Brittany thoughts...

[michaelmorris]

Okay, we're now nearing the end of our sojourn to Brittany and I thought I'd give a few thoughts on the ACSI card.

Firstly, it has definitely been worth getting.

Value - We've saved an average of about 4 euros a night. So we will have saved around 48 euros over the course of the holiday (after subtraction of the cost of the card and book).

Site Quality - Site quality has been highly variable. No sites have been bad, but one or two have either been a bit 'agricultural' and hygiene standards have been a bit questionable.

Site Descriptions - Some of the site descriptions should be nominated for the Mann-Booker prize for fiction! One site described itself as being in the countryside, even though it was in a town and surrounded by housing on all sides. Another side described itself as being 'near to the beach'. A quick check on Google maps revealed it was nearly 1km away. Most sites describe themselves as 'quiet'. Again one questions what they are comparing themselves against.

The Camping Car app - although this is an additional £4 or so, it is well worth it. You can view and post site reviews and it integrates very well with Google map'ssat navy functions to get you straight to the site.

One additional benefit is that sites accept the ACSI card as ID, so no need to show your passport when booking in.

 

[Sssnake]

Surely less than a kilometre actually is “near to the beach”?

[Tracker]

We like Brittany and by the sound of it we missed very little by never using sites and only staying on Aires?

Our total cost a few years ago was around 20 Euros for over three weeks although I expect prices will have risen since then and most of the Aires were either semi rural and a few were very close to the sea with quietness being almost universally available at no extra cost!

[Billggski]

Unfortunately many towns are selling their aires to companies who put up barriers and expect payment for minimal facilities. It makes ACSI even more attractive.

[Tracker]

Billggski - 2018-06-14 5:14 PM

Unfortunately many towns are selling their aires to companies who put up barriers and expect payment for minimal facilities. It makes ACSI even more attractive.

 

I suspected that might be the case, looks like we had the best years of cheap camping dunnit!!

 

I wonder if the myriad of small 2 to 5 van aires will be affected as the cost of conversion for those may be a lot more than the financial returns would justify?

[Guest pelmetman]

Europe is realising how much can made from Motorhomer farming *-) .......

[Tracker]

pelmetman - 2018-06-14 5:55 PM

Europe is realising how much can made from Motorhomer farming

 

To be fair you can't blame them for maximising the income potential, particularly as so few pay when it's just a dishonesty box, and it's still cost effective compared to sites so I don't see it ending any time soon?

[michaelmorris]

Tracker - 2018-06-14 6:10 PM

 

pelmetman - 2018-06-14 5:55 PM

Europe is realising how much can made from Motorhomer farming

 

To be fair you can't blame them for maximising the income potential,

The French economy has had to endure some pretty tough time recently (although not as bad as in the UK), so it's not surprising that local government finances have been squeezed.

.

With the ACSI card we still haven't paid more that the 18.10 euros (17 euros + 1 10 euros tourist tax), which is still way cheaper that staying in UK campsites.

 

If you assume you'd have to pay an average of £22 a night for equivalent sites in the UK, that makes a saving of around £7 a night over a UK campsite.

17 nights at £7 = a saving of £119.

Take away the £18 for the ACSI card, £387 for the ferry and £29 for the breakdown cover and allow £70 for the extra fuel, the net cost of spending the holiday in France as opposed to the UK will come in at around £385. (We already had a yearly travel insurance policy for visiting our daughter, who lives in Stockholm).

 

[Derek Uzzell]

Tracker - 2018-06-14 5:16 PM

 

Billggski - 2018-06-14 5:14 PM

Unfortunately many towns are selling their aires to companies who put up barriers and expect payment for minimal facilities. It makes ACSI even more attractive.

 

I suspected that might be the case, looks like we had the best years of cheap camping dunnit!!

 

I wonder if the myriad of small 2 to 5 van aires will be affected as the cost of conversion for those may be a lot more than the financial returns would justify?

 

I don’t recall there being a “myriad of small 2 to 5 van aires” in France unless you are defining “aires” in a different manner to me. Sites adhering to the France Passion scheme have a notional maximum of 5 motorhomes, but France Passion sites aren’t ‘aires’.

 

The main French player regarding converting redundant campsites and aires into motorhome-only facilities (and constructing new sites) is “Camping-Car Park”. The concept is described here:

 

https://campingcarpark.com/en/the-concept/

 

The end-product is closer to an ‘aire de services’ than a campsite, and the comparison with the ACSI scheme is not really valid as a Camping-Car Park site is open 24/7 all-year-round and the charge does not increase dramatically in the high season as can happen with an ASCI campsite.

