chloedickensonLast Updated on 11th November 2022
This post about the best free and paid campervan spots in South England contains affiliate links.
Back in May 2021, Matt and I bought and self-converted our very own campervan entirely from scratch and without sounding remarkably cheesy, it was quite literally a dream come true. Ever since we embarked on our huge road trips around New Zealand and Australia, we were both desperate to experience van life again, but this time in our very own campervan.
The only slight qualm we had, however, was that we felt like we’d been truly spoilt by the freedom camping spots in NZ and Australia and we weren’t sure how we’d be able to freedom camp in the UK, especially as it’s technically illegal.
However, we soon found ways to find camping spots around the UK that either explicitly offered permission for campervans to stay overnight, either for free or for a small fee, or we found reviews of different camping spots on apps like Park4Night where other travellers review their experience of parking somewhere for the night.
Our road trip around South England was so much fun and I’m pretty impressed that we managed to stay in only a handful of “official” campsites as part of our trip; all the other places were either free or we had to make a small donation to the car park or buy a beer or two in a pub car park!
If you’re looking to head on a road trip down south, but you don’t want to be paying a fortune for expensive campsites, check out the best free and paid campervan spots in South England that we stayed at on our trip.
Racing Greyhound Pub, Ramsgate – free and paid campervan spots in South England
One thing that is awesome about “freedom” camping in the UK is that even though most areas of private (and even public) land are off-limits, there are so many pubs around the country that allow you to park in their car park overnight for free, providing that you buy a drink or a meal inside the pub.
While of course, this means that it’s not technically free as you are recommended to buy something, many pubs don’t enforce this rule and even if they do, I’d much rather spend £10 on a round of drinks in a cosy pub for the evening, than pay as much as £50 in some places for a campsite that’s basically just a field with toilets!
The Racing Greyhound pub was the first place we stayed on our South Coast road trip and we came across it on the Park4Night app. The owner was super lovely and said we could park in the rear car park for the evening. We didn’t get a meal from the pub as we’d already eaten in Margate earlier in the day, but we did have a couple of drinks and it was a nice pub full of locals.
Cost: free (recommended to buy at least one drink in the pub as a thank you).
Little Satmar Campsite & Holiday Park, Folkestone
The next place we stayed in South England on our road trip was an actual campsite called Little Satmar Campsite & Holiday Park. While it was really only our second night on this trip, we’d actually been on the road for a few days at this stage as we spent one night in Darlington, then a night in Chelsea at a work event, then one night in St Albans after we’d visited Harry Potter World, so by the time we reached Dover, we decided that we needed a paid campsite so that we could have a shower and do some laundry.
The Little Satmar Campsite was a really lovely site and the owner was so incredibly lovely. There’s a sizeable shower and toilet block for both men and women and there was also a separate toilet block just next to where we were parked as well so we didn’t have to bother traipsing right across the park to get to the toilet. There is also a little on-site shop, plus a laundry room with a washing machine and dryer, as well as a separate dishwashing room as well.
One thing you need to bear in mind when staying at proper campsites in the UK during the summer months is that prices are usually much higher than in the off-peak season, so it’s a good idea to check the different prices throughout the year, depending on when you plan on travelling. We stayed in August and we were pretty happy with the cost of £22 a night with an electric hook-up.
Cost: £22 a night for two people with an electric hook-up.
Rock-A-Nore Parade, Hastings
Rock-A-Nore car park is right on the seafront in the seaside town of Hastings and it was incredibly conveniently located to enjoy a gentle stroll along the beach into town.
You can park in interval sessions at Rock-A-Nore car park, in 1,2,3,5,10 and 24-hour timeslots. You don’t have to pay between 9 pm and 7 am, so if you arrive after this time and leave before 7 in the morning, you won’t have to pay a thing, but we arrived in Hastings at around 5 pm and we didn’t want to get up too early, so we just paid for 24 hours to be on the safe side.
It doesn’t explicitly say that you’re allowed to sleep in your campervan overnight at this car park, however, there are also no signs saying that you can’t and we read numerous reviews on the Park4Night app from other travellers who had stayed there overnight with no issues and thankfully we experienced no issues either.
There are no toilets in the car park itself, but there are some public toilets that were open until 10 pm in the summer and 6 pm in the winter at Stade Hall which is just a 5-minute walk away. There are also some public toilets just behind the car park on the road but these are only open from 7 am to 7 pm in the summer and from 8 am to 4 pm in the winter.
The only downside I have to say about this car park is that it was quite noisy late into the night as there were several cars driving around the car park and parking up and chatting loudly. I personally wouldn’t stay overnight here again, but it was a good enough place to stay for the night that didn’t cost a fortune.
