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| A typical free 'aire' on the harbour at Valdermarsvik in Sweden |
One of the questions we get asked a lot is which countries are the most friendly when it comes to motorhomers. There isn’t an easy answer to this one, and it depends to an extent on how you use your motorhome and where you want to park it! The simple answer is that everywhere is motorhome friendly to a greater or lesser extent. So which countries are the winners and losers?
Our very unscientific (and at times slightly tongue-in-cheek)
test is based on:
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- Category 1 - Campsites / Overnight parking
- Category 2 - Park and ride
- Category 3 - The road network
- Category 4 - The price of diesel
Category 1 – Campsite
/ Overnight parking
Winners: France,
Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland
As motorhomers, those
countries with cheap or free overnight parking areas (aires or stellplatz) as
they tend to be called, tend to rank as being very motorhome friendly. France
and Germany are particularly good for these and you can buy books that list
them all.
Vicarious Books is your best bet for French Aires, as it is published in English and you can get it before you go. We bought our Stellplatz guide from a bookshop when we got to Germany. We found the Reise Mobil version to be the best. It’s all in German but it’s very easy to work out. It also came with a second guide that includes aires in other European countries. 25 euros well spent.
The Scandinavian countries enjoy the ‘right to roam’, which
means that although there are certain restrictions, in theory you can park your
van up overnight and stay anywhere. Some places actively encourage it and
others have started making a charge. Here’s a tip: Biltema, which is the Swedish
equivalent of B&Q even allow you to stay in their car parks overnight for
free and for 50p you can have a coffee and cake and use the loo in the morning!
Losers: Holland
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| Aires should be motorhomers only but you can forgive this outfit who had made it to Calais from Denmark! |
Least friendly in terms of the ‘wild camping’ in our experience
has been Holland. I guess with it being such a small country, they have to be
careful. They do have a few aires, but they tend to be three or four spaces at
the back of a municipal car park – not the place you would really want to spend
your holidays!
However, Holland does have a really good network of small
campsites called ‘minicamping’. These range from being the equivalent of “CL”
type sites through to 50 pitch sites with full facilities. They don’t tend to
have the swimming pools and shops etc, but the price reflects it as they range
from around £10-£20 for the night. They have a scheme with a book of sites (in
Dutch) called VaKeBo, which you can pick up on any member site for around a
tenner.
Category 2 – Park and
ride
Winners: Latvia,
Lithuania, Estonia
This is a difficult one. Many motorhomers accept the fact
that they might not be able to park right in the middle of a busy city. Having said
that, it is possible. We have parked slap bang in the middle of Vilnius,
Brussels and Toulouse to name three of the top of my head. However, we reckon
that we manage about a 10-20% success rate on city centre parking, unless it’s
Sunday, when it goes up to about 50%.
Instead, we use public transport and our bicycles a lot when
we are travelling. Our van is only 6 metres, which means that we can usually
find somewhere to park it on the outskirts and then either cycle, bus, tram or
train in.
The real trick is to find a campsite or aire that is
commutable to the centre. For example, In France we use a site in Melun. It’s
on the ACSI scheme out of season and is less than a mile from the train
station, which in turn is half an hour and about £15 to Paris. We have used
this same method throughout Europe and it works very well. Public transport also
allows you to see more of the country.
Losers: French and
Italian coastal towns in high season.
One of the unfortunate consequences of the increasing
popularity of motorhoming is that, particularly in the high season, busy areas
have simply banned motorhomers from parking, and in some cases even driving
into the town. We found this quite frustrating
in some of the French coastal areas where they seem to maintain the motorhome
parking ban even out of season. Tres mal.
Having said that, public transport in both countries is
excellent. Worthy of particular note is the Italian railway system. The network
is really easy to use, with automated ticket booths in English. They operate a
two-tier ticket system where you can pay less for a slower train. We travelled
from Pisa to Rome on the slow train. It took over four hours but only cost
about £20, and the journey was beautiful.
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| The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Italy has a superb train network. |
Category 3 – The road
network
Winners: Pretty much
everywhere – apart from the tolls, congestions charges and vignettes!
