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Quote: Originally posted by Berriow on 06/10/2014

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Stuart, your experience is valuable and your posts are the most interesting on here for a long time. But you are tied to your own camp site and not seeing how things are in other places when you are working hard.

We shall tour France again next summer - I see on your website that you are already fully booked for August 2015 but that is not how things are elsewhere. We never book, and in inland France we never need to book. We were absolutely alone at Mornay sur Allier this year. At Huisseau sur Cosson there were only half a dozen others. The French owners at a lovely site at Lalley were working as hard as you, but were in despair about the absence of customers. Municipal sites are closing in many places.

The motorhome owners were nowhere to be seen last summer so must have all parked up in Aires. There they were when we got back to St Pol de Leon - about 50 of them lined up side by side on the sea front road.

I think you have a niche market of English visitors who want a camp site like yours. All credit to you- you have worked hard to build it up. You have every right to be proud of what you have achieved. But as we travel we see a different picture. Look at the three photos which are my gallery images here - empty campsites.

All good wishes to you. I hope things go well for you.

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Probably yes, one campsite owner we stayed with this year said this had been his worst season ever - though the September good weather had brought in a flood of late holidaymakers.

Even Disneyland Paris is struggling and has had to be refinanced by the Disney Corporation.

To look up 'out of the way' municipal sites, use the Camping Municipal website - many of those smaller sites will be similarly empty.  You may (as we did) find one that appears to be closed, with just a gardener, who will open up for you, turn the water on, and leave you to it, with a suggestion to just put the money through the letterbox in the gatepost as you leave.

Quote: Originally posted by garbold on 26/9/2014

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Thinking of our recent summer holiday in the Dordogne and have decided that we might like to take the plunge. We are very appreciative of the work involved but it has been a dream of ours for a while. We are not looking at an all singing and dancing campsite but have come accross some small 5/10 pitch sites. Has anybody got any wise words or general tips about this idea ? We are regular visitors to France and can be considered to be francphiles😄 😄

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Quote: Originally posted by garbold on 06/10/2014Thank you all for your valuable inputs...it hasn't put us off! We are waiting on details from a site for sale in the Haute Pyrenees. It has grounds of 22,000 m and has 10 pitches along with a 3 bed house. It is a going concern so hopefully no start costs(or very little) we are looking into the legal stuff and have Dutch friends who can point us in the right direction they themselves run a site.. We are not going make millions we understand that but it's the change of life which is the main driver.

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