Our first Brit Stops stay.

Hey everybody we’re Aimee & Pete – we’ve been into campervans since 2020 and this post is about our very first Brit Stops stay!

Aimee decided to get the Brit Stops book after hearing good things about it.  For anybody that isn’t aware Brit Stops is a network of independent farm shops, pubs, and other locations that have space to host campervans and motorhomes. Some of these have facilities too – things like drinking water fill points, grey water, motorhome emptying points, toilets, and showers. I’m not sure how it works everywhere but generally speaking – it works something like this.  Pay £10 to park/stay overnight in the car park and head into the pub for a meal, and drinks and you’re all good.

So let’s just throw a few things out there.  Number 1…we don’t drink.  Me and Aimee gave up drinking around 4 years ago – we find life better without alcohol so we don’t hit the pubs very often if at all.  Number 2…we’re not really loving the idea of staying in a car park. We’d prefer to be in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains, hills, or forests. Number 3…We (mainly I – Pete) are creatures of habit (like many people) even though I would describe myself as a confident extroverted person and wouldn’t typically describe myself as an anxious person; I get pretty anxious doing anything for the very first time. I need a ‘blueprint’ first – something to help me understand how it works, what’s going to happen, what to expect etc.  That’s totally normal right? I’m sure I’m not alone in this – but let me know if you’re the same or if it’s just me?

So…for all the above reasons Brit Stops wasn’t an obvious choice. But the beauty of having a campervan when you both work full time, run businesses, and have a family and responsibilities that all need to be planned and organised, and scheduled is you can literally pack the van up and go without a plan. Some people might find that a little unnerving or odd but there’s something exciting and nerve-wracking about driving off to a place you don’t know, not knowing where you’re going to stay.

We headed away on Saturday 23^rd December, just the two of us in our 2017 Volkswagen Transporter T6 4 Motion Long Wheel Base ‘Swamper’ Campervan for a few nights before we picked the kids back up on boxing day.  We absolutely love Scotland, the Isle of Mull – that’s one of our favourites but we decided to head to Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales for this adventure mainly due to proximity to our home in Sheffield and the fact that we missed out on an Angelsey adventure earlier in the year due to illness.

We headed to https://www.theringanglesey.co.uk/ W63 in the Brit stops guide. We walked into a lovely cosy pub with a fire, were welcomed by a lovely guy, and asked about a Britstop stay, they confirmed we could stay over and if we wanted the use of the facilities for an extra £10 – drinking water fill, grey water disposal, toilets, and showers which we did. The pub was quite busy but they had space and we grabbed a table for two, they had their festive menu on – 3 courses for £28.95, 0% Guinness available, and a free bookshelf for a small donation. Aimee found a VW Campervan book (meant to be). The host – wasn’t very attentive and friendly, the service was fantastic, we treated ourselves and ordered three courses – prawn cocktail, full turkey Christmas dinner, and Christmas bread and butter for me; soup, vegetarian chili, and churros for Aimee. We talked, we chilled, we ate, we drank – the whole bill with drinks and the stop-over with use of facilities was around £80 which we thought was great value considering the quality of the food, service, and surroundings. We also got a voucher to use the next time we come back which could be anything from 10% off to a free meal. 

We headed to the loo and then to the campervan in the carpark, got the blinds down, cab curtain up and made the bed, did a bit of reading of our new book and Advanture Magazine then went to sleep! The car park was lovely and quiet, the facilities were self-contained and lovely and clean. We used the bathroom facilities in the morning and topped up the drinking water and then headed off to our next destination.

So, would we recommend Brit Stops and The Ring at Angelsey?  I think it’s obvious, it’s a yes from us.  We’d definitely recommend both of them – shout out to The Ring, Angelsey and we can’t wait for our next Brit Stops stay!

Thanks for reading, Pete & Aimee 😊

Let us know if you found this useful or get in touch if you have any questions!

---

Find out more about Brit Stops here

Blog written by Peter Janicwicz: Adventure Campervans

Photography: Photography by Peter James

Looking to get away for a few days on or off grid in a campervan but don’t have a campervan or all the gear?  Don’t worry we have an awesome Volkswagen Transporter T6 Campervan available for hire.  We have loads of optional extras available and are running an early bird offer for our flagship campervan Sully  20% off Sully’s first five bookings for adventures between 27^th December and 31^st March 2024 for a limited time only. Check out Sully on Instagram here, you can also find her on Quirky Campers.