Good morning Frank - nothing wrong with a good old mid-life crisis! :silly:

Can't help with advice on which club but maybe with the vets. This is a Google Map of French vets, I don't know how up-to-date it is or how accurate but you may find it useful. Google Maps of European Vets

Even without the map or a list though it's very easy to find a vet in France, pretty well all towns and decent sized villages have one or more. As a dog owner you will spot them everywhere on your travels.

And now that the Pet Passport rules give a much larger window of travel (1-5 days) you don't need to leave it until you are near to a port to find one.

Officially a vet needs to examine the dog and apply its worming treatment and stamp its passport - always worth checking they stamp the correct time and date! Can be awkward when you get to passport control to find they wrote incorrect details down :pinch:

Looking forward to seeing photos of your new addition.

Thanks Neil ,great map.If he will sit still for five minutes will take some pictures .

Hi Frank,
Not sure which would be considered better than the other but I joined CCC this year simply to get access to cheap out of the way places where we,d feel safer than wildcamping .
Only used it a couple times but found a nice site(2 large fields) which is owned by the national trust at £4 per head per night just on the jurassic coast.Also loads of sites to choose from around the country.
Early days for us as no other plans at the moment apart from camping with friends and daughter and grandkids next week,proper campsite Mill Farm just outside Bridgwater.
We do sometimes think about getting a dog again but feel life is too busy at the moment to go down that road again so wish you well with the Spaniel,a great little dog. :thumbs:

hi
I have looked at the same myself i was a member of ccc for more than 12 years, but never used the sites as we spent most of our time in France. Now we go to Benidorm twice a year for two months at a time we are contemplating joining the ccc again as the prices for cc cl sites seam expensive, we have a campervan and and only need parking and toilets, and being pensioners lots of night life.

Hi tonymargaret,we used to belong to the ccc but when they were going to charge us £70 pounds to book sites we left,the thing is we are members of club voyage and normally use Brittany ferries for a good saving but the ccc won't let you book yourselves if you do they charge £70 for the privilege

Neither!

I personally found the CCC full of rules and regulations and the site wardens are like prison officers!
(being told how to park, being moaned at if you turn up later than expected, even emptied my outside locker to find something and got told I had better tidy the stuff up soon, before I had even finished looking!)

I also object to the way organisations like the RAC will now not cover my van, even though they have been for years, unless I join the CC, obviously they are so short on funds the club feels the need to try to 'blackmail' (for the want of a better word) people to join them.
The RAC actually told me I 'had' to join the CC, and the attitude was awful when I said I didn't want to join any club.

Please forgive my little rant, however if the clubs are what you enjoy, that is great but take a look at the freedom camping club, many of the certificated sites are the same as the CC and CCC ones but its free with no membership fee!
http://www.freedomcampingclub.org

Joining a club is always a personal choice. We are in the CC which suits us, some prefer the CCC, and some none. I must admit I have never found any site warden bossy or the rules intrusive, but once again that is a personal view. Both clubs have sites that are no exclusive to members try them and see how it goes.

Going overseas with a dog on a pet passport is easy, just make sure all relevant entries in the passport are properly filled in with day, month and year clearly shown. Also you can do the vet check several gays before the ferry, and it must be 24 hours in advance. We do ours in Portugal with vets we know 2 days before our Bilbao ferry.

Hello

We are in the CC as well. We mainly use them for ferry booking as they have pretty good rates and available space even when the ferry company booking website shows it full.

Of late the wardens have been much more customer friendly, although over the top on Health and Safety, do we really need signs that says 'beware Rabbit holes or steep bank'. No we don't!! My main gripe is that the cc is obsessed about booking and providing organised trips. If I wanted to book and be herded around then I would book a package holiday.

Having an MH is all about freedom, to go where and when you want to, without having to book. I just wish the CC would realise that the need for may motor homers is different from those with a caravan (like we used to have) Perhaps provide a few non bookable aire type pitches where you can arrive at anytime.

Spinner

Hello

If I wanted to book and be herded around then I would book a package holiday.

Having an MH is all about freedom, to go where and when you want to, without having to book.

Spinner

I agree with this totally.

Also glad to read that wardens are better than they used to be, I have never been a member of the CC but when i was in the CCC I remember a site we went to (i wont name it).

I parked in the pitch front first, then we sat down to dinner, the warden came over halfway through dinner and informed me that I must reverse into the pitch beacause thats the 'rule'.
I apologised and said 'I will just finish my dinner then turn around'.
He responed with 'you will move now or I will eject you from the site!'

So I calmy told him what I thought and we left.
But this was 8 or more years ago.

Didnt know about the CC and ferries though either! ;-)

But the CCC does now offer a 'motorhome service' at sites where passing members can empty the toilet, re fill and have a shower etc for £7.
I have contacted 2 of these sites direct and they are happy to offer it to non members too and Neil has added them to the listings here.
Which I do think is a great idea.

Hi, I am a member of both and have used both several times late last year. I must say I have never been charged an addition for booking through them, on the contrary it was always cheaper through either club. In general a caravan club site would always be spotlessly clean with excellent facilities. We found most sites with excellent standards would range between £15 and £21. a few independents ripped me off a couple of times but I find both clubs convenient because it means I have a greater and wider spectrum of choice.

Hi there

Only commenting on the club site issue, but wish you well with your furry friend.
We joined both CC and CCC last year when we got our first MH - for security (ours) I think. Now we're "seasoned pros" - I think we will just keep the CCC but who knows. I have never found the wardens to be unhelpful. Some of them are more precise than others but we might feel differently as we're just swapping our van for a french make and will have a r hand habitation door - so we'll see if we have to park differently.
We also found the two organisations useful as we had a larger van, and it was clear which sites we could access or not.
I don't think there's much wrong with them and they provide a bit of a safety net for beginners like us, but I think we'll be a bit more adventurous from now on.

Janet

Thanks Janet.
My van is also a continental one with the door on the 'wrong' side.
As i said though my experience was years ago.
Sounds like the clubs are good now.

I also met someone today that id a ccc member and we got on to talking about hendra campsite in cornwall, at easter they have a 170 pitch tempory ccc site there.
£10.50 per unit per night.
If i was to go normally it would cost me £38 a night!

So a def advantage there!

Hi Spinner,
On my recent Scottish jaunt and whilst returning South I turned up at cc sites unannounced several times and only once was I told the site was full, which it looked actually. I have not had a single bad experience with any site or any club so far but I am realistic so maybe if I pay only a tenner and the shower ain't great, so be it. I'm not applying this to you but I have spoken to others on sites that were nit-picking on pathetic issues where I thought the site owners had tried really hard in the circumstances.
I'm still quite a newbie in my first year but a damn quick learner.
Drive safely
Mothy

That freedom club says you can have ONE night per Year free, not every night. I don't mind paying £20 a night as long as I get good facilities.

That freedom club thing is ment to be just like the other clubs but without the membership fee to join.
You still pay each night.

I also dont mind paying £20 a night and i often pay £15 per 24 hours in a car park with no facilities!

But what i do object to is sites wanting £10 or £12 a night extra for my kids alone.
This makes most sites in general £30 a night for us in season minimum.

That's a rip off Tom! I would object to that as well.

Yes Martin. I know!

Next site you book, have a look at the 'extra' charges.
Most standard charges are for 2 adults, chileren are often extra, like dogs etc