starvin marvin Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Been back a week now from our winter trip. We were away for 135 nights of which we spent 41 nights on sites (6no sites in total) with 35 nights on one site. The rest were either aires or free camps. We were only on our own for 1 night, at an aire in France. We neither looked for company nor avoided it, thats how it happened. We were only moved off a free camp once it total, that was in Spain after 5 nights, some Brits had been there for 3 weeks! The Police were very polite and only requested that us and the 50 other vans move the following day. At one free camp in Portugal all the vans, about 15 of us were asked to park parallel to the spaces rather than across them so the Portugese could park at the weekend, all 2 off them! The most useless accessory fitted to the van was the wind out awning which we didn't use once! The most useless item we carried with us was this laptop. Unless you're very skilled in the use of wireless connectivity generally you can forget it. We met several people, various nationalities like us who were struggling and then gave up to use cyber cafes etc. Sat nav was surprisingly useful at times, but can get on your nerves and was often switched off before it was thrown out the window. Got us back from Portugal to the Dartford crossing with no tolls but on good fast roads. ACSI was another disappointment, not much use to us with our type of travelling, although we got 1 night free in France, warden didn't come to collect the cash, so us and a Dutch couple who also couldn't wait, left at 10.00am. I got 5 euro's off one site in Spain, so we got our money back. The rest we tried had no discount at the time we were there, or were closed when it said they were open. We did about 5,500 miles and if you take in all our various costs it has worked out at about 1 euro/mile, perhaps a little bit less. I haven't finally added up all the costs. I could share all sort of information etc if anyone is particularly interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Momma Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Would be interested to know: What M'Home do you have (Overall length) Route to/from What sort of Gas do you use for Cooking/heating Did you budget for daily/weekly costs And anything else about your trip which would be useful for someone who has never spent this period of time away but would like to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted April 3, 2009 Author Share Posted April 3, 2009 Big Momma - 2009-04-03 8:35 PM Would be interested to know: What M'Home do you have (Overall length) Route to/from What sort of Gas do you use for Cooking/heating Did you budget for daily/weekly costs And anything else about your trip which would be useful for someone who has never spent this period of time away but would like to. M/H: We have a panel van which is a 2003 lwb 2.8 Fiat. Not sure of the length without checking. Route: We don't really do a route we just point it and go, planning as we go on an almost daily basis. That said we went to Provence first and got pushed south by the weather. Had a week in South West France close to the Spanish border, which was brilliant. We went down towards Barcelona and then around it and on down the coast, including the Cabo de Gata until we got close to Malaga and then jumped off towards Seville and on to the Algarve, missed going to Cordoba, too cold for us. We went up the Rio Guadiana, up into the Monchique hills and loads of places around the coast. Then from around Sines we headed off back home, 3 days to France, 3 days bumming around, then 3 days back to Calais. Gas: We have a 6kg refillable, a 6 kg British bottle and 2no 907 camping gaz. What we did in Spain was in addition to refilling was to buy at a market a 12 kg Repsol butane for 10 E and getting a full exchange bottle on site for 15 E. Swopped this once more in Spain. In Portugal exchanged the big steel Repsol bottle for a Portugese 6kg Repsol plastic bottle and got a 15 E credit for the Spanish bottle! We had the British bottle refilled in Portugal, there are places there that will fill any type of bottle. Spain is the problem if you rely on refillable bottles. I have a Dutch guide with the locations of all European "autogas" filling stations, which was really useful to me and lots of other people, earned loads of brownie points! Budget: We budgeted for the whole trip and checked our rate of spend on a weekly basis. We don't have solar panels and went 4 weeks before we needed a top up of mains on a Spanish aire for 11 E a night, we just hadn't driven far enough in between. After that we had electricity once more, (but only because of rough weather), before we set off for home. You can buy a lot of electricity for the cost of a solar panel, but you need 2no decent leisure batteries and no TV! You need to take hobbies with you if you don't use TV; books, games, and my special treat is a British newspaper and keep it for swops! Everybody swops reading material. When you're ready just go, we've done 6 weeks, then 11 weeks and now 20 weeks or thereabouts. You'll learn and the confidence will grow. There are so many people ready to help if you have a problem. Finally there are 4 questions you ask of fellow travellers on "sites" new to you. 1) Where do you dump your poo? ie toilet/sewer 2) Where do you get water? 3) Have you been here long and have you been moved by the Police? 4) Can you recommend any other spots? This usually works fine and we have had some wonderful places suggested to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted April 4, 2009 Share Posted April 4, 2009 hi, we have just returned from 8 weeks in spain and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. we were very dubious before we set off as we are still very much novices to motorhoming and had never been away for so long.we needn't have worried, everything went smoothly. we went from calais to rouen, poitiers,tours,bayonne,san sebastian,zaragosa,valencia.we stayed on aires through france (courtesy of the french aires book).once we got to spain we used the "acis camping card" for our first 2 nights at 15e per day which saved us at least the price of the book.then we went to benidorm and stayed on the villasol park for 2 weeks. this was extremely expensive (350e),although we returned for the last 2 weeks of our holiday and got the discount they offer (31 nights for 16.25e) instead of 19e a night .we loved benidorm,it has absolutely everything you could want and was very lively. from here we spent 4 nights in santa pola, again using our acsi card and saving quite a lot of money.from here we went to "el berro" in alhama de murcia,another site