Get over your jet lag before you pick up your campervan

October 31, 2018

We promised you more pearls of wisdom on how to get off to a good start on your first motorhome trip in a new van and we plan to put all of our tips into an advice section on our website soon so you will have the definitive guide. In the meantime here is another snippet of advice to help you plan for your arrival.

With your newly purchased home on wheels sitting waiting for you, it is tempting to get off a long-haul flight and rush straight from the airport to our depot to pick it up. Don’t!

We sell most of our motorhomes to clients from overseas (mainly distant countries like Australia or the US) and have seen many different approaches to arrival day. We speak with great authority when we say it is best not to come straight to collect your motorhome after a long flight. It’s not that you’ll need boundless energy to simply collect your van but more that you won’t take in the vital information about how it works or have the patience to work through the inevitable French paperwork before you can depart.

Clients who arrive exhausted from their journey are simply unable to concentrate and the slightest hiccup in their day can cause great stress. Here are our top tips for how to approach your arrival day:

• Don’t come straight to us after a long flight. You will be tired, scratchy and struggling to concentrate at best! If the airline loses your luggage, your flight is late or you have any other kind of delay, you might not make it to us early enough in the day to complete the handover.
• Once we have completed your handover, you will still have to shop for everything you’ll need for your first night (from bedding to food supplies), adjust to driving a large vehicle on unfamiliar roads and find somewhere to stay.
• Plan a night in a hotel in our nearby town of Sens. It does not matter how late you arrive and you can have a good night’s sleep and some breakfast before you come to collect with the whole day still ahead of you.
• Even if you stay in Paris for a night or two before you come, as we are just an hour from there by train, you can still arrive early in the day to allow time for a relaxed and thorough handover with plenty of daylight hours left to prepare for your first night in your motorhome.

When you arrive to collect your motorhome, your paperwork and motorhome will be totally ready for you. We will guide you through the process and make sure you know how everything works but we’ll need a couple of fully focused hours with you. Pick up day is a very small part of a very big adventure so allow a little extra time for it and arrive rested to get off to the best possible start.