Road trip around France without planning, hassle?

[Alex@POD]

I'm off to France in a week. I have booked the crossings but that's as far as I got, due to work commitments and other busy weekends I've only managed to work out a rough route I want to follow.

We are taking the bike, so while I'd be happy camping wherever we end up, we simply don't have space for the camping gear. Would it be crazy to consider finding a B&B once we get somewhere? The weather and the previous day's ride will affect how far we want to go on a given day, and I'd rather not plan days that see us arriving at 10PM completely shattered...

We usually take the car and have space for camping stuff, plus my wife can sleep if she needs to and therefore stays in a better mood.

So, bite the bullet, plan some accommodation and hope it doesn't end up too far away, or wing it and hope we find something once we get there?

[Alex@POD]

That's good to know, thanks for the input. I think winging it will give us the flexibility we need on this, and if it is a fairly common practice we shouldn't have any issues...

[Alex@POD]

Thanks for all the replies, I've been away in the back of beyond and not been able to comment, there wasn't even any basic phone signal...

I'm much more confident about this now, I'm not even too bothered about the last word in comfort as long as I have a dry place to sleep... I'll definitely play it by ear and see what happens day to day.

I'm interested to hear from the people who voted for planning it, what puts you off leaving it to the last minute?

[Alex@POD]

I stayed in an F1 a couple of years ago, I remember booking it and looking forward to it, on the strength of a stay in the same hotel some 10 years before that. Bottom line, I won't be booking one of those again in a hurry!

Very practical and cheap, but they have gone downhill a lot...