how organised are your trips

romany

romany

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I thought following on fro how far do you drive it would be interesting how much people plan, Our planning normally extends to booking ferry seeing how many weeks we are away looking at the furthest place we will be traveling to dividing mileage by number of days and thats it.
We aim to get daily mileage done but not in any hurry stopping when and where we want we don't book sites or aires we don't organise food before we leave buying what we need on the trip
 
We only ever get 2 weeks. We book ferry, campsite on this side if necessary and organise some currency. I usually research options but follow Ventusky weather app. So next week is France ... looks as if west coast might be more favourable than Med but final decision will be when we arrive.
 
Booking the ferry crossing is about as much organising as we ever do, although for our winter long breaks there are things that need sorting in advance, like Green Cards. There'll now also be International Driving Permits to sort out - but do we get them for the wife too? Although she never drives, she is on the insurance "just in case".

Other than that, it's often down to "do we turn left or right at the end of the road".
 
we do two types of trips with the kids who are restricted to holidays its planned to the last detail alone we book a ferry end of
 
We plan when to go and have a rough idea where our ultimate destination will be. The length of time we are away will be decided on whether we need to be home or if anyone is visiting or we need to be somewhere else.
Mostly, we play it by ear taking into account the weather.
 
For us, all the planning is in the inventory: our list of things to take with us runs to hundreds of items (most very small), but we have to be prepared to work or run a business remotely when away, which complicates that aspect.

The itinerary is always vague or non-existant and nothing is pre-booked apart from the ferry. That's the beauty of motorhoming: go with flow. And that works fine for us while abroad, but not so easy in England, where finding places to stay on the hoof is a bit more tricky.
 
I’m a planner, usually book the crossing a have a very good idea of what and where to go but the joy of Motor homing is you can change your plans and still have a good time.
 
For the UK we had to book months in advance so tied to plans. Six years ago we got so fed up with all this as it takes away our freedom. We now only tour europe and are FREE to explore our chosen dates without having to book.
Our motorhome experience only works with the freedom to travel on spec but the UK have made this impossible and far to expensive.

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We plan the ferry outbound and return, the first nights stopover, our ultimate destination before setting off back home. That's about it. I keep saying we need to plan a lot better but never get around to it. Maybe next trip in the spring.....
 
This sort of question had crossed my mind too. So some of you just book a ferry and wing it?.. Sounds fun. What happens when you want to park up at the end of the day?. Do you set a time deadline to start looking for local aires and keep driving till you find a space? If you can't find space can you stop anywhere else legally?

Does sound great to be so free and just go wherever the fancy takes you rather than have to be somewhere on a set date. As a newbie I'd probably need a bit more planning. Would maybe book a couple of waypoints and wing it between till a bit more experienced
 
We tend to drive until we stop :-) If we have a destination ( such as Benidorm ) 300-400 miles a day.. If we are touring any where from 20 to 300 miles a day !
As to planning .... Apart from where we are heading none.. I even begrudge booking the chunnel ...........
Before we leave all I do is make sure our paperwork is in order ( and the dog's ! ), put some clobber, a bit of grub and any thing else I consider essential ( fags, booze ) in the van and go..
Set something down and it is something that can go wrong.. leave it in te lap of the gods and its all an adventure :-)
 
mitzimad said:
using camper contact and park for a night your seldom more than 10k from a couple of places to stay the night in france
Click to expand...
another vote here for camper contact, search for sites or park4night apps never not found some where to stay including uk

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Nixdorfer said:
This sort of question had crossed my mind too. So some of you just book a ferry and wing it?.. Sounds fun. What happens when you want to park up at the end of the day?. Do you set a time deadline to start looking for local aires and keep driving till you find a space? If you can't find space can you stop anywhere else legally?

