UKC

After hearing tales of people being robbed while they sleep at aires (urban myths?) I have a couple of nights coming up where I will need to sleep in the van on the way from Calais fto Valencia.

WHat do you suggest?

The route we take through France will likely be Calais, Reims, Lyon, Perpignan.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Not an Urban Myth!


Chris

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I've slept in aires in my van many times (thankfully never heard these urban myths) the only problems I've had was parking to close to freezer trucks whose fridges switch on at irregular intervals throughout the night, waking me up. I wish we had aires in the UK.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

OK, so where do you suggest?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Think like a baddy.

Either doss in a public area, noisy but safe.
Campsite or Formula 1.
Or where no one can see you.
Best is often two or three drivers and do not stop.

Edit, not used it myself but the Santander? ferry is highly thought of , only need to sleep on the long boat trip. the drive through England and Spain should both be a one driver non stop jobby. Worth pricing out.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Well I'd use a hotel but that probably doesn't help you!


Chris

PS I think that some of the Aires are (or used to be) targeted by crims - I'm guessing somewhere well lit (and with cameras?) would be safer than out the back in the gloom.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

From what I hear, motorway aires are to be avoided. There's a book called "All the Aires" produced by Vicarious Books who give very good up to date info on aires. You may not want to invest in one though for one trip! You welcome to borrow our edition if you want. I'm in Sheffield.

cheers
Graham

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I guess it is just the luck of the innocents, but my wife and I have spend a fair few nights or parts of nights on Aires without incident. This has usually been when we are just in a hurry to get somewhere. Otherwise municipal campsites are so plentiful and cheap it is hardly worth avoiding them. The aire just to the south of Laon is massive and more like a campsite, if that is any use, and we slept peacefully there in September.

In reply to Frank the Husky:
We do a lot of stealth van camping in France, including overnight stops to/from Calais from Alps and S.France.

Google Maps and Streetview are your friend - use it to find quiet spots off the motorway in quiet rural areas. Bookmark them in Google Maps. Job done.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

If you turned off the motorway and took the first quiet country road then found a quiet field entrance or layby I'm sure you'd be safer than in an aire.

In reply to Frank the if you meen the Aires on the toll motorways, I've kipped in loads over the years with no bother at all the last time we overlayed and dint wake up till 10 haha. Yeah it's all a urban myth, me mates brothers cousins sister was gassed and robbed haha what a load of sh#te. A lot easier to rob a van during the day when there's knowone asleep in it

In reply to Frank the Husky: Thanks to veeryone for the hinst and tips. I suspect we will look for municipal camping or just the usual campervan stealth routine.

Hasta la vista etc

In reply to the power:


Pete O'Donovan had his window smashed whilst there were asleep somewhere in France, the thieves reached in and grabbed a bumbag under his wife's pillow before they knew what was going on,


Chris

In reply to the power:


A real risk unfortunately.

Try a google search on "camper van gas france "

In reply to Frank the Husky: ask Black Nick. He has a classic tale which involved his wallet being robbed from the bottom of his pit whilst he was asleep without being disturbed!

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Motorway robbery does happen in France, both at stopping places and on the road itself. It's not common, but not infrequent either.

A lot of the aires are really quiet and make for easy targets. They also force cars off the road, relieve you of your possessions and maybe your car, or chuck your keys into the night and drive away. They don't play nice - quick, harsh and one-sided.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

There are aires and aires. Personally, I would be very chary about stopping overnight on a motorway aire, although we have done it once or twice.
The other aires are the small camping car aires which have sprung up in their thousands over recent years. You are never more than about 5 miles from one in France. Usually free, with van servicing facilities which may or may not be free. They are non-commercial and a result of local civic enterprise (the sort of thing you get with a community-minded nation like the French). I guess they hope those staying will spend some money while they are there. The book someone else mentioned called All the Aires is quite costly but worth every penny. Incidentally, you may find the aires by chance - look out for the blue road sign showing a campervan over a drain.

