And then there's the Summer holiday

Of course we need an extended Summer break and not just weekend camps. And this year will be southern France in the Cevennes. We've talked about going south a few times but always decided against the long drive (even though we drove to Berlin one year. Ho hum.). This time we're going to be the crazy family who disappear into the rising sun as everyone else is still snoozing.

We live in Kent and it only takes about 40 minutes to get to Dover so the 7.30am ferry gives us a whole day to drive as far south as we can. A quick overnight stop and off again to a campsite near Florac. The whole journey is about 640 miles with a 2 hour ferry crossing. That's not too crazy is it? Two days of pain to have two weeks relaxing in the sun. 

We're staying at Camping Chantemerle near Bedoues right on Le Tarn. The site has had some excellent reviews and seems like it will make a great base for two weeks. There are 60 pitches so not too big, but big enough to have a bar and restaurant. The description of the food has my mouth watering already - lots of local produce and homemade deserts. I may not be cooking much this holiday.

There's a paddling beach on the river and a little bit further up is a deeper swimming area so we can do lots of wild swimming.

A playground right in the middle of the site that we should be able to see from our pitch.

And to get out and about, two long distance paths cross the campsite. The Robert Louis Stevenson trail runs south from Le Puy-en-Velay to St-Jean-du-Gard and would take around 8 days to walk (about the same on a donkey) so we'll be doing a gentle section or two. Stevenson wrote about his wanderings in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes which will of course be going on holiday with us.

And that's all of the plan so far. This is a holiday to kick back and relax (hopefully) in the sun and I think we may have found the right place to do it. 

I've been planning some holidays...

In the normal scheme of things, we plan holidays pretty much last minute and nothing huge. Things have changed. I have holidays planned up until 2020 and the big ones are very different to the ones we've done as a family before. And they are....

Disney World Florida, Christmas 2015 

Mediterranean Cruise, August 2016

France, Summer 2017

New England road trip, Summer 2018

France / Netherlands, Summer 2019

Florida, Easter / Summer 2020 

Yesterday I went and bought a lovely new notebook from Paperchase. I love a bit of new stationary and this was the perfect excuse. It's all divided up into the various trips so I can make notes about places to visit, costs of villas, car hire, cabins and most importantly to make notes so that I can report back here.

A bit of background to the trips and why all of a sudden there's so many planned.

Disney World 
My MIL Jennifer is celebrating her 70th birthday this year and that means a big celebration. We all like a bit of Disney and as she has four grandchildren (and some of us are big kids too) she thought that Disney Land Paris would be a good bet. Now, her birthday is in December and Paris at this time of year is a bit nippy. So we had a look around for some all inclusive winter sun holidays. They're quite pricey. 
So just on the off chance (and at the suggestion of Derek) we had a little look at the prices for DisneyWorld. And they were high, but not much higher than an all inclusive resort. And that's how 11 people are heading to DisneyWorld in Florida for Christmas 2015. 

Mediterranean Cruise, August 2016
On the back of all the planning for Disney it struck me that if we start planning our holidays a little bit further ahead then maybe we could have some bigger holidays. I love going camping in Europe, but it's not really a restful holiday. What I really wanted was an all inclusive holiday where I didn't have to think about every detail, we could have some proper down time and there was still loads of interesting things to see and do. What better than a Med cruise. 
After a little bit of research I found a cruise on Carnival Vista that was in our budget for next year. I dropped a lot of not so subtle hints to Graham, painting a wonderful picture of life on board, G&Ts on deck, watching the sunset after a delicious meal. The boys in the kids club. Rest, sun and Italy. What more could he want? 
He caved. I booked. We'll be cruising the Mediterranean next August for 8 days on the brand new Carnival Vista.