Aires in France-HELP

[Guest Wilf Nicholson]

Could any of my fellow readers help me out? Over the last few months several readers have posted various information regarding publications relating to Aires in France & Spain. In some cases they have quoted actual book refernce numbers and titles. I have tried without success to obtain any information due to the wrong title or reference numbers. If any of you fellow motorcaravanners out there can supply me with accurate information and web sites I would very much appreciate the help. Thankyou in anticipation, Wilf Nicholson

[Guest Teresa]

The Book you need is Le Guide Officiel Etapes Camping-Car. You can get it in French Supermarkets but to prepare in advance it can be purchased at Camping & Travel Guides, Travel and Tourism Consultancy Services, Chesil Lodge, West Bexington, Dorset. DT2 9DG Tel 01308 898132 E Mail Clive or Lois@abbtel.co.uk It is about £8.00. Money well pent.

[Guest peter goddard]

We were in France for 6 weeks recently and tried to get this book in at least 20 large supermarkets, no luck at all. Maybe because it was at the end of the season. I suggest you get it before you actually go to France as it will help with the planning anyway.

[Guest ja]

see also: http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm

[Guest petej]

The book is printed somewhere around march/april time each year and sells out very quickly in France. The website mentioned by ja is probably THE foremost search facility for motorhome stopovers on the web, not only for france, but many other european countries, well worth a visit. pete.

[Guest Brian Kirby]

There are two, the one referred to above is published March each year. 2005 price 8euros. The other is Le Guide National des Aires de Services Camping-cars: published by Editions Lariviere in conjunction with their specialist magazine Le Monde du Camping Car. Also published around March. Price 2005 about 11 euros. Both come with maps showing the locations of the French Aires. The latter has a slightly cleater map, but the former includes information on aires in Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Grece, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland. However, that does not mean the info on aires outside France is exhaustive or, necessarily, up to date. Also, some of those countries have very few aires! Best to wait until March April before buying, if you can, then you get the updated info on France for 2006. The aires do come and go, so up to date is desirable to avoid disappointment. You can get either mail order with credit card from the respective web sites, but the latter wants a whopping 14.8 euros to deliver to UK. However, neither is offering their 2006 edition yet. They can be obtained from the larger supermarket magazine sections but also from the larger newsagents who sell a good selection of magazines, from the travel sections of bookshops and even from some motorhome dealerships. I bought my Guide Officiel from Calais Caravanes in April - and he still had a few in October. Avenue Roger Salengro, Calais. Also has a web site with map etc if you get desperate. English spoken if needed. Good luck Brian

[Guest Colin]

There is another guide which is published by "TRAILOR-PARKS" and covers all of the aires on the west coast of France with their locations on a town plan type of diagram. Cost is around 15 Euros. I was unable to get one in August but expect to get one at the end of March when I usually find the others are available. Colin

[Guest Bill Ord]

I did a search at Waterstones to see if I could find the guide for you. If you put in Etapes Camping-Car you will find it; the ISBN number is 2902417578 I doubt if it will be obtainable at this time of year as the new 2006 gude is probably in preparation but at least you know that waterstones can source it in the U.K. for future reference. Bill Ord

[Guest Mike B]

Hi Wilf try this website www.eurocampingcar.com/ and go to English then bookshop and you will see it advertised. After that go to www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm and you can see the write ups of aires by the visitors. Also helps you to plan a route. If you have a particular rout in mind, drop me a line and I'll tell you the ones I've usde in the area Regards Mike

[Guest Brian Kirby]

Just tried both the above sites - excellent. Thanks for the info Mike. One thing Mike didn't mention, there is a downloadable file on the campingcars-infos site that gives you a vast selection of aires throughout Europe. It says it works with Autoroute Express, but I tried opening it with Autoroute 2002 it worked just fine. From the description of the file, it seems it will also work with the 2003 and 2004 versions. Very impressive! There's such a density of aires in France you can't see the land until you get to quite a high magnification. Basically someone has created a pushpin (Autoroute terminology for a electronic map tack) for every aire, diffenentiating those on campsites, those on autoroutes, those that are just parking areas and the other, municipal/private ones. Each pushpin has notes as well, in French, but kept fairly simple to stay within the constraints of Autoroute. In addition, they'll post you the whole aires directory on CD (updated every 2 months), for about 17.5 Euros (15 Euros in France) per CD. Now why don't we have something like that? Regards to all Brian