8. What didn't go to plan in France
An honest account of burned baguettes, a broken brake light, a nearly-broken tooth, a dog who ate better than we did, and a hookup cable we will never speak of again.
We're Kate and Charlie - mid-fifties, one anxious dog called Huffle, one fifteen-year-old Peugeot Boxer campervan called Brigitte, and absolutely learning as we go. Whether you have a campervan or a motorhome, if you're new to this or thinking about it, come with us.
IN A HURRY? THE SHORT VERSION | Seven things that went wrong on our first campervan trip to France, and what we learned from each one:
(1) Buy dog food in France before you need it - bringing meat-based pet food from the UK into the EU is not permitted.
(2) Always unroll your hookup cable completely before use - a coiled live cable generates heat.
(3) Know where your bike rack sits before opening barn doors enthusiastically.
(4) Galette des Rois contains a hidden china charm - chew carefully.
(5) In a small van kitchen, the hob is closer to everything than you think. Fire is a real risk.
(6) Secure your dog with a harness seatbelt clip - it is the law in the UK and France.
(7) Find and book a French vet for the return worming treatment before you leave home.
This is the other post. The one where we tell you about the omelette we made for the dog. The fireball baguette. The cable that nearly burned the van down while we slept. The brake light that died in circumstances so avoidable they made us laugh until we cried, at the exact moment we thought the trip was perfect.
We are sharing this because nobody learns anything useful from other people's highlight reels. And because, with enough distance, almost all of it is vaguely amusing. Almost all of it.
1. The great dog food situation - in which Huffle played us for fools
Before we left, we did our research. Conscientious, responsible van owners that we are, we read that you cannot bring pet food into France. Fine, we’ll buy dog food in France. Easy. Sorted.
It was not sorted.
Huffle, who at home eats his food with the enthusiasm of a dog who has never seen a meal before and cannot believe his luck, took one look at the first French dog food we offered him and then looked back at us with an expression of such profound disappointment that we actually apologised.
We tried a second brand. He sniffed it and walked away. A third — ignored completely. A fourth — he ate approximately four biscuits with the air of someone doing us an enormous favour, and then went to lie down looking sad and hungry.
I found myself, on day three, at a French supermarket rotisserie counter, buying a whole roast chicken for the dog. Then again on day five. Then day eight. Then — I am not proud of this — day eleven.
And then came the omelette.
It was a cold morning. Huffle had, once again, declined breakfast. I had eggs. I had butter. I had a small pan. I told myself it was a one-off. It was not a one-off. It was a perfectly seasoned, lightly folded omelette, served at dog-bowl temperature, garnished with absolutely nothing because he doesn't like herbs.
He ate it immediately and with great enthusiasm. I hate myself only a little bit for how pleased I was.
The working theory, which we cannot disprove, is that Huffle had been planning this for months and was simply waiting for the right moment to execute it. A new country. Unfamiliar food. Two owners with no backup options and an entire rotisserie section nearby. The conditions were perfect.
The lesson: Buy dog food in France before you need it - all major supermarkets stock the familiar brands. If your dog is particular about food, buy a small bag of the French equivalent before you travel and mix it with their usual food at home to introduce it gradually. Bringing meat-based pet food from the UK into the EU is not permitted, so plan ahead rather than hoping your dog will adapt on arrival. Some dogs do adapt immediately. Huffle, as you now know, negotiates.
2. The hookup cable - rule one of electrical safety
This is the one we feel most strongly about sharing, because it matters.
We were hooked up to electric at a site. Warm, settled, feeling rather competent. The cable was plugged in at both ends and neatly coiled on the ground between the van and the post - tidy, out of the way, looking perfectly fine.
It was not perfectly fine.
A coiled electrical cable carrying current generates heat. This is not a quirk or a bad luck situation - it is basic physics, and it is the reason that every electrician, every van manual, and indeed every sensible person in the know will tell you: always, always unroll your hookup cable completely before use. Every last metre of it.
I woke in the night to a faint smell of burning rubber. Not dramatic - not smoke, not an alarm - just a smell that was wrong. The kind your brain registers before you're fully awake.
