Finding affordable motorhome overnight stops is probably the single most important skill you develop as a touring motorhomer in the UK. When I first got my Elddis Autoquest I was booking into big campsite chains every single night and watching the costs stack up faster than I could believe. Two motorhomes and several years later, I have a completely different approach that saves me hundreds of pounds on every trip.
Here is what I have learned about keeping your overnight costs sensible without resorting to sleeping in a Tesco car park.
Big campsite chains are convenient but expensive
Let me be clear. I am not saying places like the Caravan and Motorhome Club or the Camping and Caravanning Club are bad. They are well maintained, have reliable facilities, and you know exactly what you are getting. But at peak season you can easily pay north of 40 quid a night for a pitch with electric hookup. If you are touring for a couple of weeks, that adds up to an eye watering number very quickly.
The facilities are often more than you actually need as well. If your motorhome is properly set up with a decent water tank, a working cassette toilet and some form of power, you do not need a shower block and a washing up station every single night. You are paying for infrastructure you are not using.
Certificated Locations and Certificated Sites
This is where the real value lives. Certificated Locations (CLs) are small sites with a maximum of five pitches, operated under the Caravan and Motorhome Club. Certificated Sites (CSs) are the equivalent under the Camping and Caravanning Club. You need membership of the relevant club to use them, but if you are motorhoming regularly the membership pays for itself within a few nights.
They are usually on farmland or tucked away in someone's garden. Facilities vary wildly from one to the next. Some have electric hookup, a water tap and a chemical disposal point. Others are literally a field with a postcode. But they are almost always cheaper than a full campsite, typically somewhere between 10 and 20 quid a night.
The real benefit though is the peace and quiet. Five pitches maximum means you are not squeezed in between sixty other units listening to someone's generator running at eleven at night. Some of the best nights I have had on the road have been on tiny CLs in the middle of absolutely nowhere with nothing but sheep for company.
Brit Stops are brilliant but book up fast
If you have not heard of Brit Stops, the concept is simple. Pubs, farms, vineyards and other businesses offer free overnight parking for motorhomes. You buy an annual membership for roughly 30 quid and get a guidebook and an app listing all the participating locations. The unspoken deal is that you spend some money at the business. Buy dinner at the pub. Pick up some wine from the vineyard. Everyone wins.
I have had some genuinely great evenings at Brit Stops. Parked up behind a country pub, had a proper meal, walked back to the motorhome and gone straight to bed. No pitch fee, no booking hassle, and you have supported a local business into the bargain.
The limitation is availability. Popular Brit Stops get busy, especially in the summer months. There is no booking system so it is first come first served. I have turned up to a few only to find the parking area already full. Always have a backup plan.
Wild camping in a motorhome: the legal grey area
Let me be honest about this one. Wild camping in a motorhome in England and Wales sits in a legal grey area. Technically you are not wild camping because your vehicle is on the road or in a car park or in a layby. You are parking. And there is no law against sleeping in your vehicle overnight in most places.
That said, plenty of councils have introduced restrictions on overnight parking in popular spots. National park car parks often have height barriers or overnight restrictions specifically aimed at motorhomes. Some coastal areas that used to be easy to park up in have become increasingly hostile to overnight stays.
My approach is straightforward. Be discreet, arrive late in the evening, leave early in the morning, take all your rubbish with you, and do not set up camp like you are staying for a fortnight. One quiet night in a layby is worlds apart from parking on a seafront and putting your awning out with the barbecue going.
Scotland is different. The right to roam legislation means you genuinely can wild camp more freely, although the rules around motorhomes specifically remain debated. Just because you can does not always mean you should, and it is worth respecting the spirit of the law rather than pushing boundaries.
Aires: the thing the UK still has not figured out
If you have ever toured France or Spain in a motorhome you will know about aires. Dedicated motorhome parking areas, often run by local councils, with basic facilities like fresh water and waste disposal. Some are completely free. Some charge a few euros. They are everywhere across the continent and they are absolutely brilliant.
The UK has barely any. It is genuinely baffling when you think about it. We have a massive motorhome market and almost nowhere specifically designed for motorhomes to stop overnight. A handful of towns have started creating them and every single one has been successful. But the pace of adoption is glacial. Until the UK catches up, you are stuck cobbling together a mix of CLs, Brit Stops, and the occasional quiet layby.
How I actually plan my overnight stops when touring
After years of working this out through trial and error, I have settled into a routine that keeps costs down without sacrificing comfort. I book a proper campsite every three or four nights for a full service stop. Top up the water, empty the waste tanks, do some laundry, charge everything up properly. The rest of the time I use a mix of CLs, Brit Stops, and the occasional wild stop.
This approach typically brings my average nightly cost down to about 15 to 20 quid instead of 35 to 45. Over a two week trip that is a few hundred pounds saved, which buys a lot of fuel and pub dinners. The maths is not complicated but the savings are significant if you tour regularly.
The key is having a motorhome that can handle a few nights off grid comfortably. Decent water tank capacity, a good leisure battery setup, and solar if you can manage it. I wrote about working remotely from a motorhome previously, and the off grid setup I described there is what makes cheap overnight stopping genuinely practical rather than just tolerable.
Practical tips to get you started
Keep the Brit Stops app and the CAMC app on your phone at all times. Between them you have access to thousands of overnight options across the country. Plan your route loosely rather than rigidly. Know roughly where you want to be each day but leave room to change your mind based on what is actually available when you get there.
Invest in a decent water filter so you can top up from practically any tap without worrying about the quality. Get your gas system checked annually because running out of gas when you are parked in a field with no hookup is properly miserable. And carry a portable waste tank if your motorhome does not have a large built in cassette, because nothing ends a cheap stopover faster than a full toilet with nowhere to empty it.
If you are just starting out and all of this feels a bit overwhelming, do not panic. Book into proper campsites for your first few trips until you are comfortable with the motorhome and know how everything works. Once you have got the confidence, start experimenting with CLs and Brit Stops. The money you save will fund more adventures, and the quieter stops will become the ones you remember most fondly.
I wrote a detailed breakdown of all the costs involved in motorhome travel in my post about how much motorhome touring actually costs, which is worth reading if you are trying to budget for a trip. And if you happen to run a campsite yourself, my company CampSuite builds management software specifically for the industry.
