OT camping on usenet

We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as possible.
I've had a quick scout round Usenet but the camping seems to be very US
biased (backwoods) and I daren't type Eurocamp into Google :-). Does anyone
here know of any good European/France camping forums?
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/ seems to be a good start but I wondered
if there were others? Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers

dd

On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:59:00 +0100, "DDEckerslyke"
wrote:

We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as possible.
I've had a quick scout round Usenet but the camping seems to be very US
biased (backwoods) and I daren't type Eurocamp into Google :-). Does anyone
here know of any good European/France camping forums?
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/ seems to be a good start but I wondered
if there were others? Any advice gratefully received.


There is uk.rec.camping Have you seen that? It's quite a quiet
newsgroup but worth posting to.

(For some reason I had to refresh my newsreaders group list when I
wanted to subscribe to urcamping. I couldn't see it beforehand.)

Judith

DDEckerslyke wrote:

We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as possible.
I've had a quick scout round Usenet but the camping seems to be very US
biased (backwoods) and I daren't type Eurocamp into Google :-). Does anyone
here know of any good European/France camping forums?
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/ seems to be a good start but I wondered
if there were others? Any advice gratefully received.

Just go :-)

We did loads of cycle-camping in France (and elsewhere) when our
children were young (and with four of them) using tandem/tandem trike/kiddiecranks/seats/trailer.
Our first trip with a littl'un was a month wild-camping in Corsica with
KJ when she was just one year old.

Get yourself a copy of the Michelin camping guide to France which will
probably cover most of your needs and call in to local tourist offices
as you go. Most towns and villages have sites signposted, often linked
to other leisure activities and run by the local council.
Or just call in any locals bar and ask, which really is the best way.

We tended to avoid the touristy places where the sites could sometimes
be too 'holiday-campish' for our likes but you will find numerous
smaller quiet places to camp.

But the best places to camp are in the back 'gardens' of bars or on
quiet beaches - so long as you have already obtained your vin :-)

Enjoy.

John B

On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:59:00 +0100, "DDEckerslyke"
wrote in message
:

We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as possible.

Have you tried asking these nice people? http://www.sf2005.org/


Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

"DDEckerslyke" wrote in message
...
We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over
the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as
possible.
I've had a quick scout round Usenet but the camping seems to be very US
biased (backwoods) and I daren't type Eurocamp into Google :-). Does
anyone
here know of any good European/France camping forums?
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/ seems to be a good start but I
wondered
if there were others? Any advice gratefully received.

I have found www.campingfrance.com very useful. No need to book if you avoid
July and August.
I usually only stay overnight at any one place so am not too bothered about
the facilities but you may want to avoid the one and two star sites.

Ken.

If you're going anytime in August you'll have to book ahead. In July
and September you're mostly OK to turn up except for the popular sites.
The "Camping Municipale" sites provided by most towns are very nice if
you're not looking for entertainment on site, and very good value. You
can find these on the internet, but you'll have to look up the tourist
information site for the area you're going to. Out of season, you can
take pot luck - sites are on the Michelin maps and there's loads of
them, so if you don't like the look of one it's easy to move on. If you
want the ones with loads of facilities, pools, bars, noise, etc then it
can be good to look up the sites on Eurocamp (as they tend to pick nice
sites) then use google to find the phone number of the site and ring
and book direct. They will mostly want a booking fee, so it can be a
pain if you're moving around and is expensive as it's in addition to
the site fee, not a deposit.

http://www.camping.uk-directory.com/camping_forum/

On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:59:00 +0100, DDEckerslyke wrote:

We (Mum, Dad and three kids age 6,5,3) are going camping in France over the
summer. We are novices so we'd like as much information/advice as possible.
I've had a quick scout round Usenet but the camping seems to be very US
biased (backwoods) and I daren't type Eurocamp into Google :-). Does anyone
here know of any good European/France camping forums?
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/ seems to be a good start but I wondered
if there were others? Any advice gratefully received.

As someone else pointed out, uk.rec.camping is the 'proper' camping group
but it's gone quiet for the moment. However, having been subscribed to it
last summer I think that this is just a seasonal variation. Most of the
regular posters have retreated to the related uk.rec.* groups such as
uk.rec.walking (another great group). In other words, it's quiet but there
are still people in there and any question you posted would probably be
seen and get a response.


--
***My real address is m/ike at u/nmusic d/ot co dot u/k (removing /s)
np:
http://www.unmusic.co.uk
http://www.unmusic.co.uk/amh-s-faq.html - alt.music.home-studio FAQ
http://www.unmusic.co.uk/wrap.php?file=vhs.html - vhs purchase log.

snip snip

Many thanks for this and all the other replies. Eurocamp?!

cheers

dd