Avoiding tolls but not sacrificing much time in France?

[littlebasher]

HarryW said:

Being over 3m in height it will push you into the class 3 toll, most Motorhome’s are class 2 ( cars are class 1). Class 3 is approx triple the class 1 charge.
I’ve heard tell that if you press the assistance button at the toll if it rings up class 3 and say you are ‘camping car’ some operators will drop it down to class 2…

This is why i've avoided adding aircon to the roof of our motorhome. It'll probably push me over 3 meters - class 2 is expensive enough!

[missing the VR6]

littlebasher said:

HarryW said:

Being over 3m in height it will push you into the class 3 toll, most Motorhome’s are class 2 ( cars are class 1). Class 3 is approx triple the class 1 charge.
I’ve heard tell that if you press the assistance button at the toll if it rings up class 3 and say you are ‘camping car’ some operators will drop it down to class 2…

This is why i've avoided adding aircon to the roof of our motorhome. It'll probably push me over 3 meters - class 2 is expensive enough!

I didn't think the tolls where considerably more than a car, granted my car drive is only ever to the Alps and the MH is to the south or Italy/Spain etc. I believe there's different operators, so maybe different costs.

Fortunately ours has a bed over cab, so the AC sits happily behind that.

[HarryW]

This can handy..
https://www.autoroutes.sanef.com/en/my-journey/pri...

[cliffords]

We did the OP's journey in a convertible car . We planned it over two days with a stop over .The plan was to follow non autoroute sat Nav .
The first morning was pleasant, by lunch time we were aware how long this would take , village after village , lots of speed cameras, lots of traffic. It was a weekday . At lunch stop I took the avoid toll roads off the sat Nav . We then did the next 300 miles in about 4 hours with no stress and arrived in time for a relaxing evening. Next day we completed the journey on toll roads by 2 pm .

[mike9009]

HarryW said:

Being over 3m in height it will push you into the class 3 toll, most Motorhome’s are class 2 ( cars are class 1). Class 3 is approx triple the class 1 charge.
I’ve heard tell that if you press the assistance button at the toll if it rings up class 3 and say you are ‘camping car’ some operators will drop it down to class 2…

I always thought that the fuel saving using the tolls and a constant speed roughly equated to 50% of the toll charges. Financially it never really made a difference to not use the toll roads for me.

Recently took our high top, air cooled, T25 into Brittany from Caen and from memory did very few tolls. But speed is not the essence whilst doing 55mph max everywhere.

However, if I wanted to pootle through France at a leisurely pace RN are my road of choice. Feels like a holiday then rather than charging down to reach a destination.

To the OP, I would opt for the RN, but spread out over a couple of days, or just blitz on the autoroute.

[leyorkie]

I’m in France 6 months of the year. If you are going no more than 100 miles the Routes National are OK otherwise you need the motorways to make any progress.
The old main routes are mainly dual carriageway and do tend to bypass a lot of the villages and they can be interesting to drive. BUT they are the preferred hunting ground of the Gendarmes, since they were “de-truncked” they changed all the speed limits. Yes they can be 110/90 kph practically every junction has a lower limit even down to 50. You can see the problem, imagine the A1 with the same set up.
With some planning you can use the toll free motorways A20, A75 for example is toll free from Clemont-Ferrand then a toll over the bridge and toll free after.
You do need the motorways to get anywhere in any reasonable time scale.
I guarantee you after hours of being stuck behind farmers, trucks, traffic lights you will say sod this I’m going on the motorway !

[missing the VR6]

I'm definitely decided on the Autoroutes now. We have campsites booked and I can't be bothered to change the bookings to accommodate a more leisurely route. Ultimately if I did that we'd have less time at the places we really want to be. I think the more scenic routes will have to wait 20-25 years when I retire!

Thanks everyone for their inputs.

[drewbar]

If time is a limiter I'd say just suck it up and pay the tolls to get there and have a good time. Get a toll tag before you go and this should allow you to offset the cost until the following month which we find is helpful with budgeting. We use the Emovis tag, and you can do the same for Spain.

The other thing I've found good is using Waze, it gives the estimated cost of the toll for parts of your route, and some of the tolls seemed to be more expensive than others (particularly around the North heading to the ports) so you can then pick and choose which where you want to save money vs time and which are best value for money.

[mike9009]

missing the VR6 said:

I'm definitely decided on the Autoroutes now. We have campsites booked and I can't be bothered to change the bookings to accommodate a more leisurely route. Ultimately if I did that we'd have less time at the places we really want to be. I think the more scenic routes will have to wait 20-25 years when I retire!

Thanks everyone for their inputs.

I think that is the decision I would have taken in your shoes! Although, hopefully my retirement is about 10 years away..... if my van is still running then!