Europe a la Carte Blog

As modern tourists we tend to travel fast. We fly in, grab a hotel room (or hostel bed), see all the tourist sights, try a local meal or two and zip back home again. We stay within cities, we are surrounded by other tourists and we do it all in a hurry before our days or cash run out. We don’t soak in ambience, we dive bomb into it and think that the few drops clinging to our hair are equivalent to the pruney-skin permeation of a long and leisurely exposure.

Personally I’m an exponent of slow travel, a term I thought was particularly nifty until I googled it when writing this article and discovered that I didn’t coin the phrase. My version of slow travel is camping. Travelling leisurely through the back country, off the highways and into smaller towns. Getting to meet the locals in an environment (the communal lifestyle of a campsite) which encourages interactions (unlike the private sterility of a hotel room).

Camping lets you soak in the atmosphere

Of course camping isn’t always feasible. If you go with your own car, caravan or mobile home you are limited by how far you can drive in the allotted holiday travel time. Driving three days across Europe only to have four days there and a three day return journey is not anyone’s idea of fun. Some ways around that are to look at carrying your car on the train – something which saves time, stress and petrol. You can also carry the minimum camping gear with you on a flight and locally hire a car or just rely on public transport to get you around. Or you can rent the entire get up once you arrive.

But the prices do start paying out, especially if you are travelling for a longer period. The average European campsite costs 15€-20€ per night, including electricity, with each person costing around 2€ extra. Showers may or may not be an additional cost (usually 0.50 – 1€). This is similar to a bed in a dorm room of an inner city hostel for one person, but in a group becomes extremely cheap and is far more appropriate for travelling with a family. Finding campsites is easy – decent maps of the country will have many marked and usually your home automobile club will have lists of international campsites, ones which they have even checked out and rated.

You aren’t necessarily limited to remote campsites on the outskirts of town either. If you are travelling in a self-contained motor home there are many sites which allow for short stops, overnight stays and replenishing water/emptying waste. The E6 on the coast of northern Norway is dotted with them, in Germany they are called Stellplätze, in France Aires De Service, and many are free of charge.

The varying sizes of mobile homes

I’m not really encouraging the use of the large mobile homes. These white ships are gas-guzzlers, can be dangerous on narrow roads (especially when driven by people unused to the size) and cannot be driven into European city centres because of their size. Smaller vans, such as VW camping buses, can be and tenting means you have a car available for local trips without having to pack up your campsite every time.

Of course camping doesn’t work for everyone, nor does it work for every situation. It requires a certain amount of preparation and investment in gear, the availability of a little more time and a roughing-it mentality. While northern France’s freezing autumn rains may send even myself into the shelter of a local chateau, as a budget summer travel option it is a relaxed, slow travel affair.