French Motorhome Aires – A Beginner’s Guide (with videos)

When browsing the various motorhome forums on the ‘net, I see a lot of people who have questions about French motorhome aires (and their equivalents in other European countries).

Many people are used to using campsites only in the UK and aren’t sure whether try stick to campsites when on the continent or whether to try aires.

If you’re in that position, then this post is for you. On our recent trip to France, we made a quick video of every aire we visited, with a view to publishing them here and on You Tube. In this post, I’m just going to include a few to show a cross-section of the types of places you get. If these are useful, then leave a comment to let me know and I’ll put more of them online.

What Are Aires?

In brief, they are normally a bit like a car park with a service point where you can empty your toilet, waste water and get fresh water. Not all aires have service points and some are just designated sections of regular car parks.

Some are urban – like this one in La Rochelle:

Some are very rural, like this aire above the village of Gavarnie, in the French Pyrenees:

And some are small but perfectly formed, like this one in Oissel, near Rouen: