Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23889 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Original language: English, Dutch, French, German
• Binding: Paperback
• 826 pages

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Guide
I bought this guide (along with a couple of others, Cool Camping, Alan Rogers and Caravan Club Europe 1 as a comparison) while planning a trip to France during summer 2009.

The book is sorted by region and town with an alphabetical index of all locations by name in the back pages. The description of each site is given by various icons and some text in French. There is a listing of these words in the book to help with translation and for those words that aren't covered there's always Google! Even for non-French speakers, it's easy to pick up the words as the same ones as used on most sites and if you're considering going to France it's worth picking up a few local words - it can only make life and your trip easier. If you want plain English on the site description then you might be better off going for the Alan Rogers guide though it doesn't have as many entries as this guide. The Caravan Club guide has quite a few entries though they use abbreviations within the description (with an index of these in the front pages).

I can't call this guide a 'bible' to all sites as I did find some villages with sites missing though they do include a lot of the commercial and municipal sites. This guide would be very useful to carry with you while travelling as you could look up sites in the area you are travelling to.

A basic map is included for each region, good enough to give an indication of where the site is located. The description of each site does include a reference to other more detailed Michelin maps (no surprise there).

Excellent guide for campers
We bought this for a camping tour around France in July 2009. We travelled in an MX-5 roadster, with just a little tent in the boot. We camped around Picardy, Normandy, and all around the Loire. This guide proved itself very handy.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the guide is in French. However, it has a reference and key at the front, in French, English, German, and Flemish, which makes it quite usable in all these languages. Indeed, it is designed with this in mind.

The guide is divided into colour-coded sections - one for each region of France. Each section starts with a map which shows all the sites within that section. After this, campsites are listed in alphabetical order.

Each page contains between 2 and 5 sites, depending on the facilities of each site. Facilities are indicated by using symbols. Other information is given in French text. This is where knowing a few words of French may come in handy. However, even if you don't know any French, it is usually fairly easy to figure out what's being conveyed. So, a typical entry for a campsite gives its phone numbner and address, 2008 prices as a guide, and a list of facilities. This list includes things like whether the site has daytime/24hour security, water, electricity, washing machines, pool, riding, fishing, bicycle hire, a shop, wifi, sailing, restaurant, bar, etc. Michelin also rates each site for overall quality - using tent symbols. One tent is okay, five tents is excellent.

To find a campsite, go to the relevant regional section and look at the map there. When you have found a site near where you want to camp, search that section for the site details. If you like the site, just travel to its location on the map. "Yeah but... how do I find it when I get there?" Well, we travelled to many campsites in France, and they were all signposted official sites, so were easy to find.

There's also an A-Z of all the sites, and a quick reference table too, for comparing sites.

I can find nothing wrong with the guide. We found it ideal for the task of finding us a decent site in the right place, everywhere we travelled. I see no reason to consider any other guide for camping in France, as it is, in my view, the definitive work on the subject.

Camping France 2009 (Michelin Camping Guides)
An excellent publication which offers the discerning French traveller information about the value for money municipal sites in both the large towns and smaller villages.