Family trip to Greece

[Anthony77]

Hi all

Time will be the judge of whether we're crazy or not, but we're taking the school summer holidays off to drive our California Beach to Greece with our *cough* four children *cough*. Our target is Kythera, a lovely island south of the Peleponnese where my father's family is originally from. We have a place to stay there, but would be keen for any recommendations on the way for campsites and general travel tips... We'll be travelling light, sleeping 3 or 4 in the van and 3 or 4 in the side tent, with possibly a few airbnb's/cheap hotels on the way for a break. Ferries have been booked from Ancona to Igoumenitsa, and we have a first night visiting friends in Brussels. For now the rest is a bit of a blank.

Our basic route there is as follows:

Luxembourg
Strasbourg-ish (or somewhere thereabouts)
Liechtenstein
Salzburg-ish
Ljublijana-ish
Venice-ish & San Marino
Western Greece & Peleponnese

Our aim is to keep driving legs to between 3 and 4 hours max, though the journey back will be a bit more rushed.

If anyone has any thoughts/recommendations/campsites etc, all gratefully received. We have a few ideas in mind, but the more the merrier.

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

 

[Jason wallace]

Sounds like a great trip......Sadly cant recommend any sites in greece.

But it may be worth doing a searching for related posts by @Amarillo. I believe they spent a lot of time in Greece last year as part of an amazing European trip with his kids. His blog can be found here .... https://au-revoir.eu

Look forward to reading about your adventures.

Hi all

Time will be the judge of whether we're crazy or not, but we're taking the school summer holidays off to drive our California Beach to Greece with our *cough* four children *cough*. Our target is Kythera, a lovely island south of the Peleponnese where my father's family is originally from. We have a place to stay there, but would be keen for any recommendations on the way for campsites and general travel tips... We'll be travelling light, sleeping 3 or 4 in the van and 3 or 4 in the side tent, with possibly a few airbnb's/cheap hotels on the way for a break. Ferries have been booked from Ancona to Igoumenitsa, and we have a first night visiting friends in Brussels. For now the rest is a bit of a blank.

Our basic route there is as follows:

Luxembourg
Strasbourg-ish (or somewhere thereabouts)
Liechtenstein
Salzburg-ish
Ljublijana-ish
Venice-ish & San Marino
Western Greece & Peleponnese

Our aim is to keep driving legs to between 3 and 4 hours max, though the journey back will be a bit more rushed.

If anyone has any thoughts/recommendations/campsites etc, all gratefully received. We have a few ideas in mind, but the more the merrier.

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

 

[Amarillo]

Hi all

Time will be the judge of whether we're crazy or not, but we're taking the school summer holidays off to drive our California Beach to Greece with our *cough* four children *cough*. Our target is Kythera, a lovely island south of the Peleponnese where my father's family is originally from. We have a place to stay there, but would be keen for any recommendations on the way for campsites and general travel tips... We'll be travelling light, sleeping 3 or 4 in the van and 3 or 4 in the side tent, with possibly a few airbnb's/cheap hotels on the way for a break. Ferries have been booked from Ancona to Igoumenitsa, and we have a first night visiting friends in Brussels. For now the rest is a bit of a blank.

Our basic route there is as follows:

Luxembourg
Strasbourg-ish (or somewhere thereabouts)
Liechtenstein
Salzburg-ish
Ljublijana-ish
Venice-ish & San Marino
Western Greece & Peleponnese

Our aim is to keep driving legs to between 3 and 4 hours max, though the journey back will be a bit more rushed.

If anyone has any thoughts/recommendations/campsites etc, all gratefully received. We have a few ideas in mind, but the more the merrier.

Thanks in advance,
Anthony

As far as I know, there is only one campsite in Liechtenstein, and one in San Marino.

The Liechtenstein one really is not worth bothering about, in fact the whole of Liechtenstein is not really worth bothering about.

We had a very pleasant stay in San Marino. The campground was nice and we loved mooching about the citadel as the Christmas decorations were going up and flurries of snow were falling. The place was empty, but I can imagine it gets busy in the summer months.

There is a bus direct from the campsite to the citadel.