I can’t pick a clear winner on this. Driving on the
continent is one of the great joys of motorhoming. Whether you want to make
progress on the motorways, or veer off onto the smaller roads through the
little towns and villages.
Spain has to be one of the favourites as they
have miles and
miles of quiet toll-free motorways.
Rural France is amazing particularly if you avoid the tolls. You need to
be a bit careful if you are travelling north to south as you can easily rack up
around £70 in tolls on one long day of driving.
Tolls in general are a bit of a bug bear, particularly as
you sometime get charged as being a car, other times as a van. In addition to
tolls, many countries notably Switzerland and Austria have a vignette system
whereby you need to purchase a ‘tax disc’. You need to check the local
information to see how to do it. Usually it’s from petrol stations. Some
borders still have controls where you can stop and buy a vignette. Switzerland
very helpfully stop you on entry and extract the £40 odd quid there and then. They
also charge you for a whole year! Other countries are more generous and only
charge you for a few days.
Some towns and cities have introduced congestion charges
too. Many Norwegian towns do this and will alert you to the fact. It’s all done
electronically from your number plate and you can pay at petrol stations or
wait for the bill which they WILL send through the post for when you get home!
The E6 that goes north and then further north in Norway is
pretty spectacular. As it’s the only road going north, you are rarely alone and
if they need to mend it, they have to do it while you’re driving on it!
However, you are rewarded with amazing views that make you go ‘wow’ a lot.
Losers: Northern Poland.
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| Tram in Gdansk, Poland. Great public transport, slightly scary roads! |
We are sorry about this one. Poland is a beautiful place. We’ve
been in the northern lake district and across the northern coast to Gdansk.
However, our worst driving experience where we were a bit scared was north
Poland. There was a lot of work going on the roads, but when we were there, the
motorways were heavily rutted to the extent that you are actually in ‘tram
lines’ that can be several inches deep. Road signage is OK, but if there are
temporary road signs for roadworks, they can be a bit random. They are also
very short on lay-bys and roadside stops in this area and when you do find one,
it’s full of trucks.
Category 4 Winners –
The price of diesel
Winners: Luxemboug and Andorra.
This might be a bit of a bloke thing, but I’ve got a bit
obsessed by the price of diesel. Outright winners are really Luxembourg and
Andorra. Basically they keep their prices low (along with alcohol prices) to
tempt people to divert via their countries, just to fill up with diesel. The price
is so low that I drove around the block a few times, just so I could get more
in.
Eastern Europe seemed to be cheaper in general although many
of those countries are now seeing prices of everything go up a bit.
The really amazing thing is the variation in prices within
the same country. For example, on our last trip to France we saw prices of anywhere
between 1.25 euros and 1.60 euros. Some of this variation was regional. For
example, the area around Cognac seemed to be quite cheap, whereas northern
France was more expensive. Much of the variation however was based on the
specific locality.
Motorway diesel was by far the most expensive, followed by
petrol stations on main roads and in very rural areas. The cheapest was the
supermarkets and non-staffed stations. The simple trick really is never to buy
on the motorway, but take your chances with a brief detour into a local town
when you need to fill up.
Category 4 Losers:
Britain and Norway
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| Luxemboug - fairytale castles and cheap diesel! |
Norway has always had a reputation for being expensive for
everything. I think we may have overtaken them now in terms of fuel prices.
There’s not much you can do about this really. We try to save filling up until
we get on the continent and we fill up before we come back again. In Norway,
you just have to bite the bullet. Service stations can be few and far between
if you are going north, so you need to fill up when you see one. Many motorhomers
go up through Sweden for as long as possible before heading into Norway.
Summary
As I said at the outset, all the countries we have visited
are motorhome-friendly these days. In high season, you are bound to encounter
some restrictions and this is understandable. However, everywhere we have been,
the locals have been pleased to see us. We’ve never had a parking ticket or
anyone having a moan at us about where we’ve parked our van.
The beauty of motorhoming is that you probably get to see
much more of a country than you would with any other type of holiday, so you
can afford to be philosophical about the odd
‘No motorhoming’ signs that you only tend to see in coastal areas
anyway.
If you’ve got an opinion or experience to share, feel free
to comment.