The cable was hot. Not catastrophically by that point, but hot enough to have begun melting its own outer casing where it was coiled. We unplugged it. We were fine. Brigitte was fine. But it could have been considerably worse, and the fact that it wasn't is more luck than judgement. (affiliate link replacement cable)
The lesson: Unroll your hookup cable completely. Every single time. It takes thirty seconds and it matters more than you think. We have a new cable. It lives, fully unrolled, in a figure-of-eight on the ground whenever it's in use. We will never coil a live cable again.
3. The Brake Light - an expensive moment on the most perfect evening
We had found the most extraordinary park up. Mediterranean views, total quiet, golden evening light, nobody else for miles. We had a baguette, some very good cheese, a couple of small glasses of red wine and the realisation that we were ridiculously happy.
We clinked glasses. We watched the light change. Huffle was guarding the cheese. Everything was perfect.
And then Charlie exuberantly flung open the back barn doors of the van so we could properly appreciate the starry night over the Med.
A little too exuberantly and a little too wide. Our bike rack which lives on the back of the van and which we had not thought about in that moment at all, swung out with the door and connected, with a sound that will live in our memory forever, directly into the rear brake light cluster. Crunch.
We stood there for a moment in the fading Mediterranean light, looking at the shattered brake light, glasses still in hand. Then we looked at each other. Then we started laughing, because what else are you going to do?
The view was still there. The cheese was still excellent. The brake light was not. We taped it up with the electrical tape we had in our kit arsenal - always carry electrical tape - drove carefully for the remainder of the trip, and had it properly fixed when we got home. Affiliate link
The lesson: Know where your bike rack sits in relation to your barn doors before you open them enthusiastically on a perfect evening. Also: always carry electrical tape. And always, always laugh. Life is too short to cry over brake lights when the Med is right there.
4. The Galette des Rois incident - a seasonal hazard nobody warned us about
January in France means one thing above all else: Galette des Rois. The Kings' Cake. A magnificent, buttery, almond-filled puff pastry tart sold absolutely everywhere throughout the month in celebration of Epiphany. We bought two slices eagerly, correctly identifying it as one of the better things about travelling in January.
What we didn’t know, having not encountered this tradition before - is that inside every Galette des Rois is hidden a small china charm called a fève. The person who finds it in their slice is crowned king or queen for the day.
It’s a charming tradition. Genuinely lovely. Excellent in every way except one: nobody told Charlie.
The sound was somewhere between a crack and a yelp. Charlie sat very still for a moment, then removed from his mouth, with little dignity, a small ceramic figure of a shepherd approximately one centimetre tall.
His tooth was fine. The shepherd was unharmed. The remaining galette was eaten with considerably more caution and, if anything, tasted better for the drama. He will always be a king to me.
The lesson: If you are in France in January, and someone hands you a slice of Galette des Rois, chew carefully. The charm is the whole point. The charm is also a dental incident waiting to happen. You have been warned.
5. The baguette incident — a story about reflexes, breakfast, and minor pyrotechnics
It was a perfectly ordinary morning. I was at the hob - coffee brewing, milk warming gently in a pan, the smell of a French morning doing its best work. Charlie had just come back from the boulangerie with a fresh baguette, still warm, in its paper bag.
He put it down. Slightly too close to the hob. The paper bag caught first, then the end of the baguette. We had full on flames – it was shocking how quickly.
My reaction was immediate. I picked up the flaming baguette - bare hands, no hesitation -and threw it with considerable force out of the van. It landed on the grass outside, where it continued to smoulder gently while we stood in the van doorway, slightly stunned.
The baguette was salvageable from about the middle section onwards. We ate it anyway, standing in the doorway, watching the charred end cool on the grass. It was, given everything, still a very good baguette.
The lesson: In a small van kitchen, the hob is closer to everything than you think. Paper, bags, tea towels, baguettes - give them all more space than seems necessary. Also: your instincts in a crisis are faster than your brain. Trust them. Then check your hands. Also make sure you travel with a fire blanket and small fire extinguisher.
6. The Blanket Burrito - a small dog's guide to motorway anxiety
Huffle finds car travel a little unsettling. We did not fully appreciate the scale of his feelings about van travel until we were on a French motorway and he attempted to climb onto my lap from the back while we were doing 110kmh.
The van makes different noises to a car. More road noise. More engine. More of everything. For a dog of Huffle's particular emotional sensitivity - and we say this with love -it was, apparently, overwhelming.
