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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
14/6/2024 at 12:37pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Joined: 17/9/2015 Diamond Member 
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Think there are several aspects to take into account, especially regarding 'risk'.
I did a 10 day road trip to the USA west coast way back in the mid 80's, the first night's hotel was booked, as was the last night before catching the flight across country to stay with friends for a further 10 days, every other stay was just winging it, would set a destination for that day and just seek a Motel on arrival, did get it wrong a couple of times, turned up at Yosemite on a (unknown to us) public holiday (BAD mistake – packed solid!), and some towns you just don't want to stay in! It did teach me, a little local knowledge/research (NO www back in those days!) was invaluable, so totally winging it carried risk.
In UK, I find sites a little rigid on arrivals rules (done a couple of unscheduled overnight stops, and the sites give the impression it's a BIG favour to accommodate you, despite phoning ahead to ensure vacancies!), if you fail to get a pitch, parking a car-caravan combo up overnight is quite problematic, OR expensive/uncomfortable if forced into motorway services, I find 'A road' lay-bys REALLY unpleasant/risky places and wouldn't want to spend a night there! Not sure 'winging it' around UK would make for a very relaxing comfortable experience, certainly not with a caravan, smaller MHs and campers may have better scope.
On the continent, not that we've done it, as have always had a fixed plan/destination/site dictated by our reasons for being somewhere, it does seem to be much more acceptable to just turn up unannounced, and think I have sufficient sense of adventure to do it if I had a flexible schedule, but not sure I'd be so comfortable if I was solo.
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
 via mobile 17/6/2024 at 9:07pm
Location: Lancashire
Outfit: Coachman 460 VIP; VW Tiguan
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Quote: Originally posted by arthurdent on 17/6/2024
Can I ask, for those that regularly don't book, how do you manage to pay when you leave ? I've always found that even when I turn up unannounced they always ask how long I'll be there for and want payment up front.
When we get to a site and ask for a pitch, I usually say that we want to stay for either 3, 4 or 5 nights (alternatives are possible, ie, 7 or 8 nights, etc, etc). Not once have we been asked to pay up front; there has occasionally been a suggestion of paying for the minimum number of nights up front, but I always say I'll pay the day before we leave. In that case, usually the site has wanted to retain the ACSI card, or Camping Carnet on non-ACSI sites, which I don't have a problem with. We may decide after 1 night that the site isn't for us, for whatever reason, so I never pay up front and that's never been a problem.
Sometimes a site has wanted to know the maximum number of nights we want to stay for, and that's no problem, because we usually decide beforehand how long we want to stay; if we then want to extend that stay, it's usually not a problem, unless of course your particular pitch is booked; but that hasn't happened very often at all.
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Ina
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
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. While it worked for us we did see people turned away in Orio, that was in late June.
