Motorhomes and cars parked in a gravel stopover below jagged mountains

Topic · 03 / 07 3 pages No affiliate links

Aires: the official stopover, explained

Motorhome stopovers explained from scratch for people who have never used one. What they are, what they cost, and how to behave on one.

01 · Where to start

What do you want to know?

An aire is a public parking area set aside for motorhomes. Some are a corner of a village car park, some hold fifty vehicles, and a lot of them are free.

01 · France In France the word is aire, and the sign is a blue motorhome pictogram About 2,070 French sites are tagged free in OpenStreetMap 02 · Germany In Germany it is a Stellplatz, and the etiquette is stricter than the sign suggests About 1,041 German sites are tagged free in OpenStreetMap 03 · Italy In Italy it is an area di sosta, often run by the comune itself Same idea, different paperwork 04 · Services The service point: fresh water in, grey water and cassette out Free to park does not always mean free to fill

The anchor Start here if the word is new to you Nothing on this page is ordered by what anyone pays us, because nobody pays us.

02 · Aires

Everything you need before the first one.

Every aires page

Guide Aires etiquette: the unwritten rules Most of the etiquette on a motorhome aire is written down somewhere, and some of it is law. The reference version: what is a courtesy, what is a house rule, and what carries a fine. Jul 20 Read → Guide Service points: water, waste and how the borne actually works A borne handles three different things that first-timers mix up: drinking water, grey water and the chemical toilet. How to tell them apart, how to pay, and why the service point is often not where you sleep. Jul 20 Read → Guide What is an aire? Motorhome stopovers explained An aire is a designated motorhome stopover, usually municipal, often free, and almost never a campsite. What that means in practice for a first-time visitor, with the rules cited. Jul 20 Read →

Disclosure

No affiliate links. No sponsored placements.

FreeCampMaps runs display ads and nothing else. Nobody can pay to appear on this page, to sit higher on it, or to change what we say about where you can legally stop. Where a link here goes to a shop or a manufacturer it goes there directly, without a tracking parameter, and we are not paid whether you follow it or not. The full position is in the advertiser disclosure.

Next step

See where the aires actually are

Reading about aires only gets you so far. France has more mapped free aires than anywhere else in Europe, and the map is the fastest way to understand the pattern: villages, lakes, edges of towns, and almost never a beauty spot.

Open the France map Start with the basics