Campsites open in winter: why they close and how to find them

No, most campsites are not open in winter, even when their web page claims otherwise. Of the 511 campsites we examined because they said they were open all year, only 221 have off-season opening confirmed by a source. The other 290 are seasonal or impossible to confirm. Here is why campsites close, what our checks showed, and how to recognise the ones that really welcome holidaymakers from November to March.

Why most campsites close in winter

A campsite that closes is not giving up: it is a business doing the maths. Several reasons add up, and understanding them helps you spot the ones that escape the pattern.

• Visitor numbers. Demand is concentrated in summer and a few long weekends. Heating washrooms and clearing snow from the paths for a few overnight stays a week costs more than it brings in.
• Frost. Pipes, water points, waste disposal points and sanitary blocks have to be drained or protected. Closing and putting the network to sleep is simpler than keeping it running in a cold snap.
• Staff. Many campsites run with a seasonal team. Keeping a reception open, plus a technician and a maintenance worker, through the winter is a management decision in its own right.
• The type of accommodation. Under the French Code de l’urbanisme (article R111-37), a light leisure dwelling (habitation légère de loisirs) is a structure “intended for temporary or seasonal occupation for leisure purposes”. The whole campsite model is built around the season.

That does not mean no campsite stays open. Those that manage it generally have a solid economic reason: a ski resort nearby, thermal baths, a clientele of spa guests, travelling workers or motorhome owners, or heated permanent accommodation that is rented out all year.

What we found when we checked 511 campsites

For each campsite in our selection, we noted the opening dates on the official website and in supplementary sources, then classified the campsite according to what those sources actually confirm. The result is clear-cut: the label “open all year” is not enough.

In other words, one campsite in seven advertised as open turns out to be closed for several months, and for more than four in ten we found no evidence of winter opening at all. “Unconfirmed” does not mean “closed”: it means the promise is not proven, and you need to call before booking.

The 221 confirmed campsites: three ways of being open

Even among the confirmed campsites, “open in winter” covers very different realities. We classified them according to their announced closure.

And what about comfort? Of these 221 campsites, 49 confirm heated washrooms and 64 confirm heated accommodation. For the others, the information is simply not published: that does not mean it is not heated, but it is up to you to ask.

Concrete examples of these three cases

• No closure. At the Domaine de Longemer, in the Vosges, pitches, rentals and the motorhome area are open all year, with heated washrooms and a wellness area.
• Pitches closed, rentals open. At the Domaine du Houssay, in the Sarthe département, the chalets are open all year, but the pitches close from 1 October to 14 April. At the municipal campsite La Giraille, in Castelnaudary, self-contained motorhomes and mobile homes stay, while tents, vans and caravans are closed from October to May.
• The reverse exists too. At the Camping de Salverte, in the Eure département, the pitches are open all year while the rental mobile homes are open only from 15 April to 30 September.
• Short closure. At Haut des Bluches, in La Bresse, the annual closure runs from 8 November to 17 December 2026: the campsite then opens for the ski season. At Les Myrtilles, in Moustajon, near Luchon, it runs from 15 November to 15 December.
• Open, but not all the time. At Las Closas, in Err, the campsite says it is open all year, while the tourist office states that from November to April it opens only at weekends and during school holidays. The two sources do not quite say the same thing: call.

The traps: when “open all year” does not mean what you think

In the pages we classified as unconfirmed or seasonal, the same traps keep coming up. We illustrate them with real cases, without naming the campsites concerned.

Open all year, but for residents

This is the most common trap. About twenty pages in our selection mention residents or mobile home owners: 15 among the unconfirmed campsites, 5 among the seasonal ones. A few cases we found:

• a residential park advertised as “open all year for its residents”, with no confirmed welcome for holidaymakers passing through;
• a campsite whose year-round opening applies first of all to mobile home owners, while holidaymakers are accepted only from 1 July to 31 August;
• a campsite that displays “all year” but where only the residential plots are open, with the rentals not opening until spring;
• a residents’ park where pitches are rented by the month or by the year, with no opening to holidaymakers announced.

The rule is simple: a pitch occupied by its owner does not make a campsite open to holidaymakers. In France, leisure mobile homes may only be installed in specific places (residential leisure parks, classified holiday villages, properly established campsites), as article R111-42 of the Code de l’urbanisme and the Service-public page on parking caravans and mobile homes point out. Many campsites that are open “all year” are therefore open first of all for those who have installed their mobile home there. To understand what these rules allow for anyone who wants to live there, see our article on living all year in a campsite or mobile home.

Outdated dates

Directories and old review pages copy dates that are no longer valid. Three cases we found:

• a campsite advertised as “all year” based on an old web page dating from 2018, with no recent confirmation;
• a campsite whose only published closure is the previous season’s (2 November 2025 to 7 February 2026), with the winter dates of the following season still to be confirmed;
• a campsite whose last published opening period dates back to 2025, with no update.

Closures change every year: weather, building work, snow cover, school holidays. A date published two years ago is worthless for your stay.

A closed reception, or unpublished dates

A campsite can accept arrivals without anyone being there to welcome you. On 25 unconfirmed pages, the opening dates are simply not published. On others, only some services run in winter: at the Domaine de Longemer, for example, the restaurant and the grocery shop operate mainly during school holidays. The campsite is open, but not everything that makes it comfortable.

How to check for yourself

No website replaces a phone call. Here are the three questions that are enough to settle it, to be asked before you send any deposit.

1. “Do you welcome holidaymakers passing through between November and March, and on exactly which dates this year?” Ask for the current year, not “all year”.
2. “What stays open, and what should I plan for?” Reception, heated washrooms, water at the pitches, electricity amperage, grocery shop, restaurant.
3. “What is the low-season package?” Price, minimum length of stay, cancellation terms, access in case of snow.

Complete this with three habits: read the terms of sale (the dates are often stated more precisely there than on the home page), check reviews dated from the previous winter, and look at the tourist office page, as in the case of Las Closas. If you are travelling with a caravan, a motorhome or a van, our guide to winter camping, or caravaneige details the equipment; for the whole stay, see camping in winter, the practical guide.

Where the campsites that are really open in winter are

The 221 confirmed campsites are distributed as follows, alongside the total number of campsites each region has in our selection:

Two lessons. First, the mountain regions (the Alps, the Pyrenees) and the major tourist areas concentrate the supply, with 57 confirmed campsites in the mountains against 19 by the sea: in winter, the coast is the big loser. Second, the countryside carries a lot of weight, with 131 confirmed campsites: farms, estates and municipal campsites, often with chalets or mobile homes rented all year.

By département, Haute-Savoie comes first with 12 confirmed campsites, ahead of the Pyrénées-Orientales and the Vendée (10 each). To widen the search to the shoulder seasons, from autumn to spring, see our article on off-season camping from October to March.