Where to stay overnight in a motorhome in Europe - Aires (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg).
This page is an attempt at demystifying the names associated with motorhome stopping places around Europe. Generally the word AIRE has been the norm. If you search on the internet the one thing you are guaranteed to find is many websites offering guide books, applications and various magazines, books or discount systems that claim to have the locations and descriptions of every aire in every country. They all have one thing in common - they charge money for their wares and what you get is unlikely to be what you expected.
My suggestion is to be adventurous. A quick search on the internet will show you that many motorhome owners are very wary of staying anywhere except on a 'regular' campsite. Personally I think that's due to the way that the UK has two major caravan and camping organisations that dominate the market and exert an overpowering influence. I think of it as the old caravan mentality - you book a pitch on an organised campsite owned and run by one of the major organisations, you arrive and are guided to your pitch by a warden, there is a toilet and shower block, sinks for washing up, an exercise area for dogs, a children's playground, possibly a small shop and masses of information. Your stay will be for the whole week or more. You will be told how to park your caravan next to the marker peg, which way it must face and which way you car has to be parked. Does this all sound familiar? You will also be charged a whopping membership fee to belong to the organisation, followed by a premium price for every night you stay on one of their sites.
Modern motorhome owners are NOT caravaners or campers (in tents), a motorhome is a self-contained unit that is totally different to a caravan. When a typical caravan is towed to a pitch there is a period of at least an hour spent dropping the 'steadies' (the stabilising legs), unloading and filling the water container, setting up the used water tank, lifting all manner of things out of the inside of the caravan and setting up the awning, with table and chairs. Finally when all that is done the caravaners can sit down and start to enjoy their time. It's no wonder they stay for a week, it's so much effort to set up the caravan and then pack it up again before moving off.
Contrast that with motorhome, we drive onto the site, stop and we're ready to enjoy the place immediately. We have often been drinking wine before caravanners who arrived before us have unhitched the caravan. My point is that motorhomes are different, and don't really mix with caravans. in europe there is a clear separation, if you have a caravan then you go on a campsite where there are facilities that you need, if you have a motorhome you can go on the aires.
Aires
Aires - the French word for an area, or stopping place, has become associated with motorhome overnight stops throughout europe even though each country and language has its own word. Some of the words - borne, stellplatze, aire, camper stop, area de sosta, area de servicio and others. We have stayed on motorhome aires in France, stellplaze and borne in Germany, Area di Sosta in Italy. For the sake of convenience I'll call them aires as a generic term in the rest of this article. One important thing to remember about aires is that they are for motorhomes, NOT caravans. In most european countries camping outside of campsites is forbidden, and there are strict definitions of what is a motorhome and what camping is. Motorhomes are self-contained and when a motorhome is stopped on an aire the only thing that is touching the ground is the tyres. In many places in Europe if there is anything other than the tyres in contact with the ground then you can be considered to be camping and may be moved on by the police.
A motorhome is a vehicle equipped with its own self-contained facilities for cooking and sleeping inside the vehicle, with self-contained toilet, water supply and storage for waste water.
Camping behaviour - if you do any of the following things, known as camping behaviour, then you are camping and will be moved on by the local police when they come to check on the aires.
- Wind out an awning or sunshade
- Put up a tent
- Sit on chairs outside your motorhome
- Put up a table outside your motorhome
A good guide is that they only thing touching the ground or tarmac is the four tyres of your motorhome, if anything else is outside then it can be considered as camping behaviour.
Who provides Aires and pays for them?
Most motorhome aires are provided and paid for by the local authority. Very often the motorhome aire is part of a larger parking area within a town or city. The facilities vary from aire to aire, most are free for the overnight stay, with perhaps a small charge for water and electricity if it is available. It is very common for tokens to be used for the supply of water, a typical token, a jeton in France, is €2, for which you receive around 100 litres of water. Electricity is charged in many different ways ranging from a single charge to cover a 24 hour period up to individual metering where you put money into a machine that displays your credit or time remaining. As far as we are concerned the only thing that actually needs electricity is the hair dryer and even that is not essential. We don't have a television, all our lights have LED bulbs and our Hymer motorhome has two very large leisure batteries and a large solar panel. The fridge freezer can run off electricity so when Gill wants to wash her hair we usually look for a low-cost aire with electricity included in the price.
For each aire or motorhome overnight stop you'll find the map co-ordinates, photos and details of the facilities.
What we hope will be the most useful information is our comments and views of the overnight stopping location for motorhomes from a user's point of view.