Back to Europe Day 1. -

The thought of planning a trip aboard has only been a dream, something we never thought would ever of been an issue.

Around 19 months have past and we are back, hitting the open road like it’s the first time and god it feels so good.

So what’s the plan? Well there is no real plan as such, we are just heading south to Spain and back again with a load of bits and bobs in the middle. Each day is a new day, we have nothing planned, no sites to visit and generally we just end up where we feel like it.

This time round we intend to post daily when possible, sharing our route where we can, letting you know what we did, how many miles we have gone and where we stayed. We are also going to list daily costs as we feel this is so important. Before we get into cost, we are no way in any form tight with the cash; however we believe you can have an amazing holiday in your motorhome for a fraction of the cost. Our main cost, as yours will be the motorhome.

As you will know we have a Bailey Autograph 79-4 which we brought new in 2018. It is by far our dream motorhome and if you look on this site you will see a good few posts on it. Follow here. Its our hotel on wheels.

So lets get back to the trip.

We set off of Friday 17th September, we have an early start with a 07:50am train on Eurotunnel. Most definitely the best way to cross the channel, we seem to think so and we will share the cost at the end.

Off course now with Brexit there are new rules of what you can take and not take. This can get messy as with new road rules in France as well, so we would advise you check out the government website for all the information to ensure we do not share any miss information. What we will say is, when we packed up our food we normally fill the fridge with meat and dairy, however this is not possible now. We did however fill the cupboards with snacks and all the go withers for meal.

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Once in France we went straight to Carefour for a little top up of fresh food and then set off on our way south, well I think it was more South West as day two we did have a little plan of where we wanted to visit, but we will share that in the next post.

Now on the road we decided to avoid the toll roads today, we use google maps on our phone so just going to the settings and highlight avoid tolls. This will keep you off them and you will save a few pounds if you’re not in any rush. Once I point the motorhome in a direction to head, Elaine gets on the Park4Night app we always use in helping us find locations to stay. By far the best app out there that we have found and would recommend it to everyone, it’s just great for European travel.

Elaine found us a lovely village stop over for motorhomes in a village called Conty.

On our drive to Conty avoiding the tolls and pretty much any motorways, we drove through so many beautiful French villages to which we would of never seen and they were just stunning. We lost count as to how many we drove through but it was worth it. You can’t beat going off track.

After stopping for some lunch in the motorhome, French baguette of course with some local ham and lovely cheese; we arrived in Conty at around 3pm to find yet another small but Beautiful village. The parking area for motorhomes was one of the best we have come across which had enough spaces for around 70 motorhomes, less than 2 coins walk to the centre of the village and provided water (with a token, 2euros) waster point for grey waste and black waste. No electric hook up, but who needs that. Full site fees at the end.

Bailey Autograph parked up for the night.

The village itself had a bar, bakery, hardware store and a few more local stores. Of course we took a lovely walk around it all and had to sample some local drink, well its rude not to and after all we are on holiday.

After a good first day on the road and seeing plenty of lovely places it’s time to start the tally and we will be doing this for everyday. This will include everything we spend including site fees (may surprise you) with a running total on each post plus miles.

Firstly, who shops in Tesco? Well we do and with that we use our Clubcard every time and collect points as you know, we then only use our point for travel and in this case Eurotunnel. The cost of the crossing was £284 return on Eurotunnel and Elaine converted £80 worth of Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for it. So in someway in our eyes its free as we shop for food anyway.

Daily Costs:

SITE FEES: Free FUEL: 70.00 GROCERIES: £23.74. DINNING OUT (DRINK): £6.83 TOTAL SPEND £100.57

So day one total spend is £100.57

If you want to follow our whole route, we are using Polarsteps to track our driving route, so click HERE to see more and follow.

P.S, did you notice the site was free…………

Coordinates: 49.7435, 2.1560 (lat, lng) N 40 44′ 37″ E 2 9′ 22″ (lat lng)

Keep following daily to see where we go next.

If you have not already, join our Facebook page here. You will also see us posting on Motorhome Happiness Facebook page and the Bailey Facebook page.

Happy and safe travels,

Scott & Elaine.