Your first caravan trip to France: what to sort before you sail

Most of the work for a first French trip happens before you leave the drive. The driving is easy, the campsites are cheaper than home, and the roads are quieter. What catches people out is a missing document, an emissions sticker that takes six weeks to arrive, or discovering at Calais that nobody in France will refill a Calor bottle.

Everything below was checked in August 2026. Rules change, so verify against the official sources listed before you travel.

Documents

Take the V5C registration document, your full UK photocard driving licence, your motor insurance certificate and your passport. Carry them in the car, not the caravan.

You do not need a green card. UK vehicle insurance provides the minimum third-party cover required to drive in the EU, and the green card requirement was removed for UK-registered vehicles. Tell your insurer you are going, get written confirmation of the level of cover abroad, and take it with you. Many UK policies drop to third-party only outside the UK unless you extend them.

You do not need an International Driving Permit for France on a standard UK photocard licence. Holders of paper licences, or licences issued in Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man, may need one. They cost £5.50 from PayPoint outlets.

Your passport must meet the EU third-country rules: issued less than ten years before the date you arrive, and valid for at least three months after you intend to leave. Check the issue date as well as the expiry, because passports issued between 2018 and 2020 sometimes carry more than ten years of validity.

If you are towing and the caravan is not registered in your name, carry a letter of authority from the owner.

Kit the law requires

France requires you to carry a warning triangle and a reflective jacket for every occupant. Keep the jackets inside the cab within reach, not in the boot, because the requirement is to put one on before you get out. Headlamp beam deflectors are mandatory for right-hand-drive vehicles, and stickers are fine for a caravan-towing car. Snow chains are required in designated mountain zones when signs say so.

The breathalyser requirement was scrapped in 2019 through the loi d'orientation des mobilités, so you no longer need to carry one.

A UK identifier is required on the back of the car and the back of the caravan. If your number plate already carries the UK identifier with the Union flag, you need nothing further. If your plate shows a GB identifier, a Euro symbol, a national flag, or letters and numbers only, you need a UK sticker. Note the caravan almost certainly needs one regardless, because caravan plates rarely carry the flag.

Penalties for missing equipment run to €135 and above.

Speed limits when towing

French limits depend on the total weight of the outfit, and getting this wrong is the most common ticket UK tourers collect.

Gross train weight is your vehicle's weight plus its maximum towing capacity, and it is on the VIN plate and in the handbook. A mid-size 4x4 towing a twin-axle caravan is frequently over 3.5 tonnes and therefore limited to 90 km/h on the autoroute.

Tolls

Most French motorways are tolled, collected at exit booths taking cash and cards. Charging class depends on height and axle count, so a car towing a caravan usually falls into a higher class than the same car alone. Take a ticket at entry and pay at exit.

If you tour France regularly, a télépéage badge is worth the setup. It works from the driver's window, which saves the standard performance of unbelting, leaning out and stretching for a machine designed for a left-hand-drive car. Failing that, put the passenger in charge of payments and use the lanes marked with a green arrow or a card symbol rather than the orange "t" lanes, which are badge-only.

Crit'Air and low emission zones

France operates ZFE low emission zones in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg, Rouen, Toulouse, Nice, Montpellier, Grenoble, Reims and elsewhere. Entering one without the correct Crit'Air sticker on the windscreen risks an on-the-spot fine starting around €68.

Order from the official French government site, certificat-air.gouv.fr, and nowhere else. The cost for a UK-registered vehicle is under €5 including postage, and it is a one-off purchase valid for the life of the vehicle. You need a scanned V5C. Allow up to six weeks for delivery, which is the real reason to do this early. Numerous third-party resellers charge £20 or more for the same sticker.

Motorhomes need one. So does the towing car. The caravan does not.

Vehicles registered before 1 January 1997 cannot enter restricted zones at all.

Ferry or tunnel

LeShuttle is quicker and simpler with an outfit. You stay with the vehicle, nothing needs unhitching, and anything over 1.85 metres tall goes in a single-deck carriage with a taller, wider loading gate. Gas containers up to 47kg are carried provided they are less than 80% full and the appliance is switched off for the whole crossing. LPG-fuelled vehicles are not carried at all, even where LPG is a secondary fuel.

Ferries take longer, which is the argument in their favour if you have a dog, small children, or a long onward drive. Longer western Channel crossings from Portsmouth and Plymouth land you much further south and take a day's driving out of the trip. Ferry pricing is driven by overall length, so measure car plus caravan honestly, including the A-frame and any bike rack, and declare it. Operators require gas cylinder valves to be closed and gas to be declared at check-in, with limits varying by operator, so check before booking.

Book either well ahead for July and August. Prices for an outfit rise steeply close to departure.

Gas and electricity

UK Calor cylinders cannot be exchanged or refilled anywhere in Europe. Take enough to last the trip, or hire a French bottle locally. Campingaz is exchangeable across Europe, but the largest cylinder is 2.8kg, so it is a backup rather than a plan. Carry a Campingaz adaptor.

If you have a refillable system, take the country adaptors. The filling connection differs between France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, and a set of four costs less than one wasted afternoon.

On electricity, around 80% of European campsites use the same three-pin CEE17 hook-up as the UK, so your normal lead works. Carry a continental two-pin adaptor for the rest. The bigger difference is amperage: UK club sites average 16 amps, European sites commonly supply between 3 and 10. On a 6-amp bollard you will not run the kettle, the heater and the water heater together. Work out what your appliances draw and switch rather than stack.

Reversed polarity is common on continental bollards. Live and neutral are swapped, everything still works, and the wiring behind your sockets stays live when you switch appliances off. A tester costs about £10 and belongs in the toolbox.

Aires and campsites

Aires are dedicated motorhome stopovers found in villages and towns across France, ranging from free to about €20 a night. Most have a service point for water and waste, many have electricity, and the general convention is a 48-hour maximum stay. They are for motorhomes. A caravan outfit is not welcome at most of them and will not fit at many.

If you are towing, plan around campsites. Municipal sites are the French tourer's secret: council-run, central, cheap, usually with clean facilities and often on a river. They rarely take bookings, which suits a touring trip.

The fortnight before you sail

Order the Crit'Air sticker first, because it takes the longest. Confirm insurance cover abroad in writing. Buy or renew European breakdown cover, checking that the caravan is on the policy and that your outfit is within the height, weight and length limits. Fit the deflectors, check the jackets are in the cab and the triangle is accessible. Weigh the outfit if you have never done it. Then check the passport issue date one more time.