In reply to Rog Wilko:

I am just back from a 3 week motrohome trip to spain and used the aires travelling down and up without any problems, its simply a matter of being careful in choosing the aires you use. There are plenty in small rural villages which are perfecty OK, do the research before you travel. Dont bother with the aires books, they only contain a small fraction of the actual aires, have a look at this site;

http://www.campingcar-infos.com/index1.htm

Ok its in french but its pretty much got all the aires and its has downloadable satnav files, there are also others, a dutch one is campercontact. For loads of info on aires google some motorhome forums they use the aires all the time.

The Santander ferry shouldn't be discounted because of the time saving factor.

In reply to Frank the Husky:
I wouldn't stay in the aires either, why not stay in a formula motel? They're pretty cheap.
Or park up in one of the many motorhome/campervan carparks, these are practically in all the medium sized villages. These are advertised online, and are usually near to a tabac, or local shop. There are also plenty of municipal campsites dotted along your route.

If you get trouble at an aire you can be a long way from help. It is not unknown for some pretty shady characters to hang out at aires at night.

In reply to mark hounslea:


Remember Nick telling the tale - scary. It's not as though he's not streetwise...

[To Frank] Would go with Rigid Raider's suggestion of getting off the motorway and driving a few miles away. My ahem experiences with the criminal element indicate that they go for (very) easy to find prey. On a French motorway, that's going to be Aires. A friend and his wife were once gassed and robbed. They could have been killed.

Be careful.

Mick

In reply to Rick Graham:


I googled that and discovered that the Royal College of Anaesthetists issued a statement a few years back saying they knew of no gas suitable for this sort of attack.

I suspect the truth is that some companies are cashing in on the stories of this gas that professionals say doesn't exist, and that people do get robbed in their motorhomes at these aires.

This thread has taught me that I need to avoid the aires because they're scuzzy and go find a nice village with municipal camping which seems much nicer all round.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Carbon monoxide would work pretty well. If you don't mind killing everyone.

D

In reply to Dauphin: That's very true, but there are no tales of campervans full of dead travellers.

It looks like F1s let dogs stay for a fee so we might go with one of those, which I assume are easy to spot.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Always impressed at the high standard, availability and relative price of hotels in France compared to the U.K. and I've been going there since the late 70's as a kid, never crossed my mind to stay on one of these, car and truck jackings (with or without gas) are such a common story, people I knew well, not newspapers. Slept in the back of a van while working there in the earely nineties in routier car parks with baseball bat and a clawhammer within easy reach. Never do it now, theres too many well organised criminal gangs with nothing to loose roaming the place.

D

In reply to Dauphin:

I would imagine this kind of thing would tail off. Who carry's cash around with them anymore?

P.S what's the difference between being gassed and being fast asleep?

In reply to FreshSlate:
Well I was sceptical about date rape drugs before I worked in an emergency dept, even after I'd worked there a couple of years I'd be thinking yeah how much vodka did you drink? But then the penny dropped. Keep an open mind, theres all sorts of f*cked up evil people on the prowl from all over the world these days, not everyone has your sensibilities or morality.

How carries cash around with them anymore? Older tourists, families of tourists.

Safe safe.

D

In reply to FreshSlate:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11914852/Five-held-...

That would work.

D

In reply to Rick Graham:



I've used it. Quite pricey, but bear in mind you will save on fuel and tolls, and a huge saving in driving time.

Take your own food and wine, the on board restaurants/shop are expensive.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Hi Martin

I don't think the aires robberies are urban myths - I've heard too many first hand accounts. However I think these tend to be motorway aires, rather than the aires de camping car.

We've got the same problem - we're taking our van overland down to Sicily and it's not easy to find campsites open at this time of year.

