To be fair, anywhere near the three counties showground in spring/summer festival season is going to be like any french campsite near a similarly popular tourist spot, i.e. busy and booked up. We live near Malvern and there are back to back events all through the season, not just at the three counties showground but at places like the wintergardens etc. However, I agree with everything else you say.

I think the trouble is that here, campsites are typically the only source of revenue for owners, with a big capital investment required due to land values, so they work hard to get them booked early to ensure maximum occupancy. Also, us Brits (not us!) seem to like to plan ahead, booking holidays often a year in advance. There is a much bigger camping culture in France, so there are more campsites. However, for many of the owners, it is just one revenue stream, and the capital requirement i.e. land price is much lower than the UK. We have stayed in many French campsites where one of the owners works elsewhere, often in factories, and very ordinary people own campsites. Investment in a campsite here requires far higher occupancy rates to make good business sense, and the season here is also much shorter.

When we were working, we never toured in the UK. Going from place to place, staying 1 or 2 nights in each, for 3 to 4 weeks in or out of season was often impossible. In Europe, only once have we not got a pitch just turning up, outside of August. We generally stay away from tourist spots, but even in tourist destinations, a call 1 or 2 days before and you're sorted.

It is what it is, supply and demand I guess. When I was little, my parents had a VW Dormobile camper and camping was really cheap in the UK. Now people get heating and fresh flowers in the bathrooms and its almost as pricey as a night in a B&B.

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Can I add for four penn'orth, as one who hasn't rambled sur la Continent, well not in the last 45 years anyway.

I'd like to add:

- the sight of Motter's dirty feet
- too many folk chasing too few pitches which leads to the problems mentioned and still dealers sell more and more.
- regimented sites with straight lines of pitches, cramming the most number of folk into the smallest space
- slash and burn gardening on some sites with no aesthetic consideration at all.
- UK summer weather

SDA

If the C&MC charged a small deposit it would stop all the 'just in case" block bookings , some sites have all the weekends fully booked early in January...

Quote: Poptop320 wrote in post #5

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If the C&MC charged a small deposit it would stop all the 'just in case" block bookings , some sites have all the weekends fully booked early in January...

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I'm starting by keeping relatively close ie within 3 hours drive to a pre booked site then return home. I like the large grass sites with few regulations but am finding them hard to find as they tend not to be well advertised. They are however more likely to have vacancies. Whether I will be able to tour without pre-booking is yet to be tested but at the moment I am not risking it. I don't want to be stuck with no option but a poor site. When I have a "little black book" of favourites it may be possible.

What a great post and agree with all the above, I remember being amazed that all the prime sites were booked at the weekend through the summer when we bought our first campervan,.
Our first trip to the continent be pre-booked all of our sites but soon realised even in August this was not necessary .
Since then we have only booked the first night and then phoned or emailed on the morning of departure for the next site, on only one occasion have we been unable to stay where we wanted when we turned up and that was because it was closed, however the owner recommended another site and phoned and confirmed an emplacement for us on delightful site 5 miles away.
Last year we decided enough was enough and now store our Eriba in France and can take advantage of cheap ferry offers and pop across on a whim.

Agree with all of comments made earlier and the reason we came out of being CC members some eight years ago. The problem is that no deposit is required when booking with C&MC. This results in the website going into overload meltdown in December when the following year bookings become available. People Block book usually the weekends, knowing if they change mind due to bad weather etc. a quick phone call or email can cancel the booking without penalty. At least the C&CC do insist on a deposit! In most cases when we were working and trying to book a weeklong break it was nigh impossible as the weekends were full.
There is a certain well known site in Bristol which unless you book a year ahead you will not get a pitch. We tried to book in January without success
We have re-joined the C&MC but only for the ferry offers and tend to use the CL's instead of the main sites.

The same goes for Chatsworth Park, indeed all of the honeypot sites and some that aren't so sweet. I bet, that even with a deposit payable popular sites will be fully booked, well in advance, on summer weekends. Too many customers after too few pitches. Once people realise that the sites get booked up early, some decide to join in 'the game' and it becomes srlf fulfilling and self perpetuating, no matter what you do to stop it.

If you limited the number of bookings, some openly admit they'd join separately and double the number they could make as a couple. Others have even said they'd join in two or three names to ensure they get want they want.

Personally I'd like to see the cut-off date for not taking action extended out further and further 'til it hurts the block bookers and they lose all their bookings and get banned from booking for 'x' weeks. Then they might think again.

If your a C&MC member you may not be aware that the booking process has now changed, especially if you have put the free magazine straight in the bin...

You could only book for the next year when the portal opened in mid December the previous year causing a mad scramble for the popular sites. They now have a rolling 12 month booking process, see the C&MC blurb below:


From now on, toward the beginning of every month, the Club will put on sale pitches for the same month of the following year e.g. early in April 2018 the Club will put on sale pitches for April 2019; early in May 2018 the Club will put on sale May 2019 and so on.

In this way members will always be able to book one year ahead.

I can't see how the new system improves matters for anyone except the CC, who no longer have to have the server capacity to deal with the annual mid-winter booking fest. It certainly keeps the block bookers on their toes at the start of every month to keep their bag of bookings up to date and they'll maybe miss the cut and thrust of 'annual booking day's. It does nothing to help those who want to book later and who don't want to engage in selfish overbooking.

I thought caravaning would give me the freedom to go anywhere and whenever I want. Booking a year in advance goes against the essence of caravaning. It doesn't encourage me to join a caravan club.