Newbie with Questions!

[utahgirl12]

Hello and thank you for such a fabulous site!

To say we are new to camper vanning is an understatement. We have just bout a LWB T5 and are in the process of getting it converted. It will be ready March 16th. Excited!

We intend to use it to get away for short weekends and over nights and also for longer road trips abroad, mainly Western Europe to start and to get our bearings with all that is involved. We hope to get further afield, especially Scandinavia later on.

We will probably take it to France for 5 days in the Easter holidays.

We intend to use our Dub all year round.

I’ve had a lot of food info off this site already and I’m particularly interested in looking into the French Passion sites and the Aires; would anybody with any experience of them please share any tips?

Also, I am wondering whether it is worth joining the Camping Club/Camping and Caravanning Club/getting an ACSI card. Again, any advice as to advantages of any, or personal preferences welcome please.

Also, my mind is boggling as to what I need to take and where to store it. No doubt I will work it out in time, but would appreciate some advice as to maybe essentials I wouldn’t have thought of.

Basically….any advice on anything to do with camper vanning then please share. All advice gratefully received.

Thanks,

Lucy

[Patyogi]

bogof
Don’t join the CCCclub waste of money, unless you have a million buck motorhome and a horse at home, sorry worked for them for over 10 years. Biased in a bad way.
Passion sites and aires are brill, ACSI too, you only have to use a few c/sites abroad to get your money back.

The Aires site book is good to get, it’s really expensive this year, but once you have it it’s good for the next decade. Look up Vicarious Books, vicarious-shop.co.uk best place to get it, unless you want a couple of years old copy from fleabay for a tenner.

[Patyogi]

bogof
Don’t join the CCCclub waste of money, unless you have a million buck motorhome and a horse at home, sorry worked for them for over 10 years. Biased in a bad way.
Passion sites and aires are brill, ACSI too, you only have to use a few c/sites abroad to get your money back.

The Aires site book is good to get, it’s really expensive this year, but once you have it it’s good for the next decade. Look up Vicarious Books, vicarious-shop.co.uk best place to get it, unless you want a couple of years old copy from fleabay for a tenner.

[Patyogi]

Best of the best
Advice is to just do it but stay safe, keep away from parking in/on service area’s, if you want to overnite look for a little village/town of the main though-fare and check it out.
Drive through it, clock the bar and supermarche the park sensibly on the outskirts, locals will always welcome you, especially if you are shopping in their town.
Aires are brill, you can usually stay 72 hours, sometimes longer, look at the info in the book. Some !!!! even offer free lecky, most you have to pay for… a couple of €’s.

Water is free, don’t use the hoses, use your own. The t**sers in motor-homes may have washed their cassette toilets out, have seen them and told them off, for what it’s worth.
Those near a classical cities/towns will be crowded by our foreign brethren with washing out, drive on there are so many undiscovered beautiful towns in Spain, France and Italy, ooops! Forgot Portugal, one of the nicest places to visit.

Basic advice get on the road, and say hello.

[Patyogi]

Best of the best
Advice is to just do it but stay safe, keep away from parking in/on service area’s, if you want to overnite look for a little village/town of the main though-fare and check it out.
Drive through it, clock the bar and supermarche the park sensibly on the outskirts, locals will always welcome you, especially if you are shopping in their town.
Aires are brill, you can usually stay 72 hours, sometimes longer, look at the info in the book. Some !!!! even offer free lecky, most you have to pay for… a couple of €’s.

Water is free, don’t use the hoses, use your own. The t**sers in motor-homes may have washed their cassette toilets out, have seen them and told them off, for what it’s worth.
Those near a classical cities/towns will be crowded by our foreign brethren with washing out, drive on there are so many undiscovered beautiful towns in Spain, France and Italy, ooops! Forgot Portugal, one of the nicest places to visit.

Basic advice get on the road, and say hello.

[lauraJonathan]

Hey,
We’ve just spent 5
Hey,

We’ve just spent 5 summer months in Europe, ending in France, I would say the Aires book is a defo to purchase. We didnt and struggled to start with, especially in the south of France. We attempted to photocopy pages from people we met who had the book! Hard work! So i’d defo recommend buying it.
They were fab though, offering anything from just parking up to wifi/parking/water and electricity. We didnt use any campsites at all in France, just the aires.

We didnt buy any camping club cards in the whole of Europe, never needed any.

We had (just sold her!) a T5 aswell Lucy and lived very comfortably in her for the 5 months. To be honest you really dont need much, its such a simple life and you need very little. After a few short breaks you’ll get a feel for your essentials.

Heres a quick list of random essentials i can think of!..
I found cleaning wipes ideal to just give everything a quick clean down.
Food bags were used alot!
Baby wipes
A decent kettle.
A thing to stop your frying pan fat splashing everywheere, I dont know what the technical term is for it!
A comfy outdoor chair or blanket.
Mozzi repelant.
A notebook and pen.
We got back of seat storage holders for behind the passenger front seat, loads of small little pockets for little essentials to keep to hand.

Scandinavia was mind blowing…

Enjoy
🙂

[lauraJonathan]

Hey,
We’ve just spent 5
Hey,

We’ve just spent 5 summer months in Europe, ending in France, I would say the Aires book is a defo to purchase. We didnt and struggled to start with, especially in the south of France. We attempted to photocopy pages from people we met who had the book! Hard work! So i’d defo recommend buying it.
They were fab though, offering anything from just parking up to wifi/parking/water and electricity. We didnt use any campsites at all in France, just the aires.

We didnt buy any camping club cards in the whole of Europe, never needed any.

We had (just sold her!) a T5 aswell Lucy and lived very comfortably in her for the 5 months. To be honest you really dont need much, its such a simple life and you need very little. After a few short breaks you’ll get a feel for your essentials.

Heres a quick list of random essentials i can think of!..
I found cleaning wipes ideal to just give everything a quick clean down.
Food bags were used alot!
Baby wipes
A decent kettle.
A thing to stop your frying pan fat splashing everywheere, I dont know what the technical term is for it!
A comfy outdoor chair or blanket.
Mozzi repelant.
A notebook and pen.
We got back of seat storage holders for behind the passenger front seat, loads of small little pockets for little essentials to keep to hand.

Scandinavia was mind blowing…

Enjoy
🙂

[Author]

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