We finished our tour to Eastern Germany last week. It was an enjoyable tour with a great bunch of people who all had a wonderful time, and the visit to Colditz castle, which now has an all-new iPad experience to offer, was a great hit. We are now on our way to the start of the “Discover Denmark” tour followed by “Stunning Norway” and we are looking forward to another six weeks of motorhome travel.
Once we were back in the office, we were asked by several customers about the EHU setup and especially which adaptors are needed for some of the upcoming tours, which triggered us to write a couple of words on this topic.
If your motorhome is not fully self sufficient you will need to hook up at some point to run some of your electric devices. On most campsites in Europe, you will find the blue three-pin CEE 17 electric hook-up points which most of you know. If this is the case, you are probably well prepared with your standard cable. Just keep in mind that your cable is long enough as sometimes the EHU is not always close to your pitch! We carry a 15 meter and a 25m cable with us which enables us to choose the most appropriate length or if necessary to connect both cables.
Nevertheless, you can still find some campsites that do not have CEE 17 sockets, who use the regular electric sockets from the respective country. Even though you might be able to borrow or hire an adaptor usually the sites only have a limited number available. We therefore recommend coming prepared with your own adaptor. It is a small investment to buy such an adaptor before you start travelling. On the above map of Europe, you can see that with the CEE 7/7 “Schuko” plug you are covered for almost every country, as it has the two ways of ground connection, i.e. the flat one on each side, which is the norm in all the countries marked in green on the map, but it also has a hole for the French type of sockets which have a pin for the ground connection covering all countries marked in blue on our map. This really only leaves Switzerland. Here you may find that some sites (including one of the sites we use on our Scenic Switzerland tour) still use sockets for the SN 441011 three pin Swiss plugs. We have never encountered sockets for the other domestic plugs used in Italy (CEI 23-50), Denmark (DS Afsnit 107-2-D1) and the UK (BS 1363), their campsites all had the blue CEE 17 connections. Of course, we do not know all the campsites in these countries, but you have a high likelihood to get along with your blue CEE 17 plug.
Sometimes our customers are surprised that most European campsites have lower amperage than in the UK. In the UK campsites typically have 16-Amp electricity. In Europe however, it usually ranges from 3 to 10 Amps and 16 Amps is the exception. If you are staying on a site that has 6-amp hook-up points you will not be able to use multiple electrical items at one time, depending of course on the wattage of the appliances. You may need to switch over to gas for example for hot water or heating or be aware that you need to switch your hot water off if you want to use any other higher usage appliance like an electric kettle or a hairdryer, which you can only use at the lowest setting anyway. It can also help, if you have an inverter with hybrid PowerAssist technology like the Victron MultiPlus, which can step in if you need anything above the supplied power from the site (for example 1,380 Watt with 6 Amp).
After having said all this. It is best to come prepared 😊.
As we have now published our 2025 programmme, we have received the first bookings for 2025. A lot of interest was shown for the new tours “Timeless Tuscany” and “Perfect Portugal”, but also the other tours have had high hit rates on our website and customers asked for combinations of tours. For 2024 we now have closed bookings for our “Stunning Norway” trip, but we still have limited availability on the other tours. Bookings for the “Majestic Rhine & Moselle Rivers” tour will be closed end of May! The September tours “Impressive Italian Lakes & Cities” and “Captivating Croatia” can still be booked until end of July.
If you are interested in any of our upcoming tours for 2024 or 2025, you can find more information on the tour by clicking on the links below:
2024 Tours
Majestic Rhine & Moselle Rivers
Tour date: Sat. 29th June – Sat. 13th July
Calais pick-up: Sat. 29th June
Germany’s Romantic Road
Tour date: Sat. 14th July – Sat. 27th July
Impressive Italian Lakes & Cities
Tour date: Sun. 1st – Sat. 14th September
Calais pick-up: Fri. 30th August
Captivating Croatia
Tour date: Sun. 15th September – Fri. 4th October
2025 Tours
Springtime in Holland
Tour date: Sat. 5th April – Sat. 19th April
Calais pick-up: Fri 5th April
Timeless Tuscany
Tour date: Thu. 15th May – Wed. 4th June
Majestic Rhine & Moselle Rivers
Tour date: Sat. 28th June – Sat. 12th July
Calais pick-up: Sat. 28th June
Breathtaking Black Forest
Tour date: Sat. 12th July – Sat. 26th July
Spectacular Spanish Northern Coast
Tour date: Sat. 30th August – Fri. 12th September
Perfect Portugal
Tour date: Sat. 13th September – Fri. 3rd October
All information regarding dates, prices, and itinerary can be found on our website. If you have any additional questions or require any further information, just send us an email. If you would like to book a tour you can do this online, or send us an email and we will send you a booking form.
Regards and safe travels.
Audrey & Michael