The fine print & looking forward to the next adventure

In this, the last posting of France 2013, l have decided to briefly summarize the boring bits which when taken in consideration are important'ish.   

France 2013 Route

Being base in the the north east & only 30 minutes from the port, we find it more convenient to use the P & O Ferries from Hull to either Zeebrugge or Rotterdam.  The price is on a par to that of Portsmouth to St Malo whilst the crossing time from 6pm through to 8pm works really well for us.

We tend not to plan our route, this is not just because we book the crossing about 24 hours before hand, but as we tend to be weather led.  So where it's dry & sunny, then that's where we head towards.  The same goes for pre-booking overnight stops - we don't, we have a rough idea of where we are heading to then look for somewhere either aires, camping site of France Passion that is convenient to us & just turn up.  To help save some money we join the ASCI scheme which provides pan-european campsites which offer a discount on production of the membership / discount card.  We also subscribe to  France Passion system.  For all other sites we use the Caravan Club european sites book which is pretty good with excellent directions with GPS settings as is the French Aires published by Vicarious Books, unlike the France Passion handbook which requires a bit of keen map reading & interpretation.

For navigation, we use the European Tom Tom sat-nav backed up with the current Michelin map book to prevent us from driving along unsuitable roads, tracks & paths!

To get from A to B we do use the motorway system, using  a VISA credit card for tolls, all you do is place your card in the slot, the barrier opens & you collect your card & receipt.  For normal purchases, entry fees, site fees, most garages & cash withdrawals we have multi-currency cards which we preload before leaving home & can top up whilst away via the internet, unfortunately we have found that motorway toll booths don't accept non-French debit cards as does the occasional garage so we use a credit card for which we incur a £3.00 charge for the privilege. 

To keep in touch with the world we travel with an ipad, most sites have a chargeable wifi service which may cover the whole site or only available in the reception area, l have used the 3G on kindle for internet access though this is pretty slow compared to a laptop or ipad.  Wifi charges vary from a couple of euros for 24 hours to whopping 8 euros for an hour.

Our motorhome has space & shelving for books, it could be a drinks cabinet, but guidebooks are invaluable, we tend to veer towards the Rough Guides for the nitty gritty of where to eat / visit etc whilst the Dorling Kindersley are a useful pictorial guide for a quick overview.

So there we have it, a quick note of things that might help you on your travels, as to ours, over the winter months l be blogging of our Road Trip to New Zealand 2013, & today's last picture is a taster of what is to come. Kia Ora!