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10 stunning places to go camping in France

Get inspired for your next camping trip with this list of ten must-visit places to park your motor home or pitch your tent.

Published: 25 August 2017 15:59 CEST
Updated: 11 April 2024 16:02 CEST
10 stunning places to go camping in France
Lavender field during 'fête a montelimar' taken in 2006 (Photo by PHILIPPE MERLE / AFP)

Summer is the perfect time to pack a bag and explore France’s beautiful countryside.

And what better way to do it than by paring down your belongings, hitting the road and heading to one of the country’s excellent campsites?

READ MORE: Wild camping to nudity: 7 little-known rules about France’s great outdoors

Here’s a list of ten of the best from our friends at Best French Campsites website:

Le Ranolien, Brittany 

First up, on the north coast of Brittany in northwestern France you’ll find the excellent Le Ranolien campsite near Perros Guirec, a seaside resort famed for its pink granite rock formations. 

The campsite itself has a lovely pool complex, onsite shop and restaurant, play areas and a spa. As well as great entertainment and activities.

Along the coastal path — once used by smugglers — you’ll find a building which was being used as a HQ by the German army during WWII. On it, you’ll see the the strafing marks left by a spitfire during World War II.

Walking in either direction from the Le Ranolien campsite, you’ll come across a variety of stunning beaches, ranging from small coves to wide white stretches of sand.

Sunêlia L’Escale Saint-Gilles, Brittany 

Further south in the town of Bénodet, the large Sunêlia L’Escale Saint-Gilles is about half an hour’s drive from the fishing port of Guilvinec where, at around 4pm, you’ll see the small fishing boats racing each other to the port to land their catches at the fish market.

This is a great spectacle and you can go and buy the fish and seafood at the market as well! 

Oh, and the campsite also has an excellent water complex.

La Baie, Brittany

La Baie campsite in Trinité-sur-Mer, a small town adjacent to Carnac in Brittany, is beautifully maintained.

Known as an archaeologist’s playground, Carnac is home to one of the most extensive Neolithic standing stone collections in the world. A great way to see them is to take a trip in the “Pétit Train” for tourists.

READ ALSO Brittany v Vendée – which area has the most beautiful coastline?

La Garangeoire, the Vendée

La Garangeoire in the Vendée in west central France has everything you could need. It is a spacious site and has football pitches, playgrounds, canoes and ponies. This is could be one of our favourite campsites.

The owners of the site are very welcoming and they lay on a range of activities to suit everyone.

From here, you can travel for about an hour on good roads to the famed Puy du Fou historic “theme park” and this really is a must-visit stop.

Different from other theme parks, every year Puy du Fou has different spectacles on the various themes of French history with a huge cast of actors and animals.

In the past, these have included Roman gladiator races in a full size Roman amphitheatre complete with birds of prey swooping in great numbers over our heads! A fantastic day out.

Panorama du Pyla, Nouvelle-Aquitaine

The Panorama du Pyla campsite is the perfect place to take in the beautiful area of Arcachon, with its stunning views across the Arcachon Basin.

The campsite is also right next to Europe’s largest sand dune at 105 metres high and 2,700 metres long.

Enjoy access to the beach via forest paths and then a meal at the bar-restaurant where you can sit on the terrace and watch the sun setting over the Atlantic.

The area was affected by a forest fire in 2022, but according to their site they will be open in 2024 with ‘brand new’ cottages.

Les Péneyrals, Dordogne

Les Péneyrals campsite in the Dordogne has a large pool complex with four pools and waterslides, and provides excellent evening entertainment, including live bands.

From the campsite it is only 10km to the famous Lascaux prehistoric cave with its paintings of large animals such as bison and horses.

The original Lascaux cave was closed to the public in 1968 to preserve it but a brilliant replica has been built 200 metres away. Everything has been reproduced as accurately as possible, including the temperature which is kept at 13C.

Lavender farm, Provence 

For a really relaxing “get away from it all” holiday, why not visit a Provencal lavender farm? France Passion lists over 10,000 stopover sites where you can stay for free all over France, assuming you have a self contained motorhome.

The idea is that you then buy the wonderful produce from the farms, such as wine, lavender or honey. What’s not to like? 

Eurocamp Active, The Alps

Have you ever considered skiing during summer? Eurocamp Active have selected campsites near Alpine resorts which are great for summer skiing or other activities.

From the Le Belledonne campsite, it is only 16 miles to Les Deux Alpes where you can ski for five hours in the mornings, leaving the afternoon free for other sports, such as mountain biking.

Chateau de Marais, Loire Valley

There are numerous campsites in the Loire Valley and the area is popular for its many villages and off road cycle tracks and of course chateaux and vineyards to visit.

The spacious Chateau de Marais campsite, close to the famous Chateau de Chambord. But our hidden gem here is the Chateau de Chenonceau.

This chateau is said to be the inspiration for Marlinspike Hall in the Tintin stories by Hergé and you’ll find a permanent interactive exhibition introducing you to the world of Tintin.

Huttopia Versailles, Paris region

And finally to the lovely Huttopia Versailles campsite, where you can stay in a wooden chalet, tents or caravans.

