Why you need to go on a Eurocamp family holiday – with no flights and £7pp a night lodges
FRANK Sinatra crooned Come Fly With Me during a time when air travel was exciting and glamorous.
But the days of hopping on a jet and being whisked to a far-flung place, gliding along starry-eyed, are no longer.
Now it’s hours of queuing, intermin-able walks to gates, packed planes with no leg room and screaming kids — only to find when you land that your bags have been sent to Peru.
To save my sanity we went old-school — a self-drive trip via ferry to a Eurocamp resort in Brittany.
But for this trip to one of the top sites in The Sun’s Holidays From £9.50, I was going back to the future — in a Tesla to test if I could get there without running out of battery.
We drove from Bristol to Poole, where we met our Condor fast ferry to Jersey and on to St Malo.
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From St Malo, a picturesque and bustling fort town, it was only 40 minutes’ drive to the campsite, Domaine des Ormes, tucked away in tranquil countryside a few miles south of Dol-de-Bretagne.
It’s also possible to take a ferry from Portsmouth six hours to Caen then drive for around two hours to the site, or use the Channel Tunnel or Dover-Calais ferries.
The Tesla took our trip in its stride, with none of the range anxiety I’d heard about from other electric car users.
Incredibly, there are more than 250,000 charging points available for the Tesla across Europe, through Octopus EV’s Electric Juice Network.
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When we arrived late on the Saturday evening, the site’s pub was buzzing with French and English families drinking and socialising and eating in the excellent pizza restaurant next door.
We unpacked into our cabin, a three-bedroom Azure.
It was perfect — with a bedroom for each our two sons, aged four and eight months, as well as a kitchen with all the amenities and a sundeck for lounging around and feasting on treats cooked on the gas BBQ provided.
At first light we were awoken by our boys wanting food.
But the on-site shop was just a five-minute walk, through pine trees and past wonderful Hobbit-like wooden camping huts.
We passed a sand-covered kids’ play park — also with football pitches — where our older son was soon in his element and had to be dragged away.
Fresh baguettes and pastries every day, an array of dried meats and sausages, cheese, steaks, chicken skewers, beer and wine, sweets, ice cream, loo roll — the shop has almost everything you could need and at fair prices.
On one occasion we did have to pop out to Lidl, ten minutes’ drive away, for nappies and a few extra things.
But a quick word of warning — shock, horror, Lidl in France doesn’t sell any fresh milk.
On a brighter note, though, Domaine des Ormes is just packed with things to do to keep the children occupied.
It has a kids’ club with loads of activities all day — from crafts, to sport and games, and mini-cars to drive.
But the resort’s main draw is the giant domed indoor pool which is pirate-themed and has a lazy river with a swing, two giant slides, a toddlers’ pool and a main pool with wave machine.
It’s open from 10am to 7pm every day and there’s a fun night swim for grown-ups and older kids on a Friday evening.
There is also an outdoor pool open at weekends which has really fast, fun slides that our four-year-old loved.
The campsite is surrounded by a large walking and cycling trail through forest and pastures, and bikes fitted out with child seats are available to rent.
Guests can also go horse riding, do archery, or even try wakeboarding on the freshwater lake.
The jewel in the crown is an incredible zipline course through the trees, with various levels of difficulty and requiring different levels of nerve as you wobble along as high as 50ft.
From the campsite we were just a short drive from the amazing St Malo Aquarium, historic tidal island Mont-St-Michel, and a beautiful towns including the small oyster-fishing port of Cancale where you can gorge on seafood and guzzle fizz — if that’s your fancy.
The Tesla seemed to eat up the smooth French A-roads easily enough and we only needed to recharge once before we set off back for Britain.
Conveniently there are two large supermarkets near the campsite, selling lots of cheap wines as well as meats for the BBQ — and their car parks had electric superchargers.
Driving back to the ferry, we stopped off at the famous St Malo beach lido for a coffee, cocktail and swim, before board-ing the boat.
On our return leg it stopped in Guernsey where we had time to drive to the stunning Fermain Bay for another swim and ice cream, before the onward voyage to Poole.
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Being able to bring as much stuff as you want, stop where you want, go off course and listen to your own music, wind the window down, and have your own wheels when you get there, make driving to a campsite most appealing.
So, as good ol’ Frank almost said: “Pack up, let’s drive away.”
GO: Brittany
GETTING THERE: Condor Ferries sails to Jersey, Guernsey, St Malo and Cherbourg from Poole.
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Brittany Ferries has crossings from Portsmouth to St Malo and Poole to Cherbourg.
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STAYING THERE: A week self-catering in a three-bed Azure cabin at the Domaine Des Ormes at Dol-de-Bretagne is from £296 in total, arriving April 29.
See or call 01606 787125.