Domaine Beausejour

Domaine Beauséjour covers 2.15 hectares in La Balme-les-Grottes, in northern Isère, about forty minutes from Lyon. The campsite is rated 3 stars and run by a couple. It sits on the route of the ViaRhôna, the 815 km cycle route that follows the Rhône from the Alps to the Mediterranean, and has held the Home Vélo label for many years.

The site has 110 pitches. These include bare pitches for tents, caravans and motorhomes, about fifteen of them intended for motorhomes, as well as mobile homes with one to four bedrooms, two-bedroom chalets and a lodge tent, rented by the night or by the week. Two comfort tents, co-funded in 2023 by the communauté de communes and the LEADER programme, welcome ViaRhôna touring cyclists, and a summer kitchen is reserved for cycle tourists.

The campsite is open all year round, which the Isère tourist office confirms: from January to December for pitches, rentals and the service area. The washroom block is heated in winter. Note that the pool and snack bar only operate from 15 June to 15 September. There are also year-round pitches for installing your own mobile home, but they do not count towards the touring offer described here.

The campsite’s website is also available in English, German and Dutch, and presents the region as a playground for cycling, hiking and white-water sports enthusiasts.

ViaRhôna by bike, hiking and mountain biking around the campsite; Lyon about 40 minutes away.

The washroom block, heated in winter, provides toilet paper. Only the pitches and the washrooms are accessible to people with reduced mobility, the campsite states. Wi-Fi is free, most pitches have electric hook-ups and a service area allows you to empty waste and fill up with water. Cyclists benefit from a dedicated summer kitchen and e-bike hire for adults.

Each rental comes with a half-covered terrace, a picnic table and a barbecue. The choice runs from a one-bedroom mobile home to a four-bedroom model, with two-bedroom chalets and the lodge tent. The campsite also sells new or second-hand mobile homes, as well as terraces, to those who wish to come back regularly.

The bar and snack bar open from mid-June to mid-September, the period during which the pool is also in operation, from 15 June to 15 September. Outside these dates, you will therefore need to plan your meals; shops are in the neighbouring villages, the village being about 4 km away. The fitness room, the boules pitch, the children’s play equipment (swing, slide, trampoline) and the table tennis table remain available on site. The slide track and the inflatable castle are set up in season.

On site, you can play boules, table football and table tennis, work out in the fitness room or play homeball, and children have a playground, a trampoline and, in summer, a slide track and an inflatable castle. Fishing is also listed among the facilities. In July and August, themed dance evenings, festive meals and boules tournaments are organised, with olympics on 15 August.

Hiking and mountain-bike trails start in the surrounding area, and the ViaRhôna passes nearby for cycle rides, with an e-bike available to hire on site. The Rhône can be discovered at the Vallée Bleue leisure park in Montalieu-Vercieu, where you can try supervised jet-skiing and flyboarding, ride in a 1960s amphibious car or hire a floating saucer from May to September. Espace Eau Vive offers canoeing-kayaking, rafting, hydrospeed, canoraft and all-terrain scooters, and the Serrières-de-Briord water sports club hires dinghies, rowing boats and kayaks.

The Haras d’Écotier in Charette gives pony lessons, and the Objectif Terre centre in Montalieu-Vercieu opens its 30-hectare estate to 4×4 enthusiasts. Among the campsite’s other ideas: climbing, quad biking, wooden caravans and horse riding, as well as Lyon cuisine 40 minutes away.