featured in the acsi book.after 2 nights we drove to mazzaron to a site,but it was full.we panicked, and really didn't know what to do or where to go.as luck would have it, a man recognised our plight and informed us that just up the road there were around 40 motorhomes wild camping.not knowing what to expect,we decided nothing ventured,nothing gained and joined them.well, we had a great time. not only were we parked yards from the sea, we also met a lot of lovely people who all looked out for one another. from here we drove back to santa pola,wondering whether to go to the campsite again or wild camp on the beach. we decided on wild camping, we had had such a lovely time we were excited about doing it again.we parked next to a lovely australian couple, lynne and frank (i have lost their e mail address, unfortunatley) and stayed a few nights.there was about 50 motorhomes this time. then we moved on to el campello and did 2 nights wild, again on the seafront. from here we went back to benidorm,before returning home. we are now hooked on wild camping, although i would like to go to a site every few days,just to replenish the water, and dump the waste. also, then you can use your awning etc etc. but, by doing a bit of both, we managed to save ourselves a few quid. we can't wait for our next long holiday, which will proberbly be a replica of the first as we enjoyed it so much.we will just be a bit more prepared for the wild camping side of it.i have gps co-ordinates of the wild sites if anyone wants them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 I agree with your sentiments, My wife and I are thoroughly hooked on "free" camping. I have to say when you're with lots of other vans its not what you can really call "wild". We tried to camp on our own but every time someone joined us! Plus you get to stay at the best places with views, not just of other vans. Camp sites can be well out of town. Out of season sites in France and Spain can for me be a bit depressing, with the permanent vans covered up for the winter. The Spanish popular coastal sites are generally just too crowded and not good value either. We met a Kiwi couple on our travels and they called it "freedom" camping which I think sounds exactly right. Here's to the next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boxer1 Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Trickydicky Could you please send me the gps co-ordinates as we intend going to Spain in 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 hi boxer, here are the co ordinates for you and anyone else that wants them. MAZARRON N37.56347' W1.17342' SANTA POLA N38.18867' W0.53946' EL CAMPELLO N38.41840' W0.39103' happy holidays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hymer1942 Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Can I put these into my Garmin Nuvo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 maybe we could have a thread purely for gps co ordinates for "wild"/ "freedom" whatever it may be called camping.i don't have anymore so i can't start one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Momma Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Many thanks to everyone, you have certainly got my travel juices going. I am a little nervous about the 'wild camping' but the more I read from those that have done it tempts me to say 'Give it a go' nothing ventured nothing gained eh :-> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickydicky Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 i understand what your saying big momma, that's how we felt until we did it. BUT, we only tried it because there were lots of other motorhomes around, and we made sure we were in amongst them, not parked alone like some people do.to me,they are asking for trouble or are very brave. the beauty of "wild" camping for us was being so close to the sea and shops as we don't have any other form of transport it can sometimes be a long walk from the campsite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 Big Momma - 2009-04-15 6:04 PM Many thanks to everyone, you have certainly got my travel juices going. I am a little nervous about the 'wild camping' but the more I read from those that have done it tempts me to say 'Give it a go' nothing ventured nothing gained eh :-> What is it you are nervous about? If we don't "fancy" a location for whatever reason move on. If you're looking for free camps on the coast get down as close to the sea as you can and keep what my wife calls her "vandar" working and you will find the free camps, no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Momma Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 I guess since we were broken in to whilst in France a couple of years ago we have a lack of confidence. However, and how great is hindsight, I realise that we could have done a lot better to have deterred the intruder(s). You say that if you look around and don't like the area that you move on but what if you have been driving a while and are too tired ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Try to set up camp mid afternoon so you don't drive too far and get too tired. Also finding an off site camping place is so much easier in daylight. Our experience is that most o, and water and loo points, when asked and there seems to be far more cameraderie than ever you get on official sites. It's great fun and no way will we ever go back to paying silly money for a site. I'm not knocking those who do - each to his own - but we know which we prefer. There is no right or wrong - only different! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Big Momma - 2009-04-16 7:17 PM I guess since we were broken in to whilst in France a couple of years ago we have a lack of confidence. However, and how great is hindsight, I realise that we could have done a lot better to have deterred the intruder(s). You say that if you look around and don't like the area that you move on but what if you have been driving a while and are too tired ? These experiences can make anyone feel vulnerable, we do try to have choices as to our overnight stops. We generally feel the sense of security of sites can be misplaced, very few if any that I've every stayed on are fenced and secured, some have barriers or gates but anyone could if they choose just walk in. I know there are some sites in cities and poor countries that are secured with fences and gates etc but we tend not to do cities very much. The only sites we've ever stayed at that were fully guarded, fenced and gated were in Romania. Most people just feel more secure with others around them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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