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Hi amaboverd,

 whenever im going to devon or cornwall i always stop at michael woods services as they have a large caravan/lorry parking area but its between junctions 13 & 14 i think, not reall the end..

 hope this helps

 eddy & co

We are going to Devon soon and I thought michaelwood services would be ideal until I saw this-

'Parking Charges: Free for two hours, charges apply for longer stays. Cars: £8.00, including a £2.00 meal voucher. Caravans, Coaches and HGVs: £17.50, including a £7.00 meal voucher.'

Is that just daytime or night-time too?

Michaelwood is very popular as an overnight stop for caravanners & has been for years. However, unless you intend leaving Michaelwood very early on the Saturday morning, I'd try to get south of J19/Gordano services before stopping if I were you. You'll be the right side of the regular Saturday morning bottleneck then.

BB

have you thought about a retail park?

j25 off M5 has sainsburys, pizza hut and Mac donalds, lots of space though I'm not sure how safe they are? but probably not any less safe than services i suspose

Just a note on Exeter Services

When we stopped off there on the way to Cornwall on 29th May (half term week) the lorry/caravan park was absolutely full, no spaces whatsoever and several trucks were driving round leaning on their horns as they could find nowhere to park!

We have to travel at this very busy weekend (when the schools finish for the Summer) and have devised several methods for avoiding the M5/A30 bottleneck on Saturday morning.

If we are travelling to St Agnes, usually book the hols to start on Sunday, rather than Saturday.  Let the rush go, wait for the traffic to clear and start off about 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon.  Stop somewhere in Somerset (on a site if possible, motorway services are far too noisy) and then an early start Sunday morning while the roads are very quiet.

Second option is to drive through the night on Friday (2 a.m. start), stop on motorway, usually Taunton Deane or Michel Wood, sleep for a few hours, then finish the journey before the rush arrives.   Only problem is stopping on services - tne noise from the lorries can be a real problem and I think their charges are high.  I would rather spend £18 a night to stop on a quiet site with the proper facilities.

This may sound like a lot of messing about...which it is really...but anything to avoid being stuck in a traffic jam for hours and hours.  Nothing worse.

We do that journey every year, we used to drive from manchester on a friday after work and stay at taunton on a CL for the night then set off saturadys morning around 8/9 am however the last time we did that we got caught in a bad accident and didnt arrive in newquay till 7 at night.

My advice would be set off after tea on Friday and drive straight through till you get to Cornwall, have the beds made up in the caravan the kids should fall asleep on route, park on the overnight parking at your campsite lift the kids straight into bed jump in yourself......get up after a few hours hey presto your on holiday!!!! with no nightmare traffic.

We also do this coming home if we are due to leave on Saturday we spend all day at the beach (hopefully) go to the pub for tea (no beer) back to the site wip the awning down and set off usually around 9/10pm reverse on the drive around 3/4 am steadys down. Go to bed nightmare journey avoided again 

Hope this helps it works for us

Bessie