Guides to French Aires

[alistair]

There seem to be three guides to French aires - Guide National Aires Camping Cars 2010, All the Aires France (Vicarious Books), and Le Guide Officiale Aires Camping Car 2010. Can anyone familiar with them suggest which of these is best for touring in France? My wife reads French quite fluently so having an English-language guide isn't necessary. We'll also have the Caravan Club Camping Europe guide.

 

Many thanks.

 

Alistair

[terry1956]

Hi, there is not a lot between them realy. Your best bet is to pick a spot you know and like and also one you don,t and read the write up in each book, the oine that suits you best is the one to buy.

terry

[pkc]

Hi Aalistair,

 

I tend to use All the Aires France (Vicarious Books, mainly because my French is diabolical, for more info there are lots of sites on the web,

 

airecampingcar.com/aire_camping_car_gps.php/634?z=9 is a good one, but there are many others, no doubt someone will be along soon with more.

 

Regards, PKC.

[PJay]

Hi Alistair

There are several Aires books, which you can buy in the large supermarkets in France. They are easy to uderstand, even if your French is not to good. I find the french ones better than the All the aires ,( though this is in English) One of them does give GPS co-ordinataes, can't remeber which one.

The French books have more aires than the English version, ( and the locals all know them!!) Some aries you can come across buy accident, just by following the signs in villages. We have found some lovely ones in the past,

PJay

[MandyAndy]

We have all mentioned but would not be without this one -

 

http://www.camperstop.co.uk/

 

We also buy the downloads for the Tom Tom (3E each) so if one is full or not suitable Andy can just have a look on the Tom Tom for nearest one and it gives you the page number on the sat nav for me to check it out in the book.

 

Just bought our latest 2010 copy from Peterborough show and it is far better than the older versions with many colour photo's and even more Aires than before.

 

Alot of it in French but sections in English.

 

Mandy

[zulurita]

We tend to get both of the French books. The thicker one isn't as good as it used to be. The thinner white one has the GPS and has some photos of the aires, we like this one.

 

We also have the English version and camper stop.

[KeithR]

as stated, there are a number of different french guides, but they dont all have all the same aires in. i have 3 different guides and compare them when im ready for a stop.

[eljay]

Hi Alistair,

 

My wife and I swear by what has been referred to as the "white book". Its full title is "Le Guide National des Aires de Services Camping Cars" and can be found in many French supermarkets. For us, having a series of maps in the back of the book, as opposed to having a separate map, is a better option.

 

Before we moved to France we used to buy ours in Calais Caravannes which is on the left between Calais centre and Auchan supermarket. I now buy mine through our local book and newspaper shop.

 

Whichever you buy, enjoy your touring.

 

Eljay

 

 

[fjmike]

Whilst prefering the Campingcar magazines book (the green one). I also use http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm as this info is bang up to date. This gets round the problem that even the best paper publication is probably up to a year out of date due to the time it takes to collate, print and publish. They also do a FREE satnav download which is very good