Does sound great to be so free and just go wherever the fancy takes you rather than have to be somewhere on a set date. As a newbie I'd probably need a bit more planning. Would maybe book a couple of waypoints and wing it between till a bit more experienced
Click to expand...

it took a couple of trips to get into that frame of mind especially the wife who is a born organiser but when our second big trip went a bit haywire:rolleyes: we had that lightbulb moment of oh to hell with the site stop where we can and thats what we have done ever since(y)
 
Organisation not a word in our vocabulary.
Book a ferry and have a rough idea of what country we are heading for.
I'm a bit OCD and if I have a destination in mind I have to get there. So for the last few years I try not to do that and we have a much more enjoyable time and less arguments.

Current trip the idea was to head for Portugal and weather permitting do a walk we wanted to do in the Picos weather & my dodgy keen permitting.
Well getting through France took 7 days kept finding interesting places and it was 30°.
Then got side tracked at the Elephant Aire and went around the wildlife park. Did manage to do our 16 mile walk in the Picos mountains didn't think we would fit it in.
Now in Portugal not much of a clue where we are heading for tomorrow.

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Lenny's on the road to Portugal

Well I think we are, crossed to Dieppe this morning not really sure where we are going but sort of fancy finishing off the trip down through Portugal we started last Oct/Nov. First stop found a little gem of an Aire at Courville-Sur-Eure and it's the right price for a FLT.
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Do you want to go away next week, the weather looks nice.
OK
How about south Wales this time
OK
OK, i'll find somewhere..
Book campsite
Drive to campsite..

Right... What are we going to do. :D
 
We book the ferry and just the one campsite, which gets pretty full. I stock up on essentials and things you can’t get in Spain. I make a freezer full of homemade dinners. After a long day travelling it’s brilliant to throw a meal in the oven and not have to shop, or cook.

We have our favourite Aires in France but we are flexible about how far we travel and where we stay.

On the way back, we plan a bit more carefully as we need a vet on the way back.
 
We usually have a destination in mind, (this year was the little yellow train in the Pyrenees) but the route we take is never planned. Sometimes when we see brown information boards we take a detour just to explore. With the aid of Google we can do a search for some information first. Where we stay depends on the app for an air.
 
I plan everything down to the last detail, it’s part of the fun for me. I hate surprises and when I was working with three children it was essential so I have just carried on. I am getting better at changing direction and not prebooking beyond the first few days but I do still love a good plan.
 
Oh dear, never thought I was OCD but reading some of these posts,I think I must be!

Only ever book the tunnel and UK sites going and coming back but do plan the route to our objective and put it in the satnav! Already have two routes, with stopovers, to Portugal done for next February.
 
We have a very extensive itinerary and plan months in advance!!!!

No we don’t.
We book the train and go!

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I used to stop the kids "When will we get there / How far is it now" arguments by telling them the holiday starts when I close the drive gate. We tell ourselves the same thing now.
 
We plan our first few days carefully, and then usually ignore it.

In the past ten years we have only ever caught the actual train we booked through the Tunnel on one occasion. All the other times we have arrived early and caught a different one. That then means we travel further than our planned first stop etc. (Living so far away from Folkestone means we have to allow excessive time for the journey due to the possibility of delays).

Once away on the trip our plans change day to day depending on what we see and hear.

Freedom is king!
 
Hubby usually has some ideas on where he'd like to visit so does some researching, planning etc, then usually shortly before we go he changes his mind and we end up somewhere totally different! I'm pretty happy to go with the flow so long as it's not gonna be COLD ... however that may chance now we've got a really well insulated MH. I'd love to go to Norway etc and have confidence that I won't be cold in it as I do NOT deal with cold very well at all (a consequence of chronic fatigue syndrome). Talking of which ... my new 'baby' is on the drive and sulking that I haven't been out to play with him yet ... so I'd better get up! :giggle:
 
Our trips are always mapped out , need to be somewhere, need to leave as late as possible to get there, and leave as soon as we are able to get back . On the odd occasion that we get to not do that , I don't plan a thing, everything is totally on the hoof . Then I am always torn by the ' next place along might be better' fear , and so usually flit about and never get the best out of anywhere cos we aren't there long enough .
 

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