You can find places to camp in pretty every
much village or small town that you go to in France. Historically, it is part
of the local commune’s responsibility to provide camping facilities, so many of
the campsites in France are ‘campings municipals’. These may not have quite the
same range of facilities as the commercial campsites, such as big swimming
pools with slides, entertainment programmes for the kids and bars or
restaurants. However, you can pretty much guarantee that they will be clean and
well-maintained, as well as being really good value for money.

Idyllic
and historical attractions

The Dordogne is an area renowned for appealing
to tourists, and there is a huge range of campsites in the area. Most of them
are close to or on the banks of the Dordogne River – which is broad and
slow-moving and breathtakingly beautiful. Many people will go camping with
their car, tent and sleeping
bag, but there are a lot of campsites in France that have mobile homes or
fixed tents that you can book to stay in if you’re not a ‘true camper’.

You can easily hire kayaks and canoes on
the river – and choose to just head off from the hire point and go and up down
the river a few miles, or do an excursion where the hire company takes you by
minibus to a starting point and you then work your way back downstream to the
place you organised to meet them at.

The villages in the Dordogne are all pretty
much picture postcard beautiful, and there are also caves to explore in the
area. It’s an area where there are many examples of troglodyte dwellings –
caves where prehistoric communities made their homes. La Madeleine is one of
the biggest examples, and you can take a tour to hear how people lived back
then.

One town not to be missed in the area is
the little town of Brantôme,
sometimes referred to as the green Venice. The town is a meeting point for
three rivers and bridges join up different parts of the town. Its backdrop is a
huge cliff face below which sits the Benedictine Abbey of Brantôme, founded by Charlemagne in 769.

Of course, there’s much more to discover in
the Dordogne, but hopefully this will have given you a flavour of what’s there.

Byline: Thomas is a travel enthusiast who
likes to make the most of life in the great outdoors. He loves taking off with
his mates, backpacks
on and tents in hand.