We are in the beginning stages of a trip to Italy in May 2014. (We have air tickets to Milan.) We plan to rent an RV in ITaly to use for most of our travel there. Has anyone had good/bad experiences in any location...actually any feedback would be helpful. FOr example, we expect to travel near major cities, find a RV park near a train stop and go into the city (i.e. venice) for a couple of days. Is that an easy thing to do?
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16238 posts
First of all you should check the prices. Renting a camper for 4 people in Italy costs approx 150 euro a day plus various extras. That does not include the rental of a spot at a campground.
Vacationing in a camper is great if you intend to stay extended periods of time (at least a week) at a lake or on the coast (that's the extent of my camping experience in Italy). But if you intend to use that mode of travel for frequent moving around or for city visiting it's not going to be fun. Camping on the road is not permitted. Italy has great camping facilities, but few are conveniently located near a city or next to a train station and without an extra vehicle you are going to find it difficult to visit anything.
Hence my advice. If you want to rent an RV for a month and stay a week in each place at a sea beach location, or a lake or a mountain location, then fine. There are great campgrounds at those types of locations with facilities that I have never seen matched anywhere in North America (with banks, movie theaters, discos, pools, theme parks and everything you can think of inside the campground). But if you intend to move around every other day and visit the cities from your campground, I wouldn't do it. You would need at least an extra vehicle (small car or motorbike) to even entertain that thought.
Posted by
Long Beach, California, USA
3398 posts
I agree with Roberto! Although RVs in Europe are far more compact than in the States, they are not convenient to use as a car for driving around to see the sights. If you don't mind a bit of a train ride, 30 - 40 minutes, then the idea of camping outside of a major city and riding the train in is possible. Smaller cities will have a convenient campground located not far outside the city limits. For the price of the rental + the petrol + campground fees though, I would just stay in a hotel or pensione in town, rent a small car, and avoid the hassle of a campground. My experience with this is that you will spend a great deal of time travelling to the campground, setting up the RV, shopping for groceries to cook in the RV, and trying to find navigable roads from place to place. Petrol in Europe is very expensive so don't forget to factor that in when planning your budget. Once you get off the major thoroughfares (sp?) in Europe, roads can be extremely narrow and difficult to maneuver in anything but a small, compact car.
That said, campgrounds in Europe are extremely nice, have lots of conveniences that campgrounds in America lack, and can be conveniently located to beautiful, scenic locations. Europeans use RVs all the time but it just doesn't look fun to me...consider your time, the stress of navigating narrow roads, and the bang you get for your buck!
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8371 posts
I'm an avid RV'er at home, and we don't even haul our camper very far @ $3.07 per gallon. But at $9 per gallon, renting a camper is not a cost effective way to travel--especially since the rental alone is so expensive.
Most people go by train from city to city.
We found that staying on a farm (agriturismo) is very inexpensive, and renting a car is the best way to see rural places like Tuscany. Virtually every farm in Chianti has apartments/rooms as a secondary source of income.
If you look at Rick's Graffiti Wall, you can see a section that shows Heroic B&B experiences. Many B&B's are also mentioned in Trip Reports in this section. It's very easy to find places to stay in Italy that will give you a lifetime of travel memories.