Travel Gadgets

Rest areas and service stations on the roads of France

When making a stop, there are two main options: do it in a rest area or at a service station. The two options are very good. for the quantity and quality of services they offer. Especially in service stations.
On the French routes there are many rest areas and high quality services

Rest areas

They usually have a green area and another with parking. They have facilities with bathrooms, recreational areas for children with games for them. And also areas to eat. They can also be a great place to take a break and let your familly know that you are okay by calling them. If you wanted to, you could even call your pets too! Some of the 8 Best Pet Cameras on the Market This 2018 are listed here.

Travel to France by Car: Service stations

There is an area with a gas station and another with a restaurant, bathrooms and several shops, as well as green areas. These service areas usually offer everything you need, you can eat in a restaurant or buy prepared food and consume it there. Some bathrooms in these service areas have showers.

Gasoline in France

On the highways they put a sign with the price of fuel at the next service stations, so you can see where it is cheaper to refuel.

• Tips: Gasoline is more expensive on highways, than in towns and cities aprox Two Dollars by Litre

Fines in France

In case you are fined in France you should know that you have the right to pay it at the time, in which case a large discount will be applied. You should also know that there is a register of vehicles at the EU level and if it is a rented vehicle, the fine will reach the car rental company. In that case they will be fixed the day of the fine that coincides with the driver's rent and debit them from the credit card. If this is within your possibilities, it is cheaper to pay the fine cash and at that moment

Mobile phones in France

The use of mobile phones when driving is punishable by law and subject to heavy fines.

Tips: guide to travel to France by Car

• As of January 2018, roaming has been canceled throughout the European Union. So if you buy a prepaid SIM in France, you can use it to call Germany as if it were local
• Rent a vehicle with WIFI. In France it is not easy to get WIFI in public areas

Why not drive around National Parks in France?

Almost 20% of French territory is protected to preserve its extraordinary natural, scenic and cultural values. The geographical situation of France and its climatic and geological diversity make it a varied ecosystem of natural landscapes. And it's very easy to get there by car

Travel to France by Car: National Parks

Park of the Calanques

The white hills of the Calanques emerge in the turquoise blue of the Mediterranean in the vicinity of Marseille. The National Park of the Calanques (Provence) is a place that you can go hiking, climbing, diving and sea kayaking. To explore the calanques, excursions are hired by boat that sail from the Old Port of Marseille or from Cassis. You can spend the night in the guest rooms of an old castle or in the Hotel Le Cassitel located in the port.

One of the most amazing walking tours of the park is the one that connects the cove of Port-Miou, with more than 500 submerged boats, with that of En-Vau, passing by the small cove of Port-Pin. How to get to the National Park of the Calanques by car?. You have to arrive by the D559 route until the city of Redou.

Park of the Pyrenees

Centennial trees, pastures, glaciers, lakes and waterfalls are the mark of the National Park of the Pyrenees created in 1967 This park has altitude that is over 1,000 meters and reaches up to 3,300 meters in its highest part. Between New Aquitaine and Occitania, it is the only national park of the French Pyrenean massif. Very far from the north of France as the cities of Strasbourg

It also houses a central area where activities such as grazing and forestry take place, a peripheral area divided into six valleys (Aspe, Ossau, Azun, Cauterets, Luz and Aure) and two national nature reserves (those of Néouvielle and Ossau, which is a nesting area for the griffon vultures). The summer months are the best times to get to know the park and hiking, the best way to go there.

The fauna that inhabits the park is varied and they are marmots, bearded vultures, capercaillies, chamois or griffon vultures. One of its trails is the GR10, which connects the Atlantic with the Mediterranean, crossing the entire park. You can spend the night in a refuge: that of Arlet, sixth stage of the Path of Camille that follows in the footsteps of one of the last bears of the Pyrenees

How to get to the National Park of the Pyrenees by car?. You have to arrive by the A64 route until the city of PAU. from there to the city of Lourdes. Then any route to the south reaches the park

Park of the Vanoise

There were hardly any ibexes in the Sierra de la Vanoise in 1963, which led to the protection of the area as a national park. Today, a colony of 1,800 copies converts the Vanoise National Park, in Rhône-Alpes, into the most important ibex reserve in France.

Eagles, lammergeyer, chamois, marmots. Species that always choose the purest and best preserved environments The Vanoise park is located between the valleys of the Maurienne and the Tarantaise, with peaks of more than 3,000 meters, glaciers and narrow valleys.

Your visit is an amazing experience in all seasons of the year. You can go hiking, activity reigns in the park with 500 kilometers of roads. If you are interested in visiting the fantastic world of glaciers, we will visit the Glacialis space. It is an interpretation center installed in the old presbytery of Champagny-le-Haut. There you can discover the mechanics of birth and development of mountain glaciers. You can also walk the glaciological trail that borders the small valley of Champagny-le-Haut, in the company of wild animals such as marmots and ibexes.

For the more adventurous, we can spend the night in one of the park's shelters. Four of them are easily accessible, such as the Le Bois shelter in Champagny-en-Vanoise, where you can delight in the culinary specialties of Savoy. We are talking specifically about Beaufort cheese. You can drive by D1006 motorway.

Cevennes National Park

Travel to France by Car: The Cévennes National Park was built in 1970 in the Languedoc-Mediterranean region and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It has a central inhabited area, in which the relationship between the human seer is by excellent dedas. There are 5,000 kilometers of marked trails for walking, cycling, horseback riding

Park of Port-Cros

On the coast of Provence, between Marseille and Saint-Tropez, is one of the natural paradises of the Mediterranean. it is the National Park of Port-Cros (Provence), created in 1963. The islands of Porquerolles and Port-Cros (central area of ??the park) and Levant (peripheral zone) form an exceptional maritime-terrestrial reserve. It has a valuable landscape, where the cliffs, beaches of fine sand and an original terrestrial and marine fauna and flora count. There are trails with more than 51 kilometers marked that cross its territory. In Port-Cros, there are five military forts, which account for their past. You can drive to Tolon by A60 motorway

Park of Écrins

Écrins National Park, created in 1973 in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence region. Located between the Northern Alps and the Southern Alps, it has more than 160 peaks of more than 3,000 meters. Yambien has 11,000 hectares of glaciers and its central zone is only accessible on foot. Hiking is the main activity both in summer and winter (in rackets or hiking) and there you can discover the diversity of the local fauna. You can go hiking in the glaciers. 

The village of La Grave, is located 1,500 meters in front of the peak of the Meije (3,984 meters) and is an excellent place for practitioners of mountaineering. The cable car of the Glaciers leaves La Grave and offers an extraordinary landscape on the Alps and takes us to a refuge of height where you can see landscapes amazing. 

All these national parks can be accessed by car. Just check the road map or your GPS