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  hi considering going to france in caravan from manchester ,does anyone know best and cheapest pot to cross ,we have two five year olds ,somone said south of france is best ,any advice would be nice

Cheapest crossing is Dover-Dunkerque with Norfolk Line. The Caravan Club recently had a flyer in their magazine advertising crossings for £37 each way but on certain days. If you collect Tesco Club Card points you can use them to pay for a crossing on Eurotunnel.

David

Agree Norfolk line is cheapest. Euotunnel is the most convenient.

As for South of France being best. Depends what you are looking for. For beach & sunshine yes it probably is best but its a long way. Probably around 650 miles from Calais down to the south coast. & generally needs an overnight stopover. The south coast itself is a large area.

tell us what you want from a holiday & no doubt someone will come up with recommendations

Eurotunnel is easy, all prices depend on school hols etc, we usually pay about £220 for car and caravan in August.

I prefer the south of france for beachy hols, the vendee is nice but an extra days drive and your guaranteed hot sunshine for 2 weeks!! also the feel of the place is more holiday ish!!

We usually take 2 full days from Calais to get there. So for you I would travel to the tunnel on day 1, cross over and stay overnight near calais, making sure you get to the site before they close.

However I would say that the south maybe too far for 5yrs olds and maybe too hot in peak season, you may end up with 2 very cranky 5yrs olds.

So the destination really depends on how far you want to travel (long distances are easy in france) how far the 5yr olds can travel and what you want from your holiday.

One "must have" would be headrest dvd players!

Best and cheapest are not necessarily compatible. If you want to go to the western side of France, e.g. The Vendee, Normandy or Brittany you are probably better looking for one of the longer crossing routes. Portsmouth to St Malo, Portsmouth to Caen or any of the others to the western side of France. They will be dearer than Dover but if you do an overnight crossing the children would have a good sleep and have a bit of a cruise and be ready for the journey next day.

Dover etc is much cheaper but then you have the dreaded M25 to deal with. Norfolk Line fron Dover to Dunkirk are almost certainly the cheapest and the ships have the advantage of a forward view which should keep the children happy.

When comparing costs between the short crossing and the longer ones you need to take into account both the time in driving terms and costs for both fuel and the increasingly expensive French motorway tolls. If you choose to go to the western side note that it would probably take about 8 hours to get to Brittany from Dunkirk. You may find this website very useful www.francethisway.com which gives driving distances and route maps and is easy to use.

As the children are only 5 I would be tempted to take them out of school perhaps including a half term holiday in the plans which will reduce the costs dramatically from peak season prices.

Look at the following websites which are specifically for out of season camping and compare the costs with peak season. Try www.campingcheque.co.uk and also www.campingcard.com which will cover about 1500 sites in France between them.

Hope you find this useful.

John Stott