Spain trip

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Goinridin
Posts: 46
Joined: 1 Mar 2009, 12:45pm

Spain trip

Post by Goinridin »

I'm just in the very first stage of planning my next adventure. I haven't done anything since going coast to Coast over the
Pyreneese in 2010 after which I had my bike nicked. Anyway I'm feeling the itch to go on another journey.
For the last couple of years I've parked my motorhome up on a motorhome site quite close to Benidorm for around 3 months from early February to the middle of May. For 2015 I was thinking of instead of training on my racing bike around Benidorm I would have a bike tour of 3/4 weeks from Benidorm to follow the coast through Spain and Portugal to Compostela de Santiago and back through Madrid.
Does anyone have any tips, information as to wild camping, camping sites in fact any info at all. I intend/hope to wildcamp2 days and then campsite or b&b for 1 night to freshen up, and so on, I intend to begin in early May.
Nigel Laverick
Posts: 33
Joined: 6 Nov 2013, 7:01pm

Re: Spain trip

Post by Nigel Laverick »

I rode Cape St Vincent in Portugal to N. Cape recently. I wild camped most of the time, finding spots to camp in Portugal and Spain was quite hard as a lot of the land is fenced off and there are many signs indicating that land is private. Getting out of sight is pretty important for security reasons. I succeeded in finding spots to camp every day but this often involved riding much further than I wanted to. There are very few campsites away from the coast and they are often difficult to find as there are few signs to advertise their location ( I asked about this and was told it was because of officialdom). The sites cost about 8-10 euros a night , pitches were poor and the sites can be very noisy especially at weekends and festivals.

NL
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bikes4two
Posts: 1306
Joined: 12 Jan 2010, 10:14pm
Location: SE Hampshire, UK

Re: Spain trip

Post by bikes4two »

> Start with looking at http://www.PedalPortugal.com for campsites in Portugal
> In September 2014 two of us cycle-camped Santiago de Compostela to Lisbon well away from the coast- finding campsites was not straight forward. Camping fees were modest indeed and site quality varied from acceptable to very good. As mentioned earlier, campsites are not signed very well, or even not at all.
> I hope you like hills?
> and good luck with navigation - there are roads not shown on maps or GPS and in some cases roads on maps that have yet to be built
Without my stoker, every trip would only be half a journey
MarkF
Posts: 436
Joined: 4 Apr 2011, 10:20am

Re: Spain trip

Post by MarkF »

Goinridin wrote:I'm just in the very first stage of planning my next adventure. I haven't done anything since going coast to Coast over the
Pyreneese in 2010 after which I had my bike nicked. Anyway I'm feeling the itch to go on another journey.
For the last couple of years I've parked my motorhome up on a motorhome site quite close to Benidorm for around 3 months from early February to the middle of May. For 2015 I was thinking of instead of training on my racing bike around Benidorm I would have a bike tour of 3/4 weeks from Benidorm to follow the coast through Spain and Portugal to Compostela de Santiago and back through Madrid.
Does anyone have any tips, information as to wild camping, camping sites in fact any info at all. I intend/hope to wildcamp2 days and then campsite or b&b for 1 night to freshen up, and so on, I intend to begin in early May.


I'd suggest that the coastal route is damn hard work and not particularly pleasant, and downright dangerous in places, the cement trucks are Spain's skip wagons. The whole coast is v.busy and the roads not built for such capacity. Wild camping is practically non-existent, unless you are ok with sharing it with desperate immigrants and vagrants. Paid for camping is available but not cheap.

I'd go inland, traffic drops to super safe levels, it's a tranquil, another world and there are plenty of opportunities to safely wild camp.
gplhl
Posts: 119
Joined: 9 Oct 2013, 1:41pm

Re: Spain trip

Post by gplhl »

I cycled the Spanish coast from France as far as Algeciras, wild camping was pretty easy. It's supposed to be illegal but I camped on the beach quite often. The police never minded and several times drove by throughout the night without disturbing me to check all was ok.

Plus going by the beach, there are beach showers so you can wash yourself and wash your clothes, sit back and relax with a coffee while it drys..


Gary
www.longbikeride.co.uk
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