Motorhome stopovers
Aires and Stellplätze
322 listed · 158 in France · median €15.78 a night
Somewhere to empty, fill and sleep. Not a campsite, and priced accordingly.
An aire is a motorhome stopover: a service point and, usually, a place to park overnight. France invented the format and has thousands of them, most run by communes. Germany calls the same thing a Stellplatz, Italy an area di sosta, Spain an área de autocaravanas.
Two words get confused constantly. An aire de services is the service point itself — fresh water, grey waste, chemical disposal — and may have nowhere to sleep. An aire de stationnement is the parking. Most useful stops are both.
What a French aire actually costs
Computed from the 158 French aires in this directory that publish a price. Every one is a barrier-controlled network aire, so read this as the paid end of the market — France's municipal aires are frequently free.
- €9.60
- Cheapest
- €15.78
- Median
- €21.32
- Dearest
- 26
- Median pitches
Every one of the 158 French aires here has a water point, waste disposal, a motorhome service point and electric hook-up. 22 of them — fewer than one in 7 — has a toilet block or showers. That is the trade you are making against a campsite, and it is why the median sits near €16 rather than €35.
136 of the 158 stay open all year, which is what makes them useful out of season when the campsites around them have shut.
Prices as published by the operator and dated on each aire's own page. Network aires reprice annually.
Where they are
Follow a country through to its regions and individual stopovers.
What we do not list
Said plainly, because the gap matters.
France has several thousand municipal aires. This directory holds 158 of them, and all 158 belong to a single barrier-controlled network, because that operator publishes prices, coordinates and facilities we can cite. The free village aire beside the boulangerie is not here, and any site claiming to hold a complete, verified list of French aires is overstating what is publicly available.
For the municipal ones, the crowd-sourced apps are genuinely the right tool, and we list the main ones alongside the camping cards.
Common questions
What is an aire in France?+
An aire is a designated motorhome stopover. The term covers two things that are often confused. An aire de services is a service point with fresh water, waste water and chemical disposal, sometimes with no parking at all. An aire de stationnement is somewhere you may park overnight. Many places are both, and it is the combined sort that most tourers mean when they say aire.
How much does a French aire cost?+
It depends entirely on who runs it. Municipal aires are frequently free, or charge a few euros for water and electricity through a token machine. Barrier-controlled network aires charge a nightly fee: across the French aires listed in this directory the median is around EUR 16 a night, with the cheapest under EUR 10 and the dearest just over EUR 21.
Can you stay overnight on an aire for free?+
On many municipal aires, yes — France has thousands of them and a large share make no charge for parking, though water and electricity usually cost a euro or two through a meter. Network aires with a barrier always charge. Free does not mean unlimited: most aires cap stays at 24, 48 or 72 hours.
Do aires have toilets and showers?+
Usually not. Of the French aires in this directory, fewer than one in seven has a toilet block or showers. What is close to universal is the thing a motorhome actually needs: a water point, waste disposal and a service point, present at every one of them. An aire is somewhere to empty, fill and sleep, not a campsite.
What is a Stellplatz?+
The German equivalent of an aire, and the same idea: a motorhome stopover with services rather than a campsite. Italy calls them aree di sosta, Spain areas de autocaravanas, the Netherlands camperplaatsen. Facilities and pricing follow the same pattern everywhere — services guaranteed, sanitary blocks rare.
Do you need to book an aire?+
Municipal aires are almost always first come, first served. Barrier-controlled network aires are typically accessed with a pre-paid card or an app, which lets you enter whenever there is space but does not reserve you a pitch. In July and August the popular coastal ones fill by mid-afternoon.