5 ideas for a weekend away in your motorhome

Tickets can be purchased both on the event website www.salonedelcamper.it and on www.mailticket.it.
This trade show is the most eagerly awaited event of the year for the motorhome community, offering a privileged opportunity for the sector to meet and exchange ideas, see all the latest developments, purchase recreational vehicles, and discuss the future of the industry.
As usual, the Salone del Camper will have its focus on product, but will also dedicate ample space to 3 complementary sections: Shopping Area, Accessories and Routes and Destinations.  The latter is a spacious and carefully curated area dedicated to tourist destinations, ranging from Italian regions to European countries. By the sea, an active holiday in Rimini
Rimini is one of the iconic seaside resorts on the Adriatic coast, loved for its sunshine, sea and nightlife, but also for its active beach holiday offerings.  Here you can have breakfast on a pedalo and then spend the day among more than 100 micro-events, from footvolley to karate, from beach tennis to spikeball, from BeTable to Teqball. Throughout the summer, the beach clubs offer packed calendars of wellness-focused events: power yoga, pilates, no-gravity yoga and metabolic walking sessions, pilates and SUP pilates; and also run training, crossfit, hyrox, functional mobility, calisthenics, zumba, cycling, glute power, total body, core training, posture and flow classes.
Among the not-to-be-missed events is the Soulhands Festival, the first stage of the Italian surfskate championship, a long board dancing competition on a 30 sq m platform, and Giocaestate, offering free aerobics, gymnastics and dance lessons on the sand and by the water's edge. Nordic Walking can also be practised on the beach all year round, while the numerous nautical centres along the coast offer pedalos, rowing pedalos, SUPs and paddle surf boards, sailing boats, dinghies, catamarans and windsurf boards for hire, so you can ride the waves. The latest trends include wing surf or wing foil, wakeboard and fly-fish. A widespread exhibition across around 200 beach boards will showcase the graphic project “Ciao Rimini Ciao”, which transforms the shoreline into an exhibition trail. In the park, at Valeggio sul Mincio near Verona
Destinations offering experiences in period gardens and historic botanical gardens are increasingly popular. The Sigurtà Garden Park at Valeggio sul Mincio is an ecological oasis renowned for its countless botanical varieties; it covers an area of 600,000 square metres and is home to the Labyrinth, the Great Lawn and 18 small lakes, and in 2023 it won the Garden Tourism Award as the most beautiful park in the world.  It is famous for its seasonal blooms, including Tulipmania in spring, the Avenue of Roses in May, and water lilies and lotus flowers in summer.  It hosts cultural and nature-related events, such as Pecoratosando, an initiative dedicated to sheep shearing and wool processing. Born from a project by Count Giuseppe Inga Sigurtà, in collaboration with Adrian Fisher, it is home to 1,500 yew plants forming a design over an area of 2,500 square metres; at its centre stands a tower inspired by the one in the Bois de Boulogne park in Paris, from which visitors can admire the Water Gardens and the Great Oak which, at 400 years old, is one of the oldest trees in the Park. Other places of interest include the Castelletto, the Horizontal Sundial, the Stone of Youth and the Hermitage. The Garden can be explored on foot, by electric golf cart, aboard panoramic little trains, or by bicycle. In the mountains, among the trails of Switzerland
Trail running, hiking, via ferrata, adventure parks, cycling and mountain biking — Switzerland offers 65,000 km of waymarked trails for high-altitude experiences among pastures and woodlands.  There are more than 800 natural forest reserves, where woodland grows largely without human intervention and has not been cultivated for decades.  These are special, protected areas that are often accessible to visitors: covering 600 hectares, the Bodmeren forest in Canton Schwyz is considered the largest spruce forest in the entire Alpine region.  It is a vast karst landscape crossed by caves, where one tree in three is between 250 and 400 years old, and the oldest is as much as 500 years old.  The Ecorcha forest stands on a steep slope above the lake of the same name. The area covers the equivalent of 30 football pitches and is covered with fir trees reaching 44 metres in height and 450 years of age; it is home to Switzerland's richest undergrowth in terms of species diversity, and survived the 1749 landslide that gave rise to Lake Derborence, the youngest natural lake in Europe. It has been a protected reserve since 1959. Covering around 5.5 hectares, the Uaul Scatlè forest lies above the Graubünden village of Brigels, at an altitude of around 2,000 metres above sea level, and is Europe's highest protected fir forest. It is nestled among steep rocky bands, scree fields and avalanche paths, hence the name “Scatlè”. By the lake, in Villach, Austria
There are around thirty campsites to be found in Villach, Austria, the majority of which enjoy excellent ratings in the ADAC-Campingführer guide, and some of which also feature Wellness or Spa areas.  Nine accommodation facilities have been awarded the “Kärnten Qualitätssiegel” quality mark, a recognition given by the local Tourist Board for excellence in the services offered. The campsites are spread across the whole tourist region: on Lake Afritz, around Lake Faak, in the Lake Ossiach area, near Villach, and others in the Gail Valley. In some cases, they look directly out onto the lakes, with equipped beaches for relaxing on the shore: here you can swim, and take part in sports such as canoeing and kayaking, sailing, windsurfing, water skiing and stand up paddling (SUP).  Younger visitors can enjoy watching birds of prey perform aerial displays at Landskron Castle, or visit the “Monkey Mountain”, home to Japanese macaques, which can be observed up close under the guidance of zoologists.
For those looking for a little thrill, there is the Familywald Ossiacher See adventure park, equipped with high-rope courses, tree walks, tree houses and a Fly-line that runs right through the woods. Alternatively, you can follow the “Kletterwald” (suspended rope course) on the Gerlitzen Alpe and the Taborhöhe.
Throughout Carinthia, Slow Trails have also been set up — "slow-paced" routes, 20 in total, along paths measuring less than ten kilometres, with a maximum elevation gain of 300 metres, which can be broken down into shorter stretches to make them accessible to everyone, even those without an athletic background. These are routes that can be walked in under three hours. In Villach, there are four that wind around the lakes, allowing you to stroll alongside the water: the “Bleistätter Moor” trail, the “Werberg Monastery” trail, the “Afritzer See” trail, and the two “Faaker See” routes. In all the destinations mentioned, you will find numerous campsites, holiday villages and motorhome service areas, all easily reached in your very own travelling "home".

Remember that to find the best stopover points for your motorhome trips, CamperOnLine's Sosta section is available, also accessible via the "app", free to download for Android and iOS, handy while travelling too, to find stopover opportunities near your current location and work out the route to reach them.