Where To Stay In The Uk?!

CALLAKN

CALLAKN

Electrician / Linesman
VIP Member
T6 Legend
Hi guys, just did a few searches on the forum, couldn't seem to find anything with a thread for where to stay in the uk in the vans!!

Thought this would be a good opportunity to start a thread, where we can all input places across the country, where we have hitched up for the night, whether its a small campsite/field or a decent "lay-by" thats safe and secure, and legal so to speak...

Ill start the ball rolling, as a CCC member, and only an hour from home, a personal favourite of ours is Sandringham Campsite, really gorgeous, tucked away in the pine forest on the Queens estate... you dont have to be a member either. and close to all the beautiful attractions north norfolk has to offer, MINUS Hunstanton! ha!
 
The Sandringham CCC site brings back memories - me & my youngest lad on the VFR, maybe 25 years ago?
We'd not booked it and the site was full - but they squeezed our little pup-tent in!
Mmmm eggs for brekky. Been back a few times since, absolutely lovely area and a great campsite.
Lovely gardens & grounds. HRH herself has been known to pop in for a chat!


camp.jpg

 
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Thread moved as suggested.

Another vote for the Sandringham CCC from me - lovely site
 
Yorkshire wise, if you’re into mountain biking at dalby forest
, can’t recommend enough a little gem of a site , 10pitches, and dead centre to Thornton-Le-dale

Prospect farm!
 
Also very near Dalby, Marfit Head Farm, lovely campsite with everything you need, its actually a CC site (ie the other mob) but the owners dont bother unless its very busy, and even then there's a non-members area with exactly the same facilities.
The field isnt quite level but nothing the usual levelling wedges cant cope with. Toilets & showers are in a specially built block, with washing-up, baby change stuff, lecky points, everything you'd expect on an expensive site but Marfit Head is only £13 per night (including hook-up) which is excellent value. The showers are clean & hot and plenty of room to manoeuvre - and a stool to sit whilst you dry your feet.

Fenced around the site there's a herd of several donkeys and a really friendly pig, and in the farmhouse a lovely Collie sheepdog, kids will love them! plus theres an elaborate kids play area with a big wooden climbing castle. Dogs are welcomed. They're currently building a heated swimming pool.

Its less than half a mile from the Hole of Horcum car park and its easily walkable. Three miles in the opposite direction (South) is the Fox & Rabbit pub where they have a range of real ales and proper tasty bar-meals, or a full restaurant if you prefer. I ate there twice - lamb shank on Tuesday and steak & ale pie Friday - both scrummy. I went down on my mountain bike and with a bellyful of pie and beer, riding back to camp in the pitch-dark was a bit tedious but better than driving and having to stay tea-total! Taking a left at the Fox & Rabbit, then another left takes you into Dolby Forest, I went mountain biking there Thursday and then had a full-biff English in the canteen and very good it was too, £5.75 including toast, and generous enough to curtail pedalling for an hour or two!

Plenty of walking attractions such as Blakey Topping and Bridestones, plus the whole of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park to explore, and Whitby or Robin Hoods Bay are no more than 20 minutes drive.

So there you go. Marfit Head Farm. Highly recommended for HoH, Dalby and the surrounding area.
 
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Sorry folks but I just cannot get my head around UK camp sites Why are we having to pay such exorbitant prices to park a vehicle over night and sleep in it? Abide by restrictive rules and often have to book in advance.

I can travel Europe and use simple camp sites or preferably Aires or Stellplatz and spend peanuts compared with what it costs here in the UK. I know of simple beautiful places to park our camper in France, Germany, Holland etc. for prices ranging from €0.00 to no more than €12.00 in many cases with toilets and sometimes EHU.

We have spent eleven weeks in France, Germany, Holland and Belgium in two holidays this year in a T6 camper and never spent more €16 and that was a fully equipped campsite including washing machine and free wi-fi parked on an individual plot with a hedge on three sides. On such a site there are no silly rules about arrival time or departure time, no need to book, no rules about awnings etc. You just drive onto the site, find a plot that you like and set up, the office opens late afternoon and you go and pay.
A good quality Aire beside a canal with toilet, EHU, shower, water and waste disposal cost us €8.40 ten days ago and that was an expensive one! The cheapest are obviously free and the lowest price we paid actually was €2.00 per night.

I love Great Britain but it simply isn't economical (or in most cases possible) to simply wander off and camp for a night without any planning or prior booking so I am afraid the other side of the English Channel beckons regardless of Brexit.

Don't get me wrong there is an area of the UK that is good for life in a camper. Go north of the border into Scotland and open up a whole new world as far as the UK is concerned BUT the weather and midges often blight this far north. We've spent two and a half weeks up there in May this year and thoroughly enjoyed it at very little expense.

Rod
 
Rod, this is what I was kind of hoping to get from this thread... I was hoping the UK offered the type of places you speak of in Europe... I don’t want to have to pre book a campsite, I want to be able to get in the van , and go whichever way the winds blowing and just pull up for the night !!

Wonder if people know of any sort of these places...
 
You could try Welcome to Brit Stops - Free Motorhome stopovers all over Britain There are also a few groups on Facebook that deal with cheap/free sites; the biggest is campervan overnight parking but there are others such as camping pubs. The problem is though these sites are becoming victims of their own success and as soon as a decent place gets mentioned on them hordes of people sort to use (and abuse) and up go the "No Overnight Parking" signs :-(
 
Park4night app is becoming the first place to look now, esp in Europe but is growing rapidly in the UK too. As @Davenjo says though, word soon gets around and with ever increasing numbers of campervans and motorhomes the problem is only going to get worse. I must admit, this has led to me keeping places I've discovered to myself on a couple of occasions.
 
Dilbert said:
I would also recommend getting the Camper Contacts app: Motorhome Parkings app | Campercontact Available for Android or iOS.

Has an interactive map with links to your favourite route planner.

Costs £5.99 per year and we use it all the time. Details free aires, campsites and other stops. Been the best resource for us especially in Europe.
Click to expand...
Agreed, I've used camper contact for a few years but it's becoming less useful recently as people seem to be leaving more reports on psrk4night and some of the camper contact info is becoming dated. I still use both though and camper contact has the edge in its home territory of Holland and sometimes Austria / Germany
 
andys said:
camper contact has the edge in its home territory of Holland and sometimes Austria / Germany
Click to expand...

Yes, have found the same. We mainly use in Europe; for France, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia and Croatia it has been a useful resource and I have found it collates many other resources into one convenient place.

For the UK, we mainly use Britstops and park4night unless looking for a campsite then it is CCC.
 
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