adequate, even for starters. Where will you shelter if it rains and you have 2 children to entertain and do you intend having all your meals in restaurants?

Patka

That's why I'm asking the question, having never camped or been to France before! I have no idea what the weather will be like, but I assume if it rains we'll jump in the car and go and find something to do, not just sit in the tent. We're only planning on camping on the way there and back, and staying in an apartment in Alcossebre - until we know whether we like camping we don't want to commit to two whole weeks of it, but rather have a taster to see whether we and the kids take to it. Hence, we don't want to buy a huge expensive tent which might never get used again if we don't like it. Similarly, want to only buy the right essential equipment just in case.
As for meals, we will be having breakfast and packed lunch during the day as we'll be doing the next leg of the drive to Spain, if we have to eat at a cheap restaurant in the evening then I guess we will. Once we're in Alcossebre we'll be self catering in a fully equipped apartment so it will no longer be an issue.

Wakey Wakey

I quite agree, but you don't need to buy a huge expensive tent. Halfords were doing a very reasonably priced 4 person starter package, it's probably no longer available at this time of year but go into your local store & make enquiries. It would be perfect for what you have in mind.
You could also think about doing a 3/4 night break with Keycamp or similar to get a taste of both France & camping, cost of about £160 including ferry.

Patka

Hi Wakey wakey

Patka is quite right, go to Halfords and get the family camping pack, tent, air beds, sleeping bags and lights for about £99. We did exactly that 2 years ago to see how we found it as a family. My husband is a scout leader so he had no worries, but I didn't want to spend a lot on something we would use once and never again.

Last year we upgraded to a Vango tent, 2 large bedrooms, huge living area and porch, which is fantastic. The rest of the kit is pretty basic- we have a folding shelf unit to put the cookers on,(2 separate single burners that use small cans of gas- each ring is less than £15)basic pan set from IKEA and cooking utensils, washing up bowl and some folding chairs and that is about it. When we went to Southwold a few weeks back we did borrow a table, but even that you can manage without.

I would suggest that rather than trialling your camping in France just do a weekend here first. Can thoroughly recommend the Harbour Campsite in Southwold, or if you are in easy distance of Northamptonshire try Wicksteed Park, an absolute bargain at £10 for the night, which your kids will love.

I have to say with the tent we have now I would have no qualms about taking it away for a week or even more. Even if the weather should be bad there is full height head room and space to move about. You may find at this time of the year with the camping season over you can find a good deal on a decent tent that you can get plenty use out of, even if just for weekends away. Ours will pay dividends I'm sure, my husband has just been made redundant and I suspect the tent will let us get away, where otherwise we might not be able to.

Have fun

Pam

Thanks Patka & Pam

I hadn't thought of going to Halfords for some reason - have checked out Argos & a few other camping websites, and we did go and look at some tents last year, especially the big several room styles. Have since had an offer to borrow a 12 man tent from my cousin to do a trial run if we want to, but think that might be spoiling me a bit!!

Maybe we'll plan the trip through France next year, but try to do a couple of tester sessions next spring. We only live about half an hour from Wicksteed, in fact my sister and brother-in-law worked there last year on the entertainment team!

Thanks for the advice!

Wakey wakey

Borrowing a 12 man tent for starters will definitely put you off camping for life, you don't need that kind of struggle for a first attempt.

If it will sleep 12 it probably needs more than 2 adults to erect it satisfactorily.

Patka

There are loads of tents ideal for you, visit the likes of Outdoorworld and look at the Easy Camp Taranto 500 for £80, if yer don't want the expense of sleeping bags use quilts to lay on and cover yerselves, nice and cosy. Plenty of cheapo throwaway BBQ's if yer into that, we've always used a two burner grill which isn't dear, bought mine a lot of years ago for £4 on a car booty, I was amazed it had only been used once just needed to clean the grease off, best bargain I've ever had.

There are so many cheap items about, visit UK Campsite too, you will get a lot of info from there, hope its okay to mention these sites, Admin? good luck.