We took the ferry from Brindisi to Igoumenitsa, we had a four berth cabin and slept well, arriving early morning. The van's sat nav was hopeless as a new motorway had been built but not mapped by VW. At the time of our arrival in Greece, 7 February 2018, there were no refuelling stations open on the Ionia Odos. Having run the tank to nearly empty in Italy because I knew fuel was cheaper in Greece, we nearly ran out on the motorway.

Our first stop in Greece was Camping Aginara Beach. The owner kept on giving us eggs. Nice beach where we found a dead turtle.


From there we stayed in an Airbnb house near Koroni, then another Airbnb near Argos.

Then onto Camping Sikia which we loved.

A single night at Πολυχώρος Μπάτη and then to Alexandroupolis - both unremarkable campsites

We returned north through Bulgaria and Romania.

No, I don't think you are crazy; it's a great thing to do - just a shame you can't spend a year like we did. What are the ages/size of your children? If you want to do a quick one night stop can you sleep all six in the van, three older children upstairs, adults and the little one downstairs. It will be more difficult with one additional seat in the van, but the big bed can be made up without removing the additional seat.


Organisation is the key. Seat back pockets and VanEssa window bags. Emergency gear such as hi vis vests, warning triangles etc under the driver's seat.

When stopping, either do a quick overnight where you do minimal unpacking, or stop for 3 nights minimum. Fully setting up camp and striking for a 2 night stop really isn't worth it.

 

[Anthony77]

As far as I know, there is only one campsite in Liechtenstein, and one in San Marino.

The Liechtenstein one really is not worth bothering about, in fact the whole of Liechtenstein is not really worth bothering about.

We had a very pleasant stay in San Marino. The campground was nice and we loved mooching about the citadel as the Christmas decorations were going up and flurries of snow were falling. The place was empty, but I can imagine it gets busy in the summer months.
View attachment 44755
There is a bus direct from the campsite to the citadel.

We took the ferry from Brindisi to Igoumenitsa, we had a four berth cabin and slept well, arriving early morning. The van's sat nav was hopeless as a new motorway had been built but not mapped by VW. At the time of our arrival in Greece, 7 February 2018, there were no refuelling stations open on the Ionia Odos. Having run the tank to nearly empty in Italy because I knew fuel was cheaper in Greece, we nearly ran out on the motorway.

Our first stop in Greece was Camping Aginara Beach. The owner kept on giving us eggs. Nice beach where we found a dead turtle.
View attachment 44757

From there we stayed in an Airbnb house near Koroni, then another Airbnb near Argos.

Then onto Camping Sikia which we loved.

A single night at Πολυχώρος Μπάτη and then to Alexandroupolis - both unremarkable campsites

We returned north through Bulgaria and Romania.

No, I don't think you are crazy; it's a great thing to do - just a shame you can't spend a year like we did. What are the ages/size of your children? If you want to do a quick one night stop can you sleep all six in the van, three older children upstairs, adults and the little one downstairs. It will be more difficult with one additional seat in the van, but the big bed can be made up without removing the additional seat.
View attachment 44758

Organisation is the key. Seat back pockets and VanEssa window bags. Emergency gear such as hi vis vests, warning triangles etc under the driver's seat.

When stopping, either do a quick overnight where you do minimal unpacking, or stop for 3 nights minimum. Fully setting up camp and striking for a 2 night stop really isn't worth it.

Thanks! That's really helpful...I'll definitely take a look at your blog over the next week for inspiration! Also very useful re Greece camp sites. I wish we could do longer, but school/work/money makes it difficult, but if this works out we can always head out for half terms etc and explore Western Europe.

Liechtenstein might well be a pass through job. My wife wants to tick off every European country by the time she's 50 (hence San Marino too). It also looks like there are much nicer places to stay in France/Germany that would require similar amounts of driving.

I think we'd struggle getting all six in the van and still remain on speaking terms. Our eldest will be 10, then we have an 8 year old, plus 5 year old twins. When we've been camping we've always kept it to four in the van max, otherwise there just won't be any sleep. I've never had a problem making the bed with the extra seat, so not too worried about that. I just need to find a decent inflatable double mattress, as the one we got with the van takes up too much space.

