Camping or B&B Europe

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Brains

Legendary Member
Location
Greenwich
If money no object then credit card touring is the way to go.

BUT you will struggle on less than £100 a day for two of you, as not only are you paying for the B and the B you you are also paying for a nice evening meal out.

I have done both extensively, camping when with mates and B&B/hotels when with Mrs Brains

To add a bit to my earlier message: pros and cons
Over tha last 25 years I have spent well over a thousand nights under canvas and also probably even more nights in hotel rooms all over the world, I've also ridden the bike in most countries in western Europe (except Spain & Italy)

Accomodation:Pro's
A nice warm bed
in a nice hotel or B&B
with a proper bathroom
a nice meal in or out
electricity on tap
freshly laundered dry clothing to get into the next morning
You dont need half as much kit
less kit means that locking the bike and taking the panniers with you may be possible

Accomodation:Con's
Expensive - Typically 5 X what you would pay camping by the time you include food
You need to fit in with others schedules for arrival, departure, meals etc.
You usually need to plan accodation ahead, the days of just turning up at the door have gone from most of northern Europe
Hotels and B&B's are by definition in places people want to stop, so town centers etc, which by definition are not the best places to cycle
Some places will be good, others wont be.

Bottom line: Luxury but Restricted and Expensive

Camping:Pro's
A room with a view, every night
Your own personal space
A greater sense of achievement
Run to your own schedule with stopping, starting and food
No need to aim for a particular place each night
Wild camping and Stelth camping
Cheap! - it can be seriously cheap, we managed a couple of days on a long French trip with an expenditure of zero
Cook what you want when you want.
If you want to go and spend a night or two in a hotel, then you can !

Camping:Con's
Wet days and nights, one you can deal with, three becomes miserable (But you can always opt out of camping and B&B a few nights)
You will have more kit (although a friend camped for 3 weeks across Europe with two panniers, just two panniers and not full ones at that.)
Camp sites are a bit of a mixed bag (but so are hotels)
Issues recharging stuff
The loo/shower is on the otherside of the campsite, in the dark and the rain and the mud
Stack up, pack down, no matter how good you are it will take at least 30 mins

Bottom line: Cheap Freedom; but you are slumming it a bit.
 
Whatever we end up doing, I only have the capability of carrying two rear panniers.
 
Im not sure that the weight of an ultralight sleeping bag and tent will make a blind bit of difference to cycling in the Netherlands being as it's so flat but @hopless500 you could always bring your butler to carry your stuff as you did in SE Asia :tongue:.:ph34r:

I am not planning on cooking anything either so there will be no weight added there and if i can't wash my smalls in the campsite showers and dry them in my string bag attached to my handlebars then i will be in trouble.

One thing i can certainly say for sure is that mainland Europe has thousands of campsites so we will never be without room to drop our stuff and worst case senario that we have to stop somewhere without a b&b we will always be able to find someone prepared to take a few Euros to lets us pitch our tents for the night. Friends of my parents who live just outside Rouen will never turn a desperate camper away from their paddock for Euros in the hand.

We still have a while to decide and perhaps we may go 50/50 with one camping and the other staying in the b&b but whatever happens i can guarantee that we will sitting somewhere at the end of the day with a beer in hand ^_^
:shy: the necessaries were carried by Mr Hop in a bid to give me a fighting chance of keeping up with those more laden than myself.

If it rains while we are cycling you are going to have trouble drying those smalls on your handlebars... and if I have my smalls on my handlebars, they'll create a sail :tongue:. Great with a tail wind, but problematical with a headwind :laugh:
 
For me the cons of camping are additional weight, tent, s/bag, t/rest, water bottle, kettle, small stove, additional clothing etc which would probably end up at at least an additional 8kg. Then there is the cost of buying a new decent lightweight tent and new sleeping bag to be factored in. We also then have to carry a lot of our stuff with us when we're not on bikes. The faffing of pitching and unpitching(!) tents. Plus I always manage to feel grubby camping, however clean I am!

Also, if there really are this many campsites available, a quick look at one of our nearest routes out near Arnhem shows a campsite with static accommodation at $43 (euro) between us for a hiking hut. This may be the happy middle ground where we can use available camping facilities without the faff of carrying and putting up tents and the odd B&B in the bigger towns/cities where we can't find a site. We could always book a few days in advance as we go once we know which direction we're heading in if you can't just wander in and pay.
 

Biscuit

Legendary Member
Hi,

http://www.vriendenopdefiets.nl/en/ is the organisation I used on my last two trips to Holland. Membership is a shocking 10 euros!!. The network extends into Germany and Belgium. I took camping gear and did about 3 quarters of stops in campsites, 2 hostels, a cheap hotel, ( they took the piss about me sleeping with my bike ) , and the rest in guest houses from the VOdeF directory. Fixed rate for those is / was 19 Euro. You can get anything from a town house attic to a cabin in someones garden.

Bear in mind you will need to charge up stuff at some point. ( Those solar charger thingys are a new addition to my kit list this year ). After a few days you cease to worry about where to stop and stay as something always turns up in the end. You'll surprise yourself !! :thumbsup:
 
I've given in and bought a new tent. We have several but the 4 man frame tent will be a tad heavy, the various 2 person ones aren't suitable, Mr Hop's saunders tent has seen better days and his 1 man one is old,rank and a pig to erect. Just need a room about every 3rd night for charging purposes.
 
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