Y ou wouldn't expect a fourth century saint to be a caravan fan, but we think St Augustine would have enjoyed his touring. He once wrote: "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." Caravanning gives plenty of scope for travel, not to mention the downtime needed to enjoy a good read. With this in mind, what better excuse do you need to go touring with a few well chosen books for company?
Here we've picked a selection of our favourite caravanning reads. With Christmas on the way, any of these would make a welcome stocking filler. Some will help you find an inspiring destination in Britain or abroad. Others will guide you through that tricky DIY project. Some will put a smile on your face, or just remind you why you started caravanning in the first place. Happy reading.
There are masses of books out there that will help you plan your trips away, but if you're planning
a holiday in the UK or abroad, you could do a lot worse than to get hold of the highly regarded Alan Rogers Guides. Rather than give the low-down on every single site, only those that come up to scratch are included. With more than 520 sites in the Britain & Ireland book, and more than 650 sites in the French guide, you won't struggle to find a caravan park close to where you want to go.
The quality of the sites listed isn't the only great thing about Alan Rogers' selection-by-merit approach. Listing hundreds rather than thousands of sites leaves room for a readable description of each park, with good directions given along with pitch prices and opening dates. Each site gets a score out of five for the welcome and ambience, location, quality of pitches and range of facilities, so whether you prefer a lively family park or a quiet rural location you should find something to suit. In fact, the only thing that could improve these excellent guides would be pictures of every site.
If you're planning a European jaunt, you can't beat the Caravan Club's Caravan Europe 1 & 2 books for sheer scale. The first one covers France, Spain, Portugal and Andorra, with a mammoth 4450 sites rated. The second listd 3300 sites in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Eastern Europe, Germany, Greece, Scandinavia and Switzerland.
After an introduction to each country, sites are listed alphabetically by place name, with brief directions, a description of the facilities and short reviews by Caravan Club members. Maps of each country will help you locate a site if you know the area you want to visit but aren't familiar with local place names. The straightforward approach, frequent use of abbreviations and lack of pictures make these guides practical tools rather than inspirational reads, but they're the first books we reach for when planning a trip abroad.
The rival guides from the AA are also worth making space for on your bookshelf, even if they're on
a smaller scale than the Caravan Club's massive tomes. The French guide in particular is rather more user-friendly than the Caravan Club books. It includes more than 400 sites with photographs, and the comprehensive reviews are free from abbreviations and jargon. Each site has been rated
to help you find the very best – although the odd scale runs from 7 to 8.8. The AA European guide, meanwhile, trades some detail and pictures to squeeze in more sites. But 3200 sites across 11 countries is good value for just over a tenner.
A final travel guide that's well worth the money – if only for its many extras – is Caravan and Camping Kit: Britain & Ireland. Your £15.99 doesn't just get you
a site guide, you also get a road atlas and a torch thrown in.
The site guide on its own
usually costs £9.99.
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