The Art of Camping

Camping is half the fun of the bike tour, if you're not camping you aren't doing it right. Before we left I had heard nothing but good things about French campsites and this turned out to be true (except they aren't all full of hot French girls). The majority of sites we stayed at had all the facilities conducive to a good camping experience, all had showers, not all had hot water. They all had washing up facilities for cookware and clothing.

The French have a 5 star rating for campsites much like hotels, the highest we stayed at was 4 star and this included a swimming pool a bar/restaurant and a euro disco playing crap music late into the night. All this comes at a price however, 30 euros in this case. We preferred the low budget 1 & 2 star sites without all the unnecessary extras, these could be found for as little as 5.50 euros for the both of us.  

French campsites generally have a good atmosphere about them, there is a real sense of camaraderie amongst campers. We also noticed a large amount of dutch holiday makers everywhere (I wonder if Holland is deserted during the summer months) they are great people and always keen to lend a mallet for hammering tent pegs into hard ground. 

Wild camping was an option but I would prefer to pay for the peace of mind of not being awoken by a French farmer with a shotgun. I'm sure you could get away with it as the majority of France is pretty desolate and rural, maybe next time.