Roadsurfing in the Basque country

The Atlantic coast of Southwest France and Northeast Spain - also known as the Basque Country - is a place my son Harry and I know well. For the past five years we've been to the same campsite in Messanges for our annual surf pilgrimage with friends. But this year, due to some calendar clashes and the fact that 17-year-olds want to go to music festivals without their parents, we made the call the Atlantic SW a bit earlier than usual and with a slightly different crew. “Why not get a van?” I thought, which is how I can safely give you - the reader - an honest-as-I-can review of van rental in mid-July in the Basque Country.

First off, we went with roadsurfer, by far the biggest of the burgeoning van-rental companies. It's crazy-easy to navigate their website, and surprisingly few hidden extras when you pick the van up. And yes, of course we used the roadsurfer discount code FORECAST17 which brought the total cost of the trip down to just over €100 per day for the van.

There were smaller vans, and hence cheaper options, but given my son and and I are both "adults" (mentally this is not the case for either of us, but I guess physically there’s some truth to it), we went with the cutesy-named "Couple Cottage". I'm guessing it was a Fiat Ducato at some point, but it's been camping looksmaxxed and now has a Wiensberg badge on the front. Assuming they did the make-over, they've managed to impressively squeeze in an over-sized double bed, with a bathroom, toilet, shower and kitchen, and a fold-out table and chairs that somehow appeared from nowhere every time we needed them. And since we ended up meeting some old and new friends on the way, it kinda felt like having a mobile stately home. Fancy as. 

Stop one was Capbreton and Hossegor. Our rough plan was to “wild camp” but truth be told, the local municipal police weren’t hot on that idea and woke us up two mornings running at 7am. And in a pincer-movement, virtually all the official beach car parks have less-than-1.9m vehicle entry barriers. Which is why we found that our two most-used apps for the trip became park4nite and surf-forecast.com. The former took care of all our possible camper van needs (water, electricity, parking) and found us the epic Océanides Plage on the third evening, and surf-forecast.com took care of the long-range wave speculation for the next 16-days. Sadly, the Hossegor area looked was showing one star on surf-forecast for the day we arrived, but then a period of zero stars moving forwards, so we picked up some of the wind-swell at Océanides and thought to move on to the southerly wind produced, promised waves along the northern coast of Spain. The forecast was only showing one star, but zooming out on the wave-finder function, this was as good as it would get for a hundred km in each direction. Camping at Océanides was €17 including an electric hook up, plus the beach has showers and washing machines whether you pay or not. For the Hossegor area, it’d be hard to beat. But after two days, and with the itch to move on, we wanted more out of the van.

Packing up was comically easy, and with clothes and wetsuits stuffed into the ample drawers, we did a quick idiot check using the webcams of Zarautz, did a passport double check and headed south. Given it was high-season, the prime campsites on the Zarautz' headland were full, but again using the park4nite app we found an epic family camping spot about 2km inland. We’d brought friends in tow from a chance meeting at a screening of the Football World Cup so the van really showed off its cooking, entertaining and hosting skills for a crew that now numbered eight people. A mobile freezer for chilled rosé when it’s mid-30s is a luxury beyond compare. 

But we didn’t wanna walk to the beach and again the van picked up our slack: we found a spot one-block from the beach, surfed some perfect, warm and clear Atlantic waves, all in the knowledge that a cold can of soda and a pasta snack were within reaching distance. And with the freedom to move on at any point, to chase the waves or to head somewhere remote, there’s a Jack London-esque romanticism to van life that became apparent in Zarautz. Though the snoring and rolling in the heat at night probably wasn’t as romantic as some might imagine. 

Even with friends camping along side us, the table and chairs, the cupboards, the sheer amount of "put your stuff down here and forget about it" storage - that was the actual magic of the van. Once the boards were washed off and the wetsuits were dripping from the awning, we fell into a quiet routine of getting the chess set out, putting some music on low, and just existing for a bit in this tiny, perfectly organised fortress of calm. Harry's got considerably better at chess than me over the last year, which is its own quiet horror, but losing to your kid hits different when you're doing it with the doors open to a sea breeze and absolutely nowhere else you need to be.

Did we make the most of the kitchen? We boiled some eggs. We made coffee, badly, most mornings, and the little two-ring hob and neat run of cupboards probably felt faintly insulted by how rarely they got used. Easy to imagine that the whole amenities setup comes into its own if you're van-life-ing somewhere colder or more remote, where a hot meal isn't a five-minute walk away - but for us, parked up a stone's throw from some of the best chip shops and pintxos bars on the coast, it was less "kitchen" and more “basecamp with ample USB ports”.

Back in Hossegor, with our new-found friends we made the most of the beach, the restaurants and with a lot of teenage energy spare, we jumped off the bridge in the centre of town at high-tide. It’s not only the van that can show off! We finished off the week in our favourite spot: Lafatenia. We knew it was gonna be un-surfable, the forecast showed 0.1m swell with glassy conditions, and the parking gods thwarted our original plans, but park4nite again came to the rescue with a beautiful little site called Camping Soubelet, around 100m from the ever impressive Bibam restaurant, bar, and mini golf course. Ah yes, the great teenage/adult leveller: mini golf! Fine, truth be told, I lost again. But we got to watch one hell of an impressive sunset and yeah, we shared some wine. It’s France, he’s 17, who cares? 

And that, really, was the unexpected joy of the whole trip - the vibe. Not just inside the van, but in the car parks and campsites. Every site we pulled into, from the pines above Hossegor to the quieter little Capbreton spots to the more surf-hardened lots around Zarautz, had the same easy, unbothered energy - other vans, other families, a lot of roof racks and not much fuss. Nobody's showing off, everybody's just there for the same reason: good waves, good light, and not much else on the agenda.

One piece of kit we found essential though: the bike carrier. Getting a good parking spot near the beach in Hossegor or Zarautz in July means you don’t wanna move the van again until you leave - the trick is having something else to get around on once you've bagged it. With the bikes off the back, the whole trip suddenly had a second gear: quick rides for bread and coffee, evening pedals along the front, no faffing with parking twice a day. Small addition, huge difference. 

If there was one thing I’d change it would probably be to get a slightly smaller van - the Transporter sized vans at 1.9m or less are definitely the connoisseurs choice given the height restrictions. Though I heard from the other van-lifers that as soon as September hits then the rules change and the big vans come in to their own. And realistically, Harry and I could have lived without the bathroom and shower, but again, it’s hard to directly compare given how baking hot we had it and how readily accessible gelato and showers are in the modern world. What a time to be alive! 

For a chance to have your own van adventure, use the surf-forecast x roadsurfer discount code FORECAST17 to see the basket price on the roadsurfer.com drop.