Our First Motorhome Tour – An 11 Month Loop Around Europe and Morocco

Tour Summary

We were full of trepidation when we set off on our first long-term motorhome tour in October 2011. Our plan was to get to Calais and turn right, which we did – although by this point we were already minus a skylight and with a dodgy fridge. We got those sorted and followed the French Atlantic coast, mainly stopping in free or low cost aires. Nerves jangled again as we reached the border with Spain, but we ploughed on and drove across Norther Spain and into the Picos de Europa Mountains. Keeping to the coast brought us to Portugal where we spent Christmas and New Year before we were lucky enough to be offered the use of a villa on the Algarve for a week. The pet passport rules changed in January 2012, which meant we could take our pampered pooch Charlie over to Morocco – so we did. We were only there for 30 days, but it changed our view of the world. We walked the dunes of the Sahara desert and gagged from the smell of the tanneries in Fes, but we learned a lot about this amazing country and its people. Back in Spain we nipped to Gibraltar before making our way up the coast, stopping off to meet Ju’s parents in Benidorm and to see Barcelona. In France our motorhome Dave needed a new clutch, which took a couple of weeks because it was Easter. Back on the road we headed towards Italy via Mont Ventoux, Provence and the Gorge du Verdon. In Italy we drove around a couple of the lakes, then into the Dolomite Mountains for a stage of the Giro d’Italia. After a couple of days in Venice we headed north into Austria for a night, then into Slovenia to meet friends at Lake Bled. Back into Italy before crossing into Croatia. We followed the beautiful coast, nipped inland to see the Plitvice Lakes, and caught a ferry to Hvar island, before turning north and into Bosnia and Herzegovina. We only had a few days there before we were in Hungary seeing Communist statues in Momento Park and wandering around Budapest. Austria saw us sleeping in castle car parks and visiting beautiful Hallstatt before reaching the Czech Republic. We spent a few days on a campsite in the middle of Prague sampling the beer, and stocking up on it before heading into Germany. We visited the Eagles Nest and meandered around Bavaria. We went north through the country to Hamburg and the Minatur Wonderland, then turned west into The Netherlands where we followed the coast, seeing windmills at Kinderdijk before crossing into Belgium to catch up with friends before our ferry home.

Countries Visited

France, Spain, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France

Tour Route

Read about the whole tour

The first day of this tour – Full English. You can work your way through this tour by clicking on the link above. Once you’ve read that blog post you can move onto the next one using the arrows on the side of the page.

Find out about a specific place on the tour

If you want to know more about a specific place on the tour, click here and you will see a map (like the image above) of all of our tours. On the map, you can zoom in and click on the red dot to get GPS Co-ordinates and information about where we stayed, as well as a link the the blog post we wrote about being there.

Find out how much our motorhome tour cost

We don’t have a cost breakdown just for this trip as it was the first part of a two year long tour. You can find details of the second year here. We’ve published the total costs for both years of the trip, as well as a round up after 600 days on the road. We also wrote about the costs we incurred before setting off on this trip.

Practical Advice for Your Own Motorhome or Campervan Tour

Fancy wandering Europe in your motorhome or campervan? We’ve pulled together a book containing all the practical advice we’ve learned from years of motorhome holidays and long-term touring. The Motorhome Touring Handbook will give you all the info you need, and is available from Amazon as a paperback or Kindle eBook. We’ve also written a practical guide to taking your motorhome to Morocco. Motorhome Morocco is also available through Amazon as an ebook or paperback.