Off piste in France in our own campervan

By Alison Davison, Birmingham Post

There's no holding up traffic in the nippy new campervans on offer these days and they are ideal for the open roads of France

Ah, the caravanning life with the open road stretching ahead of you - because everyone else is stuck behind you.

That's how the old joke goes but when J and I decided to explore France by campervan this summer, we managed to enjoy the open road without delaying everyone else's holidays.

Campervans these days are getting positively trendy and ours, a Swift Kon Tiki if you're interested, lent to us by the Caravan Club, was a surprisingly nippy mover despite its size.

Not that we - or rather J - were driving dangerously, of course. I was far too much of a wuss to try life behind the wheel anyway. The size of the thing was scary enough but taking it on the wrong side of the road as well. Not a chance. It's just as well he had no problem with it at all.

We'd had a bit of practice beforehand. The Caravan Club organises courses for those new to the game with lots of advice on manoeuvring, reversing, parking and so on, as well as useful advice on connecting up the electrics on campsites and various other essential matters.

The great benefit of CC membership, though, is that with all their affiliated sites in the UK and right across the continent, it made planning the holiday a doddle. Membership brings preferential rates for both the sites and ferry crossings, too. It also seemed in several places to win us the best pitches.

"Ah, le Caravan Club!" said one campsite owner as I turned up bearing my red CC wallet, before directing us to a fantastic - and practically empty - peaceful stretch of the site overlooking the fields and woods of the Limousin.

Other Brits on the site kept asking us rather enviously how we'd managed it. "Well, there's no shade," we pointed out, a little shamefaced. But actually, with a large (fitted) awning and the excellent insulation of modern mobile homes, the lack of shade wasn't a problem, even in the blistering temperatures we experienced there.

Campsites are busy places, especially in high season, and the facilities in some can be a little basic. That Limousin campsite had - horror of horrors - mixed showers and loos, which provided far too vivid a realisation of what the Romans' communal lavatories must have been like.

Thank the Lord, then, for having our very own mini bathroom on board. Campers are a sociable lot but there are limits to how close you want to be.

Even so, the French sites were an eye-opener for J, who hadn't been totally enthusiastic about our venture. Camping in his mind meant muddy fields, chemical toilets and a week of shuffling around bent double under canvas.

What a different world this was. The campervan was superbly well-equipped (including a proper cooker) and positively spacious, especially with just the two of us in it so we could leave the bed made up. In theory, it could sleep five but to be honest, you'd feel pretty cramped.

The sites were well-ordered and offered plenty of facilities, from a shop where you could pick up your breakfast croissants to children's play areas and swimming pools. Because the sites are very family-orientated, they may not be for you if the thought of being surrounded by youngsters is your idea of hell.

That said, there are plenty of mature empty-nesters using them (you can always tell the diehard campers by the tablecloths clipped on to the outdoor table). Not every pitch is occupied by 2.5 children.

It was also our experience that behaviour was generally exemplary, with a well-respected curfew on loud noise after 10pm. Unlike some UK sites, there are no gangs of lads and ladettes - indeed, many sites won't even let them in.

Of course, with a campervan you don't actually need a site at all - you can go off-piste or "wild camping" as it's known but such activities are rather frowned upon.

Our route took us from Calais through Picardy and down past Le Mans to central France and the Limousin, where we had several glorious days in our much-envied spot, practically living outside, from our al fresco croissants and coffee in the morning to several (very cheap) glasses of wine around the anti-mosquito candle as darkness fell and the spooky sounds of nightjars echoed through nearby woods.

Like several of the other sites we visited, this was based in the grounds of a chateau. Also like the others, it had a mix of nationalities - plenty of Brits, quite a few Germans and Italians, some French families but overwhelmingly, Dutch. It is truly amazing just how many Nederlanders take to the road in the summer. "Holland must be empty!" J kept saying.

Before we'd got to the Limousin, though, we'd had, well, a bit of an accident. We hadn't intended to test the efficiency of our Red Pennant insurance but unfortunately, we did - and on our very first full day in France.

A fellow Brit campervanner coming our way had waved at us merrily (it's a campervan driver thing) before smashing off our wing mirror and bouncing it off my door and then the main van door, temporarily deafening me in the process.

The smiling assassin, as J called him, didn't bother with such trivial courtesies as stopping. The insurers were quickly on the case and sent someone over from England with a replacement, which was fixed remarkably rapidly by a nearby garage. We lost some time off our holiday but otherwise, the pain was minimal.

It gave us another night at a good site at St Valery-sur-Somme (where we had another great, empty spot) and also the opportunity to find out that you can always find somewhere to stay.

Touring the coast from Dieppe, we quickly came across a small site that was a bit squashed and basic but a bargain ten euros a night.

But back to the main jaunt. After our stay in the Limousin, we headed west to the coast, marvelling as ever at the tranquillity of the roads and the almost-ghostly emptiness of all those incredibly-pristine French towns and villages, each one, no matter how tiny, with its own mairie.

We'd had great fun arranging the holiday, trawling through the

brochure and choosing our two-week route and our stop-off places, but the Atlantic coastal sites had been more of a headache to organise.

Even back in February, many were already booked up for the summer. The coast generally was just a bit too busy for us. It wasn't long before we were heading back inland for a wonderful journey through Normandy, an area I'd always dismissed previously as a bit boring.

But avoiding the motorways took us through villages so unspoilt they could have been in a theme park. We came across campsites - not that we needed or were looking for them - in fantastic spots. One was by the side of a river within a beautiful old town, another on the top of a hill with unbelievable views.

In an unplanned excursion, we ended up using a municipal site in a small, picture-postcard town. It was on the edge of a public park. In a lot of the UK, it would be scary and vandalised.

Here, it was peaceful and unspoilt, its loo and shower block simple but clean and cared for. That place was six euros a night.

After our two weeks away, it was nice to be back in the UK but as we sat in our first traffic jam in a fortnight, we couldn't help but feel rather envious of those who were just setting off. A life on the road doesn't seem quite so wonderful when you don't actually move.

* Annual membership of the Caravan Club costs around £34. Members have access to the largest private network of sites in the British Isles and get discounts on club sites and ferry crossings. There are also more than 2,500 member-only five-van rural sites.

* The Caravan Club also offers members advance and online booking, free expert caravanning advice, a legal helpline and insurance services. See caravanclub.co.uk or call 0800 328 6635 for more details.