If you want campsites, the ACSI camping card site allows you to search by date http://www.campingcard.co.uk. Alternatively there are quite a few Aires de Camping Car open. If you have time to order them "All the Aires" or "Camperstop Europe" are both very useful and Vicarious Books will send them pretty quickly. If not there are a number of mobile phone apps such as Park4nite which do the same job.

Have a great trip.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Bank lobbies in villages are heated if you want somewhere to sleep.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I've slept in the car in France in m'way Aires, service areas, and on country roads. Aires have always felt pretty exposed and on the basis of the stories on here I'll probably not do so again.

Well-lit service areas feel safer, and with some thought the bright lights can be escaped whilst also maintaining some safety. Police cars keep an eye on these areas, too.

When bivvying off country roads, I take care not to be visible. I was once kipping in my bivi bag in a field in Normandy and was awoken by a blood curdling scream from my friend (who had soloed the Shroud a couple of weeks earlier). "It's a snake! There's a snake!" I turned on my head-torch and shone it in his direction. The ground was heaving with large, red, and very slimey slugs. Hard men that we are, we retreated to the security of a tent.

In reply to Dauphin:


I do have an open mind about date rape drugs but sceptical about being gassed. Do you believe Jenson Buttons was gassed for example? Or are the anesthesiologists wrong?

In reply to Frank the Husky:

I've stayed in Aires on the toll motorways a few times, in either a bivvy bag or a tent. Happily, the worst that's happened to me was sleeping too close to an ants nest.

Trick is to pick the bigger ones with good facilities, as they are safer and have showers. If you're not in a van, watch out for poo!

Did once sleep 3 of us in a tent on the way to the Etape - tiny layby version and a van load of expensive bikes and we were ok.

I don't know anyone that's had any bad experience of doing it, but that's not to say you shouldn't be cautious.

In reply to FreshSlate:

Rca says possible but unlikely. I imagine scopolamine powder to be the culprit here which takes the gas out of the picture but leaves inhalation. That and dog tired motorists.

D

In reply to LastBoyScout:


During a long hitch-hiking voyage between s france and germany I ended up at an aire where I didn't feel comfortable - so headed out into a an oak woodland to bivvy in my bag. At dawn I was bothered by creepy-crawly caterpillar-grubs abseiling from the foliage on silken cords

In reply to Frank the Husky:
Spent 7 months on the road in a motorhome a few years back and had no issues at all. In the whole 7 months we only spent about 14 nights in a campsite. The rest was on the road or in Aires (not the motorway ones).

I would recommend buying 'all the aires book' (or downloading the equivalent). Travelling with a van in France was really good and you'll see loads of people parked up which will give you confidence. If an aire wasn't available (can't really think of many times when that happened) then we parked in village centres/carparks but if your going during summer there will be plenty of people about.

Just respect the 'rules', no load music, no setting up table/chairs, take rubbish away etc

Its awesome fun.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

Camping Municipale every time Reverend.

In reply to Frank the Husky:

FWIW I've never had any problems sleeping in French aires. On the other hand I have had scrotes try to burgle the car I was asleep in but that was in a lit, fenced, CCTV covered carpark for the port of Heysham which is next to a nuclear reactor, both of which have a significant Police presence. It's luck of the draw. Mostly you get lucky.

jk

In reply to Frank the Husky:

We have personal experience of being woken in the night in our van in a motorway aire by some very dodgy looking people pretending to be the police, telling us to get out of the van as they needed "to warn us about robbers in the area". They had a car with a blue light on and they knocked on the window with something metallic and heavy sounding. One had a black police like jacket on but it was open with bare chest underneath, it all just felt wrong and very scary. Luckily when we ignored them they just went away....we made a fast getaway.

Anyway you wanted recommendations. We did the same journey last winter. There is a campsite at Malesherbes near Font which isn't much out the way and is open all year - not many are. It's www.camping-iledeboulancourt.com.
Further down near the Spanish border we did what people have suggested, picked a rural or town spot away from the motorway.

Have a good trip!