Hi,

We have not taken our own tent but have camped twice on that coast. It is great for kids, plenty to do up and down the coast and inland.

As for the ferry the prices change dramatically with time of day, week and year. This year we crossed Dover to Dunkirk with Norfolkline with the car for £48 return! That was a Thursday early crossing there and a late Monday to come back. The next best price we got for the same times was £160 with Stena. Don't even ask how much the chunnel wanted!!

The catamaran is now running again between Dover and Boulogne. They were alays the cheapest in previous years.

cheapest are the municipal sites but no swimming pools or childrens clubs depends what you want we used to do a mixture of these and the posher sites like Clarys plage to keep the children happy !

Not got a tent but we have a touring caravan

We spend 22 days meandering around France and Spain.
I really feel sorry for those folk who think that Eurocamp et.al. is the way to go-- they miss SO many delightful places (like Castelsarrasin where the campsite is on an island in the river Tarn and lots of others I could mention)

I ALWAYS recommend the following website Campings de France where you can pick the Department you plan to visit and then get a list of campsites that are there with all the available contact details. In June and July you will find us somewhere in France and Spain although I can GUARANTEE you will find me in Poitou Charente at a little place called Soumeras for a week at least

I usually do not recommend using any one company we tend to go DIY with insurance cover from the Caravan Club Red Pennant service - but then we are caravanners.
As there are only 2 of us we do use Camping Cheques as their discount for some caravan sites is very very useful (13€50 a cheque whereas the sites may charge up to 35€ a night)

but planning is done very open ended with a basic route planned with numerous campsites marked so we can change at the drop of a hat
This year we went
From Folkestone (Little Switzerland)
down the East side of France and stopped just South of Lyon (Domaine Le Temp Libre)
then along the med coast to Canet En Roussillon (Ma Prairie)
then to Blanes in Spain (La Masia)
then up the West side of France to Soumeras (Twin Lakes)
on the way back to the ferry we stopped for one night at Dieppe (Camping La Source)
it was only 2500 miles this year

I hope you enjoy yourselves as much as we do ourselves
we have found lots of places that we HAVE to visit some are lively and some are so chilled they are positively horizontal

Hi, best ferry route and cheapest ferry route are two very different things. The cheapest will be a short Dover to Calais type crossing, but that leaves you with a long drive in France, which means petrol and toll charges. A more relaxed option is a long crossing to St Malo (which you can do overnight). This saves you 250 miles, and leaves a 3hr drive in France.