 

French municipal campsites are closing down or moving into private ownership. ‘Aires’ that were free historically are increasingly becoming pay-to-use.

 

There’s no doubt that the halcyon days of wandering round France in a motorhome on the cheap are largely over. In the late 1990s it was a matter of principle when I was motorhoming in France to never pay for parking, water or waste-disposal, and it wasn’t that difficult to do. Now it’s a lot harder (and I prefer a few more creature comforts).

 

 

[Tracker]

Perhaps we saw more of Brittany than you did Derek but there were/are literally dozens of Aires all around the coastal and near coastal fringes of Brittany.

Some admittedly were little more than part of a car park and many were small and very basic but Aires nevertheless and quite good and peaceful enough for an overnight stop in many cases.

One year we found so many unlisted Aires de Camping Car and photgraphed and recorded them that Vicarious Books gave us a free new edition of their Aires book the following year!

I no longer have any books to count them all but no doubt someone does!

[sshortcircuit]

Of the 12 aires I visited this year only one was chargeable at €8 a night with water EHU and wifi. Of the others there is no way they will become barrier chargeable due to the nature of land and road layout. Possibly ticket vending machines but that needs to be monitored. I did have the ACSI card but as free aires are plentiful and without ACSI sites can sometimes give you a better deal, so never bothered.

Back in September down to Spain this time, and I have my list of free aires for stop offs on the way

[vino]

hi sshortcircuit

 

don't suppose you would care to share your aires list of getting to Spain. This would also give me your preferred route which will help me for the forthcoming trip in jan

 

much appreciated if have the time

[Derek Uzzell]

Tracker - 2018-06-14 7:02 PM

 

Perhaps we saw more of Brittany than you did Derek but there were/are literally dozens of Aires all around the coastal and near coastal fringes of Brittany.

 

It may of course be true that your knowledge of Brittany and its ‘aires’ is greater than mine - though we began our motorcaravanning in France in 1998 and, for the several years when we never stayed on campsites, Brittany was our preferred destination.

 

There are indeed low-volume ‘aires de stationnement camping-car’ in Brittany - a couple are shown on the map here:

 

https://www.campingcar-infos.com/Francais/cci.php?numero=27577

 

and there will be public car-parks that have a small number of larger spaces specifically assigned for motorhome use. But, as sshortcircuit says, neither low-volume motorhome stopping places, nor car-parks with motorhome-only spaces will be attractive to a commercial company (nor to a French municipality) to convince them to invest in improving/maintaining the site and installing an automated entry/exit system. An aire, redundant campsite, or the location itself needs to be large and attractive enough (and have sufficient ‘tyre-fall’) to produce a reasonable chance of a profit.

 

Automated barrier-systems at motorhome aires de services are not just being introduced by Camping-Car Park, French municipalities are also jumping on the bandwagon. For example, Ouistreham’s aire has had a barrier system since 2016 and Erquy’s aire since early-2018. A card-based automated entry/exit system minimises abuse of the installation (theft of cash from service-pedestals, long-term ‘squatting’, etc.) and removes the need for human involvement to collect parking charges.

 

This website

 

https://www.camping-car.com/aires/recherche/region-35-bretagne

 

shows Brittany having 622 aires. I don’t know how accurate that datum is, nor how many of the aires have parking/services charges - but there should still be more than enough to park/service a motorhome for an extended trip around Brittany without getting your wallet out.

[Billggski]

As usual, Derek's meticulous research has thrown up some interesting links. I still think the ACSI scheme is well worth the money, especially using the app, where you can filter your requirements to select a suitable site. I was on Ile d'Oleron last year and the luxury site was €15, the aire outside was €8 with no facilities and an extra charge for water, but five French mohos were using it!

[Barryd999]

I noticed the last time I was in Brittany that on both the north and south coast there were around half a dozen or so very scenic nice little free parking spots that had cropped up which I found via Camping Car infos which were for up to five vans. No services just lovely spaces by the coast.

 

There are still plenty of free aires in France. The small ones out of the way are the ones we tend to head for and long may they continue. I much prefer the company of a handful of vans or even none than to be on a large Aire or a campsite. Im not keen on these Camping Car park barrier Aires at all.

 

I much prefer to come and go as I please, somewhere small and relaxing and quiet. Thankfully I still dont find these types of places that hard to find.

[rupert123]

Who the hell cares about the cost of camping, it is still a small expense in France. We have just returned from a four week trip down to Provence and our biggest bill by far was fuel. It is now around the same cost as UK and petrol more expensive, all prices have shot up and it is not just the exchange rate. My French friends who we visited in two areas are all moaning about the cost of pretty much everything with no sign of improvement. They still ask why we are leaving the eu and I can now say just look around you.