European Travel

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We have been across the water many times but even now my wife is getting twitchy about it since the Brexit rule changes so I can understand your wifes anxiety.The answer is to do as you are doing and arm yourself with as much information about the countries as you can.

You cannot get UK calor bottles in France or have them refilled but as you are only going for 2 weeks if you have a full bottle it should not be a problem because with just cooking you are unlikely to use it all. In an emergency, what you can buy in France is Camping Gas. I used to carry a Camping Gas regulator with me just in case but I now have refillable bottles which can be refilled at most garage LPG pumps.

Reversed polarity is not so prevalent as it used to be but to safeguard yourself buy or make up a reversing lead.

peedee

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We have also stopped bothering re reversed polarity, since we changed to a continental van, after all none of the non UK residents do. Although I still have the reverser lead if I wanted to. It was in Brittany a few years ago with our caravan, where I was checking the polarity of the supply at the site post and the owner came across to see what I was up to. I explained and he just shrugged, saying it is an English thing we don’t mind. However, at this small site it was worth having another connector, as it had the old style French socket. They are now uncommon, but particularly small family owned sites still have them, so well worth the £8 or so they cost.
You don’t say what sort of sites you are going to use, but if you are going to give Aires a try it would be worth investigating the camping car park network. Although many more are available and often free, these are of a consistently high standard and usually have 6 amp electric and WiFi, for around 12€ a night.

about the only time reverse polarity might be a problem is if you start poking a metal knife into a toaster to retrieve a stuck slice without unplugging first.

Even though reverse polarity is becoming rarer I would not be without my plug in tester and reversing lead. The reason Continentals might shrug is because over there they use dual pole switching, including in their vans. This means if an applicance is completely switched off, it is very unlikely to be live even if a fault develops. Not so with our UK single pole live wire switching. If the wiring is reversed you are no longer completely switching the live wire and appliance off and in case of a fault the appliance can be live. Touching it, effectively making a connection to the negative side or earth will at the very least give you a shock and at worst could be fatal. Get a tester and a reversing lead and be safe not sorry.

peedee

Jim, Try to stop the lady worrying. Brittany is lovely. Here’s a photo. Go and explore.

We always carry a tester and a reverse polarity lead just incase we come across a site where we feel happier to use it. We also carry a 2 pin adapter as some sites still have these. 

You say you aim to travel late summer, be aware until mid August it is classed as high season so sites could be busier at that time. Once into the 3rd week of August it does tend to go back to being less busy and sites that are in the Acsi system will go back onto their discounted prices. 

SteveL, has also mentioned the CCP camping car parks for Aires. I would second this for any Motorhome. Very useful and at that time of year some of the aires (that were formerly Municipal sites) will have their facility blocks open.

The question of Calor has already been answered, we rarely get through much gas and a 6kg bottle can last us 2 years, we go overseas for 2 trips of 8 and 10 weeks at a time. Gas only used for cooking as hot water and heating (rarely needed) are on electric.

Please be aware that on many sites in France you might only have 6amps electric hook up. This is manageable as long as you don't use a domestic type kettle, either use gas or buy a camping kettle, we find a 1000w kettle to work fine. 

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Please do not get het up about reverse polarity,as it has been mentioned before the french (and others) switch both live and neutral,here we only switch the live,but how many caravans have switches on the sockets anyway.Neither of my previous vans had switches on the sockets so the only way to isolate the appliance is to pull the plug.

The strange thing is when RP is mentioned it gets people talking,but a missing earth is dangerous and potentially fatal as the body work can become live,but this never gets a mention.

My only concern would be using a domestic toaster though as these have open elements.