Cost: £9 for 24 hours.
The Ride, Preston Park, Brighton – free and paid campervan spots in South England
When we were planning our trip down south, we knew that we wanted to spend a good full day in Brighton as it’s a place that I’ve wanted to visit for so long, but we were a bit apprehensive about where we would stay as all the paid campsites in Brighton were either fully booked when we were there or they were going to cost more than £50 a night!
We came across Preston Park on our camping app and there were so many reviews from other campers who said they’d parked down a “street” called The Ride right next to the park for free overnight. We went to check it out and couldn’t believe our luck when we saw at least a dozen other vans parked there. Again, this place doesn’t exactly explicitly welcome campervans overnight, but there are also no signs saying you can’t park there overnight, so if you’re willing to park here on a technicality, then it’s a great spot in Brighton and best of all, it’s free if you arrive after a certain time and leave by a certain time in the morning!
Cost: free (if you arrive after 4 pm and leave by 9 am, Monday-Friday. Free from 6 pm to 2 pm, Saturday and Sunday).
Marina Keep, Port Solent Country Park, Portsmouth
We actually stumbled across this incredible free parking spot at Marina Keep in Port Solent, Portsmouth pretty much by chance. We were originally planning to stay in the huge car park just next to the Marina where the Wetherspoons pub is as we’d heard that you can stay there for free, providing that you call the warden (there are signs with the phone number dotted around the car park), but we decided to have a little drive around the Marina before we parked up and we came across a few other campervans parked up at the side of the road in a little layby area.
We got talking to a man who was busy converting his van right there and then and he said that he’d stayed in that spot many times over the years in various campervans that he’s had, so we decided to ditch the actual car park and spent the night there and I’m so glad we did because we were treated to the most glorious sunset of the whole trip!
There are no toilets nearby, only the ones in Wetherspoons which is a 10-minute walk from the place we parked up.
Cost: free!
Stonehenge, Salisbury
Parking and staying right next to Stonehenge for the night completely free of charge is undoubtedly the best place we stayed on our entire trip and I still can’t believe that this is a thing!
Again, this isn’t a parking place that’s advertised or even encouraged at all and I was pretty apprehensive that you were able to park pretty much right next to the infamous historic landmark overnight completely for free, but when we were talking to the man in Port Solent the night before, he said that there were dozens of campervans who parked down the huge dirt track road every single night.
We genuinely couldn’t believe it when we parked up and Stonehenge was there right in front of us; we didn’t even bother paying to go right up to the stones, we just admired them from afar from our camping spot!
There are naturally no toilets or any kind of facilities at all if you park here, so you either have to have a fully self-contained campervan or you’ll need to be OK with squatting in a bush! I really hope that the council or whoever is in charge of the land don’t put restrictions on people staying here for the night as it really is one of the most epic campervan spots in the UK. Providing that campers are respectful of the land and you leave no trace behind, I hope this spot remains available for a long time because it truly is remarkable!
Cost: free!
Longfield Caravan Park, Christchurch
The following night, we decided that we really needed to stay at a paid site as we hadn’t had a shower in a couple of days (we used a leisure centre’s shower facilities in a small town called Havant a couple of days prior, but we were definitely due a proper shower!). We found Longfield Caravan Park online, so we headed there for the afternoon/evening so that we could use the showers, get some work done and charge all of our electronics.
We paid £26 for the night which was definitely more than we like to pay (usually we prefer to pay nothing at all!), but considering the fact that it was a really lovely site with its very own pool, we didn’t mind too much! One thing that I begrudged about this campsite, however, is that you had to pay for the showers separately as they weren’t included in the cost of staying for the night. It was only 50p for approximately 5-minutes, but I think that facilities like showers and toilets should always be included in the tariff for staying overnight!
Prices to stay at Longfield Caravan Park vary throughout the year and depending on the kind of caravan/campervan setup you’ve got, so be sure to check out their full list of prices on their website.
Cost: £26 for two people with an electric hook-up in the summer.
Southbourne Overcliffe Drive, Bournemouth – free and paid campervan spots in South England
We parked in one of the huge layby parking areas along Southbourne Overcliffe Drive in Bournemouth one late Sunday evening after we’d had a full day of exploring that was concluded with a yummy Toby Carvery.
The layby here really isn’t anything spectacular to shout about but it was an ideal place to park for the night and best of all, it was completely free. I’m not sure whether the restrictions on staying in places like this overnight will change anytime soon as they are technically just laybys at the side of the road, but there were no signs or restrictions when we stayed here, so just double-check that you’re OK to park up for the night before you set everything up.
Cost: free.