There’s also a small pool and a bar restaurant which has a lovely choice of board games and books to keep the whole family entertained. 

Situated on the edge of the Versailles forest, with its forest walks and excellent park, you can also visit the Chateau de Versailles or take a short walk to the train station and head in to Paris!

And if you’re into horses, then our hidden gem might just be the thing for you. The Equestrian Academy right across from the Chateau is where the king’s horses used to be kept. Now, you can pay for a visit and watch the highly trained horses in action. 

* Jennifer Wilson is one of the writers at the Best French Campsites website which you can follow on Facebook here. This article was originally published in 2017, and it was updated in April 2024.

DISCOVER FRANCE

‘They treated me like a son’ – The secrets of integrating in a Pyrenees community

They're popular with tourists for both their beauty and their wilderness - but what's it like to actually live in the Pyrenees? Author Stephen Cracknell spoke to residents on both the French and the Spanish side of the mountains about what brought them to the area and why they remain.

Published: 6 May 2024 12:33 CEST
'They treated me like a son' - The secrets of integrating in a Pyrenees community

In the classic French novel Jean de Florette, the titular hero inherits a house in rural southern France and moves there, although an early misunderstanding convinces him that the locals have rejected him.

Jean believes he doesn’t need the village. He is strong and works hard – Gérard Depardieu played the role on screen – but finally he comes to grief because he hasn’t integrated.

Much has changed since 1963, but there are still areas where outsiders have had less influence on local life. Like the Pyrenees.

My friend, Open University professor Gordon Wilson, and I have been talking to residents there, in both France and Catalonia.

How do they live and what do they think of their neighbours? For anyone moving from a town to a rural area – and not just to the Pyrenees – what they say is worth listening to.

One outsider who has successfully integrated is Mustapha, from Morocco. He had the advantage of growing up on a farm in the Atlas Mountains so knew the kind of life awaiting him in the Pyrenees.

He was also determined: when he could not obtain a visa, he crossed to Spain in a dinghy. When he was confronted by his complete lack of Spanish and Catalan, he worked around the problem by talking Sheep. Within two days he found a job as a shepherd in Pallars Sobirà, Catalonia.

“What surprised me most was the good people,” he said. “Very good people. Very welcoming. I was living in my bosses’ house. They treated me like a son.”

Shepherd Mustafa with his dogs. Photo Stephen Cracknell

During his first summer in the high pastures, however, he had to live alone in a tent. When he brought the sheep back down in autumn, they had gained weight, but he had lost 14kg.

“One night I heard a lot of noise coming from the sheep. I was sleeping in the tent. The bear was eating a sheep fifty metres away. Eating the sheep. Argh! Well, I shut the tent up and that was it. I just let him eat it.”

After three years he obtained his residence papers. He and his wife, Fatima, now have two children. All four of them speak Catalan, Spanish, Berber and Arabic.

Another person now living in the mountains is Adeline.

Before she moved to France’s Ariège département, she only knew the Pyrenees through its footpaths.

Her mother was a nurse, her father a stonemason, she herself was a teacher. Then she fell in love with Mathias, a shepherd. Despite her origins in the south of France, moving to an isolated farm was a big leap for her.

“I decided to resign from teaching because I knew that it was no longer right for me. It was a bit like jumping off a cliff because I knew it would be difficult to earn my living.”

When she moved to Mathias’ farm, she took up management of the walkers’ hostel – which is how Gordon and I came to meet her. She grew food to feed the guests. Then, when there was a glut of fruit, she converted it into ice cream and sorbet. Now she runs the hostel, works the land, and sells produce, both fresh and frozen, on her market stall in St Girons.

Adeline now runs a walkers’ hostel at Esbintz in Ariège. Photo: Stephen Cracknell

“When I arrived, I was Mathias’ girlfriend… Now it’s the opposite effect. So, when Mathias comes on my stall, people say, ‘Oh you are the boyfriend of the girl who makes ice cream!’” Adeline has become part of the community.

But what to make of René? Unlike Mustapha and Adeline, René was born and bred in the Pyrenees, as was everyone in the family except for his Swiss wife.

He has always lived in Ariège. In my definition he is a local. But he told us: “We are foreigners”.

His grandfather, he explained, came from the Ebro delta in southern Catalonia, looking for work.

He walked across the Pyrenees, crossed the border into France and stopped at the first village. He married a woman who was living there. That was in 1920.

Yet René still feels he is an outsider despite his family roots in the area. His comments give a clue to his sense of detachment: “The locals, it’s simple. Here, it’s sheep, Saint-Girons it’s cows. Full stop. Forests? If they are a problem, they get burnt.”

Until his recent retirement, René was a school nurse: “What I see in the young locals in the sixth-form college in Foix, for example, for some, as soon as they go beyond Pamiers [20km north], it is worse than northern Europe. They’ve never been away.”

These four routes to the Pyrenees – by dinghy, by love, by walking, by birth – are as diverse as the people who followed them. As the poet Antonio Machado wrote: “Traveller, there is no path, the path is made by walking”.

Mountain People: Tales from the Pyrenees, by Gordon Wilson and Steve Cracknell, is published by Austin Macauley (London). Also published by Stephen Cracknell: The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees, Lulu, 2021

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