Information about camping and camping resources in La Rochelle, the Charente-Maritime region of western France

La Rochelle is one of the most stunningly beautiful places in France. The town centre is full of superb old buildings, with pale stone used for the most of them.  It is truly a lovely old place, and a walk round the fortified walls is an experience by itself, especially when you realise that the old town was fortified to keep out the British! Nowadays we are there in droves and welcomed by the locals as tourism in the Charente-Maritime area of which La Rochell is a part makes up quite a large proportion of the local income.

It is great to walk around but an absolute nightmare to park your car, in fact as someone who has visited La Rochelle many times I would say that you would have to get up very early to be able to park there. But happily that is something that you need not do because you will see signs for Park & Ride well before you get to the city centre. Do yourself a favour and take advantage of their extremely cheap Park & Ride scheme which probably costs less for a day than parking in the UK does for two or three hours. We have linked to a map of the La Rochelle area so that you can get your bearings.

Of course, there is no camping in the town itself but the surrounding areas to the north and south of La Rochelle are crammed with camping sites. The town/city is not at all difficult to get to even if you are taking the long route from Calais, and nearly all of the route is on autoroutes or fast dual carriageways, so really and truly you don't need to have a map to get there apart from the last few KM when you have to find your campsite.

The famous Ile de Re is near to La Rochelle and is accessible via a causeway/bridge. The Ile has some of the most expensive housing in France because rich city dwellers have bought second homes and retirement homes there and the prices have shot skywards. We are advised that tourists are not the most popular animals on the Ils de Re, so you make up your own mind whether to pay a visit or not.