Ten Tors Pub car park, Kingsteignton, Newton Abbot
The following evening, after an incredibly busy day exploring places along the Jurassic Coast, we were struggling to find somewhere to stay for the night as everywhere on the Park4Night app didn’t seem suitable for us, so we decided to pull into a pub car park that we drove past and literally asked if we could stay for the night in their car park if we came inside and bought a drink.
Thankfully, the awesome staff at the Ten Tors pub in Newton Abbot granted our wishes and we ended up spending over £40 on drinks at the pub! This technically made it by far the most expensive place we stayed on our entire trip, even though we didn’t actually have to pay for the car park itself! However, while we did spend much more money staying here than we would have if we’d stayed at a proper campsite, we ended up having the most fun night so I think it was definitely worth the money.
Cost: free (with a recommendation of buying a drink or two in the pub).
West Wayland Touring Park, Looe
West Wayland Touring Park was the first place we stayed as we arrived in Cornwall and while we originally intended to stay at a free car park a few miles away, when we arrived there it was so rocky and uneven that it would have been really impractical to stay there, so we were just driving around to find another layby when we stumbled across West Wayland.
The main office was actually closed when we arrived so we didn’t think we’d be able to just pitch up for the night as it was a paid campsite, but there was a number on the office door to call Jackie (the owner) and she was incredibly lovely and let us park up for the night and then settle the cost in the morning when she arrived to open everything up.
This campsite is absolutely enormous, with spaces for dozens of static caravans, campervans, motorhomes and even several tent pitches. This was probably my favourite “official” paid campsite on our trip and I’d definitely recommend staying here if you’re looking for somewhere that’s pretty cheap with great facilities.
There’s also an on-site fish and chip van and we got a portion of scrumptious chips and curry sauce for £3 just before they closed for the evening.
Cost: £5 per adult and £3 for electric hook-up.
Mullion car park
Mullion Cove car park was literally the one place that I didn’t get a picture of as we didn’t arrive until after 9 pm (the picture above is just a generic campervan view pic!) after an incredibly busy day exploring places like Lantic Bay, The Eden Project, Lizard Point, Kynance Cove and more, so by the time we got to the car park, it was already dark!
I don’t really have an awful lot to say about this car park as there’s not really much going on, but it was an ideal place to park for the night, especially as we desperately needed to get parked up as it was already dark when we arrived.
There are no toilets in this car park, but I believe there are toilets in the village of Mullion; we both used the toilets at Kynance Cove just before we left and then headed straight to our next destination the following morning, so the lack of toilets wasn’t too much of an issue for us. There was also only one other campervan when we stayed here, so it was a very quiet place to park for the night and ridiculously cheap at just £3 for 24 hours.
Cost: £3 for 24 hours.
Land’s End car park – free and paid campervan spots in South England
Spending the night at Land’s End wasn’t something we ever intended to do, however, we had heard other campervanners mention that if you’re discreet and ask the right security guard for permission to stay overnight, then you’re allowed to.
Overnight camping in the Land’s End car park isn’t strictly allowed, but there are no signs explicitly saying that you can’t stay overnight and as we asked permission from a security guard when we paid the £7 fee for cars to park up for the day (and night if you plan on doing so!), we felt confident that we weren’t breaking any rules. However, I’m pretty sure it’s not something that they want to advertise, so do try and be discreet when asking for permission and of course, always respect the land that you’re staying on!
Cost: £7 for cars, £10 for large motorhomes.
King Arthur’s car park, Tintagel
King Arthur’s car park in Tintagel was the final place that we stayed on our Southern England road trip and we came across this car park on the Park4Night app.
There’s the main part of the car park that’s used for day visitors who are parking up to explore Tintagel and then there’s a large grass area towards the rear of the car park that’s intended for campervans and motorhomes to use overnight.
There were lots of other vans there already when we arrived and more continued to arrive throughout the evening, so it’s definitely a popular place to stay in the area. While you’re there, make sure to head to Tintagel Castle as this was one of my absolute favourite things we did on the whole trip!
There were no public toilets in the car park itself when we were there, but as the car park is right next to the King Arthur’s Arms Inn, you can use those toilets if you’re a paying customer or for a small charge.
Cost: £5 overnight for campervans and motorhomes.
Related posts:
- The Ultimate South Coast England Road Trip – Canterbury To Cornwall
- The Ultimate Guide To Hiring A Campervan – Campervan Hire Tips
- Our Ultimate Campervan Conversion Process – From Start To Finish
- How Much We Spent Converting A Campervan – What You Need To Know
- Why A Campervan Road Trip Needs To Be On Your Bucket List
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Have you ever been on a road trip to South England? Do you have any other places to add to this list of the best free and paid campervan spots in South England? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram @imjustagirl_16.