JJB have a 4 man tent, sleepingbags,airbeds torches reduced from £199 to £39.

Some ideas for a starter kit.
A light, pots, pans, plates, cutlery, a stove, matches, water carrier, tin opener/cork screw. cool bags,ice packs
blankets and pillows.sleeping bags.

washing up bowl ,tea towels.washing line.pegs

wash bag,towels.

foldaway chairs and table.

outdoor/indoor games for the kids

waterproof shoes and coats.

the list is endless.

Christine

Your very comprehensive list is hardly appropriate to the requirements of the original poster ie overnight only. It's grossly over the top.

Patka

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my original post.

We have now bought a 6 person Vango tent, 4 sleeping bags & 4 airbeds. We plan to buy a couple of lanterns/lights and either a kettle to plug into the cigarette lighter in the car or a small stove.

The plan is to do a couple of brief overnight attempts close to home to see what else we feel we need and then hopefully the bigger trip next year.

The advice from everyone has been very helpful, although I am now worrying that there will be no room in the car for us and the kids and clothes etc!!

Thanks again.

That should do you fine for what you have in mind.

Patka

Glad you got sorted- hope you are as pleased with the Vango as we are!! On our last outing we managed to get all the kit, 2 adults, 2 kids and 1 podgy cocker spaniel into a Prius plus top box. A bit of a squeeze but it was OK. Pretty good considering the kit included body boards, wet suits, 4 chairs, dog crate etc plus all the camping stuff, so I'm sure you'll be fine.

Pam

Pataka, if you read the original post it says camping on the way down and the way back. Camping not staying a hotel.

Get your facts right before being rude, I was only trying to help with a list . In my opinion you would need these items for a short or long trip.

wakey wakey wrote:

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my original post.

We have now bought a 6 person Vango tent, 4 sleeping bags & 4 airbeds. We plan to buy a couple of lanterns/lights and either a kettle to plug into the cigarette lighter in the car or a small stove.

The plan is to do a couple of brief overnight attempts close to home to see what else we feel we need and then hopefully the bigger trip next year.

The advice from everyone has been very helpful, although I am now worrying that there will be no room in the car for us and the kids and clothes etc!!

Thanks again.

LOL
The first time is always the worse

One thing I would say is forget any idea of a 12v kettle they only boil enough for one and take AGES
You may find as we did you will in time find a small trailer useful but then we moved on to a tin tent but tha's a different proposition

One idea you may like to try out is the multicentre camping ooffered by the big firms that way you won't need to have you own kit but also there is the opposite through France you will find lots of what are called Municipal Campsites these are run by or for local communes (like our town councils) and they are quite reasonably priced

have you got any web resources for campsites yet ??
Do you have points of interest for your Sat Nav ??

Can help you with both if you want just yell

Thanks Gray

I have had quite a good look at the UK Campsite website, as I have found the reviews they have from other campers very useful. It's all quite open to change at the moment, as the other half is panicking about the Euro/£ exchange rate situation, so we haven't made any firm plans.

Is it advisable to book sites in advance, especially the ones with pools for the kids etc? Re Sat Nav, we don't have one yet - the other half is keen to get one but I'm all for the adventure of map-reading our way across Europe!!

wakey wakey wrote:

Thanks Gray

I have had quite a good look at the UK Campsite website, as I have found the reviews they have from other campers very useful. It's all quite open to change at the moment, as the other half is panicking about the Euro/£ exchange rate situation, so we haven't made any firm plans.

Is it advisable to book sites in advance, especially the ones with pools for the kids etc? Re Sat Nav, we don't have one yet - the other half is keen to get one but I'm all for the adventure of map-reading our way across Europe!!

