In less than 3 months we’ll be setting off on our first big motorhome trip into Europe. We’ve planned it so that we’ll set off for the channel tunnel at around the same time the UK schools return for the September term, so it should be a lot quieter (and cheaper!).
We’ve been mentally planning this first road trip for a long time now, wanting to squeeze in all of the amazing things we’ve been dreaming of doing for the past few years. And now we finally get to plan, book and execute it.
Our top things to see and do are:
- World War memorials, trenches and sites such as Verdun
- Visiting family graves from World War I
- Europa Park and Rutlantica water park in Germany
- See a slice of the coastal area of southern France
- Andorran mountains
- Barcelona
- Valencia
- Golf in Spain (and spend time with family who will visit us out there)
- La Rochelle
- Normandy beaches
On that basis, we used Search for Sites to hunt out some handy aires, campsites and stellplatzes for our journey and have got a rough itinerary set up. We are aiming to be pretty flexible but with an approximate guide of where we want to be at a certain time. This is because it will make me feel better, knowing it’s our first big trip! And there are some things we have booked up already (or are about to reserve), to keep us on track and give us some robust structure. For the rest we are going to practice patience, spontaneity and going with the flow!
Here’s a google map overview of our approximate route.
Google will only allow you to add up to 10 destinations (without us having to purchase specialist apps yet!), so I’ve only included the big hitters for now. But there will be some deviations from the route to allow us to visit more sites on our hit list and enjoy experiences we have set our hearts on (like visiting Camargue on the south coast of France to see if we can spot flamingos!).
Because of the maximum 10 destinations limit, it also looks like we’ll never leave Normandy at the end of our trip, but we will make our way back to Calais from there!
I created the visual map to help give the kids an understanding of where we’ll be travelling to and where our motorhome Sassy will take us! When they saw it, I think it really helped to put the journey into context. I’ll be creating individual posts about each of the 5 countries we’ll be visiting and what we plan to do there. As well as what kind of home learning and education we’ll be doing along the way.
Now we just need to finalise the bookings we definitely need to make and get the school year finished! We have a lovely, relaxed, family filled summer planned, with a couple of UK based trips. Then we’ll be off to Europe!