We have a great Quechua pump up tent that doesn't take up too much space, fits 4 quite comfortably, has a front room, and which we'd use for longer stays. It usually only takes me about 20/25 minutes to set up. Then I thought I'd get a small two-man pop up for the one night stays. It's difficult as we have about two weeks to get to Ancona, as we're going to spend nearly three weeks on the Greek island, so the most we could stay in one place is three nights as we don't want massive stretches of driving either.

 

[Anthony77]

As far as I know, there is only one campsite in Liechtenstein, and one in San Marino.

The Liechtenstein one really is not worth bothering about, in fact the whole of Liechtenstein is not really worth bothering about.

We had a very pleasant stay in San Marino. The campground was nice and we loved mooching about the citadel as the Christmas decorations were going up and flurries of snow were falling. The place was empty, but I can imagine it gets busy in the summer months.
View attachment 44755
There is a bus direct from the campsite to the citadel.

We took the ferry from Brindisi to Igoumenitsa, we had a four berth cabin and slept well, arriving early morning. The van's sat nav was hopeless as a new motorway had been built but not mapped by VW. At the time of our arrival in Greece, 7 February 2018, there were no refuelling stations open on the Ionia Odos. Having run the tank to nearly empty in Italy because I knew fuel was cheaper in Greece, we nearly ran out on the motorway.

Our first stop in Greece was Camping Aginara Beach. The owner kept on giving us eggs. Nice beach where we found a dead turtle.
View attachment 44757

From there we stayed in an Airbnb house near Koroni, then another Airbnb near Argos.

Then onto Camping Sikia which we loved.

A single night at Πολυχώρος Μπάτη and then to Alexandroupolis - both unremarkable campsites

We returned north through Bulgaria and Romania.

No, I don't think you are crazy; it's a great thing to do - just a shame you can't spend a year like we did. What are the ages/size of your children? If you want to do a quick one night stop can you sleep all six in the van, three older children upstairs, adults and the little one downstairs. It will be more difficult with one additional seat in the van, but the big bed can be made up without removing the additional seat.
View attachment 44758

Organisation is the key. Seat back pockets and VanEssa window bags. Emergency gear such as hi vis vests, warning triangles etc under the driver's seat.

When stopping, either do a quick overnight where you do minimal unpacking, or stop for 3 nights minimum. Fully setting up camp and striking for a 2 night stop really isn't worth it.

PS... we've got the VanEssa window bags and will probably invest in some seat back pockets. My only concern about the window bags is they'll cut out some of the scenery for the kids sitting in the back. Also, I find them a bit of a pain to install, but will no doubt get the hang of it!

 

[Amarillo]

Liechtenstein might well be a pass through job. My wife wants to tick off every European country by the time she's 50 (hence San Marino too).

We ticked off 33 european countries on our trip.

Our eldest will be 10, then we have an 8 year old, plus 5 year old twins.

I reckon you could sleep all four children on the lower bed, across, not longways and bag the upper berth for you and your wife. In 1972 I went on a Dordogne holiday with my family: brothers aged 9, 7, 5 (me) and 3. We all slept in a leaky two man canvas ridge tent, and on one rainy occasion, all in the boot of a Peugeot 404.

the most we could stay in one place is three nights as we don't want massive stretches of driving either.

Our initial aim was to spend a night or two in each location, and drive for 2-3 hours between locations. That plan very rapidly fell by the wayside, driving 4-6 hours between camps and stopping for a minimum of three nights. It was the faff of constantly pitching and striking camp that changed the way we did things. It might be easier for you as your 10 and 8 year olds can look after the twins in the campsite playground while you and your wife set up camp, but I do suggest you consider alternative options in case it doesn't work out.

If we had a particularly long drive we'd split it over two days, stopping overnight without setting up camp. Either my wife or I would sleep on the unmade bench seat, the other upstairs with the two boys. It was fine for one night stops, and we could be on the road by 8am the following morning. A twelve hour drive split into two drives 2pm - 8pm and 8am to 2pm. We plan to do exactly that over half term, and make it to northern Spain. Depart Greenwich 3.30pm; Folkestone-Calais (packed supper and boys into Pajamas); arrive south of Clermont Ferrand ~12pm; Depart 8am; arrive Camping Bella Terra-Costa Brava ~2pm.