The solution we arrived at, after several failed attempts to settle him in the back, was the blanket burrito. His own blanket from home, wrapped around him firmly, on a child’s beanbag placed between the driver and passenger seat. He was secured throughout via a seatbelt clip attachment on his harness - this is a legal requirement in both the UK and France and a sensible one regardless of the law. The burrito was comfort. The seatbelt attachment was non-negotiable. Afiiliate link blanket/attachement
He would look up at me from the burrito with an expression of absolute trust and profound relief. He’s a dog who is absolutely in touch with his feelings.
The lesson: If your dog is anxious in cars, give them time to adjust to the campervan before a long trip. Short journeys first with a familiar blanket. A DAP diffuser or Adaptil collar or a Thundervest can help with travel anxiety. (affiliate link) Always secure your dog with a proper seatbelt clip on their harness - it is the law in the UK and France and it keeps everyone safe. Or, once all of that is in place, accept that comfort and proximity may also be required.
7. The French Vet - an uncomfortable experience for everyone
This one is a trip requirement, not a mishap, but the execution was its own kind of adventure. To re-enter the UK with your dog, you must have them wormed by a qualified vet between one and five days before travel. This means finding a French vet, booking an appointment, and getting the paperwork completed correctly.
The finding-a-vet part was easy – google maps told us where all the local vets were. But knowing how good they were was harder to gauge. We eventually found one. We arrived and patiently waited.
The vet had, and we say this with all due respect to the French veterinary profession, the bedside manner of someone who has been personally wronged by dogs. Huffle, who is a good judge of character, took one look at him and began trembling.
The worming pill was produced. The cheese was produced - we had come prepared, wrapping the pill in a small piece of brie on the reasonable assumption that no dog has ever refused brie. Until this day that is.
He refused point blank. He didn’t even try to eat around the pill. He deposited the pill on the consulting table, and looked at us with an expression that can only be described as triumphant.
The vet was not amused. The pill was eventually administered by Huffle being taken into another room without us, and two vets forcing the pill down his throat. All I could hear were Huffles’ unhappy yelps and it broke my heart. He trotted back in though looking absolutely fine, tail in the air, keen to leave the stinking vets. We left with the completed paperwork, several euros lighter (60 euros to be precise), us a little stressed and a dog who hot footed his way back to the safety of the van.
The lesson: Research vets in the area you'll be in before you leave the UK. Book in advance if possible. Allow more time than you think you need. And if your dog refuses the cheese-wrapped pill, know that this is entirely on-brand and there is nothing you could have done.
And yet…
Here is the thing about all of the above.
The dog food situation gave us our best running joke of the trip and a dog who smelled faintly of rotisserie chicken for three weeks. The cable was a lesson learned early and cheaply enough that we will never repeat it. The brake light happened on the most perfect evening of the trip and the memory of that night is one we'd pay to keep.
The baguette fireball lasted approximately fifteen seconds and produced the best mid-crisis reflex either of us has ever witnessed. I’m wondering about taking up shotput. The blanket burrito will live in our hearts forever. The vet - well. The vet was the vet. Huffle survived.
None of it stopped us. None of it even came close. The trip was still, without question, the best two and a half weeks of our lives. The things that went wrong (or didn’t quite go right) were part of it — the part you tell people about, the part that makes it real.
Van travel may not go entirely to plan. That is not a warning. That is the deal - and it is, as it turns out, a very good one.
DAYDREAM vs REALITY
Daydream: Confident, capable van owners gliding through France without incident.
Reality: A coiled cable, a flaming baguette, a shattered brake light, a near-dental incident, and a dog who almost ate better than we did for eleven days. Still the best trip of our lives.
Daydream: Everything running smoothly, learning from other people’s mistakes.
Reality: We made all the mistakes ourselves. Now you can learn from ours instead. You’re welcome.
Kate, Charlie, Huffle & Brigitte 🐾🚐
(Huffle would like it noted that he stands by every decision he made on this trip and has no regrets whatsoever.)
Some links in this post are affiliate links, marked with [affiliate]. This means if you buy through them, we earn a small commission — at absolutely no extra cost to you. We only ever link to things we have genuinely used and would recommend to a friend regardless. It's one of the ways we keep Kettle & Keys running, and we're grateful for every click. Thank you for supporting us.