Never been to Italy before, though been camping in France many times. Thinking of driving down to Northern Italy (maybe Lake Cosmo or Garda or Liguria coast). With 3 kids (7, 11 & 13), dog and wife. Probably looking at moving between a few different places.

Any general advice on camping in Italy?

What’s Italy like price wise compared to France?

Should I be booking campsites or OK to just turn up?

Any recommendation of places to go or campsites to stay?

Thanks in advance

My experience is limited to the NW of Italy (from French border to along Lake Maggiore), but the over-riding impression was that Italian campsites are ludicrously expensive. The wife and I were passing through on a summer cycle tour, so two people on bikes, and remember getting a quote of €42 for one night. It had a pool but was not a luxury site by any stretch of the imagination. We wild camped the whole time, and even found a basic campsite in the Swiss alps later on that was cheaper than the Italian sites we came across!

We did Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland and nowhere beats France for campsite VFM, Spain is a close second, Germany third.

I would research places so you know where to head and what to expect as there must be cheaper alternatives out there.

In my experience of quite a few summers on the continent Italy is far less camp friendly than France. Whilst in France you can turn up in any village and find a camping municipal next to a nice river in Italy the sites tend to be set up for camper vans i.e. hardstanding and tiny closely spaced emplacements. Im sure someone will be along to tell you about a wonderful site they have found but that is my experience.

I’m staying here during the Val di Sole world cup http://www.campingdolomiti.com

Booked in advance in case it’s super busy. All the pics and reviews look favourable. It’s costing us 140 euro for 4 nights with a van, a tent and two people. Not sure how that compares to other places as it’s out first time. After the race we’re moving over to Lake Garda and hopefully find something cheaper.

Expensive, you’ll probably have stuff nicked, sites aren’t great. Rent a gîte/flat/rooms with safe parking.

you’ll probably have stuff nicked,

This is worrying. Is nicking from campsites a fairly widespread Italian theme?

Stayed there for our honeymoon in a campervan (amongst other places in North Italy), don’t remember if it was South/North of Lake Garda. Was start of September and we struggled to find a place on the camp sites. We spent a few days by Lake Ledro which was a lot less intense and very pretty.
Can give you more info on the sites we stayed at when i get home but all were family friendly.

We went on a 4 week road trip last year over a lot of Northern Italy and French Alps.

It was September when we went and had no issues in finding campsites really. a few were a bit manky but on the whole, good. I enjoyed it around Lake Como and around Val di Sole areas, also Tuscany near Sienna.

The sites are on the expensive side, and average of €20-30 pn in Italy, where as it was more like €10-€15 in France. We prefer very quiet sites, away from everyone else and kids, a lot of the sites were quite big and regimented, especially around the lakes. The Diesel is also really expensive in Italy generally, €1.80-90 or so a litre compared to France’s €1.45.

We had no security issues at all despite our side window breaking on the motorway on the way down and having to do a fix with polythene and parcel tape.

That Camping Dolomiti site in Val di Sole is a nice looking site, I spotted it when we were there, but a bit to Camping and Caravan club for our tastes. We stayed further up the Valley at the foot of the Passe de Tonale on a very quite little site in the village. Don’t be planning on finding cheap sites near Lake Garda, very expensive IMO, nice, but expensive.

As has already been said…. Expensive.

Was looking at camping for two weeks with the GF in the Italian alps and it was cheaper to stay in a quality apartment.

They will sting you for every “luxury”…. You pay for a tent and then each person, power, having a bike (!) with you, etc.

France on the other hand is brilliant. Found camping in Germany to be expensive and faceless.

Last camped in Garda some 2 yrs ago, just turned up and it wasn’t particularly pricey – normal Italy prices (i.e. About twice French rates). Although the main campsite for Cortina in the Dolomites (A couple of miles north of town) was really great value.

Here are four recommendations, all a bit different:

Piani Di Clodia – Lazise, lake Garda – big and commercial but very good
Le Caldane – Cola Di Lazise – camping on a vineyard – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED – cheap and great wine at €1.50 a litre!
Mario’s – Caldanazzo. Commercial but smaller scale
Camping Al Lago – Rocca/Arise – rural Italy.

We go camping every year in the summer in Italy but mainly in the north of the country. Our experience has always been very good. The campsites have always been well maintained and are clean and if you go to the 3 star plus ones they are very family orientated with lots of entertainment for the kids. The ones around the Garda Lake have quite a high security presence and certainly I have never heard of anyone having stuff stolen. Price wise they are certainly not cheap but also we have paid the same price per night for basic campsites back in Germany. The lakes in the north of Italy are popular destinations especially with Germans and Dutch so they are always busy in the summer but we have never had a problem with finding a campsite. You just have to time your arrival for the morning (around ten-ish)and ring round some of the campsites to see if they have some spaces. It can change from hour to hour. Booking wise it is probably already too late. Fuel prices are astronomical in Italy so probably better to tank up in Austria or France before arriving in Italy. One last thing. If you are thinking of the Garda Lake the campsites in the north of the lake are more basic and cater for the extreme sport crowd, the campsites further south tend to be bigger and for the families with swimming pools and baby pools etc.

Great advice and suggestions guys: keep them coming.

Given all the comments on price I may have a week or so on the French side of the border then a quick raid over to Italy.