The website I was meaning are (in order of usefulness as I see them)these are so much more detailed than UK campsites one the first one has over 11000 (yes ELEVEN THOUSAND ) campsites

http://www.lescampingsdefrance.com/index_uk.php
http://www.campingfrance.com/index.jsp?lg=uk
http://www.bigfreeguide.com/camping/browse-france-331-1.html
http://www.campingo.com/camping-fishing-france.htm

Whether to book or not Good question --
if you are travelling in school holidays then for the larger sites it's advisable especially if you are staying a week or so if you are overnighting a phone call the night before to ask if there are any vacancies should do the trick but have a couple of back-up sites just in case they say no

I understand the problem re the Pound V Euro
but I look at it this way at present diesel (the fuel I use when towing) is on average 0€99c a litre in France with some places down to 0€97c a litre whilst ours is 99.9p so we are on parity with costs food still costs less than here as long as you go for local food not imported UK food -- tin of Heinz Beanz 1€99c for a standard tin

Sat Nav Versus paper map
Sat Nav if used correctly and not argued with works fine (see I have other half problems too she got us lost in Bolougne docks on our first trip)
I prefer to use a PDA with Tom Tom added instead of a stand alone Sat Nav
I have the Single Map for Western Europe as opposed to the individual maps that you have to keep changing when you cross borders
As long as you program it to where YOU want to go as Quickest and do not pick SHORTEST route then it should take you on the major roads not back lanes
For the campsites I have numerous POI that I have sourced from across the web (ALL free BTW) and have tweaked some but all of them I have found are more accurate than the ones built in that you can't do anything with except switch off

HTH if it gives more questions fire away

We've done 2 night camps before and have managed fine with a cool box for that, but what does anyone else do for longer trips? How do you go about keeping stuff cold? I'm only really thinking milk, bacon etc the essentials for breakfast and lunch and any odd bits of salad if we were to BBQ rather than eat out. I'm just thinking along the lines of a multi-centre French camping trip in the summer, but I wouldn't want to have to shop 'fresh' for absolutely every meal. Have just had a look at gas Fridges, but they don't come cheap.

Pam

keepupwith wrote:

We've done 2 night camps before and have managed fine with a cool box for that, but what does anyone else do for longer trips? How do you go about keeping stuff cold? I'm only really thinking milk, bacon etc the essentials for breakfast and lunch and any odd bits of salad if we were to BBQ rather than eat out. I'm just thinking along the lines of a multi-centre French camping trip in the summer, but I wouldn't want to have to shop 'fresh' for absolutely every meal. Have just had a look at gas Fridges, but they don't come cheap.

Pam :)

What you will find in most if not all French Campsites is the abiliity to re-freeze your ice packs usually for free just remember to put your name on them in marker pen
You WILL have to shop daily in any case for bread as the most we've ever managed to keep it is 2 days in the caravan and even then it wasn't brilliant
Milk -- most ofthe areas we have been don't use Fresh milk but UHT and Bacon is something that ex pats get brought over special as you cannot get Bacon in France (OK they do Poitrine but it's not like English Bacon)
Got to say when we are over there I BBQ for all the meals I cook even breakfast -- there's nothing like the smell of "Bacon" and mushrooms wafting around a campsite to get you even hungrier

on one site we actually found a machine where you paid for a new pack then returned it to the machine and for a small fee you got a frozen one back don't know if these are spreading but looks a good idea

For short trip sans caravan I have a 12v cool bag (as opposed to box) that cuts down the amount of Ice packs needed except it would kill a car battery in around 6 hours so would need a separate power supply if I was away for longer

We have a portable fridge/chiller we plug it in the night before then it fits into our cigarette lighter, we can get bacon, milk, butter and a few more things that need to be kept cold. We paid £40 from woolworths a few years ago. The rest of our things we take in a cool bag. Problem with a chiller is it dosen`t keep things as cold as a fridge which is ok in the uk but in France in the hot summer it could be abit dodgy.

A few campers I know have bought table top fridges, a bit bulky but they do a fantastic job. Keep an eye on the second hand sections as you can pick these and beer fridges up or a good price. Afew others I know take a bucket and buy ice on a daily basis.

Other option is book a campsite that has use of a fridge, we regularly go to one in North Yorks that has a fridge for campers.