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As said, its a big Country. Assuming you are using Calais returning from Carcassonne in one go is over 600 miles by the most direct route. That will take you round Paris 3/4 of the way into the journey. Although driving in France is generally much easier, Paris isn't.

I would take a less direct route avoiding Paris and stop off overnight.

I'd agree with pitchperfect -  we have a very similar sort of unplanned holiday (caravan but not tent) and after mid-August it's possible to do just what your husband wants.  Take a look at the ACSI card (www.campingcard.com) and Camping Cheques (www.campingcheque.co.uk) websites for the sorts of sites, and available dates - and then just 'wing-it' - going where the weather and your mood dictates!

Read the other much longer posting - under 'Don't want to go all the way' for some further advice. 

I also agree with Steve (millermicm) about avoiding Paris.  There are some lovely routes through France, wherever you are going, and almost all can be done without going anywhere near Paris!

Great advice, thanks! So lessons I'm taking away are

* Aim for 2nd half of August if we want to not book in advance

* Don't underestimate the size of the country and try and do too much

* Get Camping Cheques or the card which offer discounts - great tip!

* Camp inland for better sites and presumably less crowds

* Avoid Paris

From this then I'm going to put myself in my husband's hands and go with the no booking in advance approach which is new to me but sounds like you guys are giving it the thumbs up 2nd half of August!

Any other thoughts on travelling with kids? Although I speak French reasonably well my experience is pretty much limited to Paris!

Diana

Travelling with children - car DVD player (even Tesco sells them now and I'm sure it said £89 but can't be 100%), talking books, plenty of stops, plenty of snacks in the car, books to read, card games.

I'm sure others will come up with much better advice.

Hi Diane,

I don't know where you live but if you are serious about the Western side of France i.e. Biaritze have you considered using one of the longer crossings rather than Dover? It will save a heck of a lot of driving especially as you only have two weeks.

We have used Campingcheques for years and they are very good. The ACSI card is also a good idea as you don't pay up front but pay the campsites direct. I  would stress that both are only applicable for "out of season" camping and you would need to research each campsite you are thinking of using for which dates they will accept as low season.

In general terms we try to use only 4 star rated sites although 3 star are generally good and all sites in the Campingcheque book have their own websites which will allow you to see what facilities they have and which are the most child friendly. Use the websites given in ValA.s posting above and you will spend many hours checking sites.

Hope this helps

John Stott 

Should have called you Diana not Diane, sorry about that, anyway you may find the following useful for planning your trip.

Try the website www.francethisway.com which gives excellent driving distances and route maps and is easy to use. I entered Calais to Biarritz and it gives adriving distance of 1070 kilometres (approx 10 hrs). Calais to Carcassone is 1056km (approx 9hrs 30 min). Both of these are through Paris which I don't recommend. Trying one of the longer routes it gave Caen to Biarritz as 802 km driving distance (about 8hours). This also has the advantage of going nowhere near Paris.

I would also recommend you to look at the website www.campingfrance.com/UK/ which appears to be the most comprehensive list of sites in France with over 11000 sites listed (probably from 0 star to 4 star). There is an english translation button and you can refine your searches to list only 3 star upwards or whatever you want to set as your quality criteria.

Hope this helps, enjoy your planning, its part of the fun of the holiday.

John Stott

You don't have to do toll roads though - there are perfectly good alternatives to most destinations, and we use a toll-free route all the way to the Med (around Agde/Narbonne area) most holidays.  

We worked out that allowing that everyone who does that journey has to have at least one overnight stop (which is all we do), then the people using the toll roads would be about an hour and a half ahead of us arriving at their Mediterranean site!

We have a good route worked out these days, with the overnight stop somewhere about Salbris/Nevers/further south, depending on what time we set off in the morning, and we're down on the Med by tea-time the following day!