A campervan caper along the captivating Costa Brava

Most road-trippers hug the coast heading north out of Barcelona; turning inland first paid off for us handsomely. Endless forest, cheerful yellow rapeseed fields and snow-capped mountains on the horizon made for a proper road-trip backdrop, and driving through the Parc Natural de la Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa was a highlight in its own right, the landscape folding around long-dormant volcanic cones in a way that forces you to slow down. One stopover was a working riding farm, waking to horses grazing just beyond the van and a morning spent learning to handle one along a forest trail, with plenty of grazing breaks included.

Not every stop on this route was about slowing down. Fang Aventura, an adventure sports centre with enough terrain to fill a week rather than a day, delivered the trip’s biggest adrenaline spike. Mini-paintball came first, weaving through a Wild West set and finishing in a Mayan temple battlefield, before switching to quad bikes and tearing across open ground, the whole family (younger riders paired with an adult) grinning the entire way round. Leaving was, predictably, the hardest part of the day.

The single biggest change from previous campervan trips was accepting that not every night needs a serviced campsite. Being reasonably disciplined about power and water means a recharge and refill every third night is plenty, and that one adjustment reshaped the whole holiday. A cluster of apps and sites exist purely for finding off-grid pitches: Espana Discovery lists free stays across Spain in exchange for supporting the host, in this case an apple orchard where “payment” took the form of cider and juice from the Mooma farm shop, no hardship at all. Campspace and Park4night rounded out the toolkit for finding legal overnight spots (wild camping isn’t permitted in Spain). No crowds, no restrictions, no facilities either, but with an orchard of apple trees for company and total quiet after dark, that trade-off was an easy one to make.

It’s easy to underestimate just how much engineering sits behind the idea of a home on wheels until you’re living in one: fridge, freezer, gas cooker, shower, toilet, and a battery system that quietly charges itself while you drive. Our family of five fitted in with room to spare, and the close quarters that had seemed daunting on paper turned into one of the trip’s quiet wins, hard to replicate that kind of shared, screen-free time back home. Even a flat tyre mid-route barely broke stride, sorted with minimal fuss and back on the road inside the hour, a reminder that the best travel stories are rarely built from the smooth stretches. No packing, no unpacking, just a new view outside the window every morning and an onboard kitchen that turned refuelling between activities into a five-minute job rather than a sit-down affair.

One of the best afternoon of the whole trip happened on the Ter River, paddling beneath a dense green canopy that threw dappled light onto the clear water below. The plan was a gentle drift with the current, but the guides at Kayak Del Ter had other ideas, setting a pace that quickly turned the outing into something closer to a race. Splashing, scrambling to spot fish and terrapins beneath the surface, and more than one unscheduled swim followed, a full-throttle few hours in the sun that everyone, kids included, was fully here for. The mood shifted entirely by evening, the sun dropping behind the hills as we parked among an orchard of apple trees, the quiet settling in fast: no crowds, no noise, no artificial light, just the low hum of nature reclaiming the space. Adrenaline by day, total stillness by night: a contrast that turned out to be exactly what a campervan trip does best.

The last leg ran the length of the Costa Brava from the French border down towards Barcelona, past seaside villages and vineyard terraces, the coast road becoming more dramatic the further south we went. The destination was Tossa De Mar, the Costa Brava’s standout coastal town, who’s cobbled streets, souvenir shops and seafront restaurants are simply a pleasure to wander (in shoulder season, at any rate). The sandy beach and clear water held our attention for hours, with the castle and its fortified towers providing a dramatic backdrop throughout. After exploring the castle and the walled old town of Vila Vella, a Fondo Cristal glass-bottomed boat trip covered more of the coastline and its hidden coves, finishing forty minutes later on the equally striking Giverola Beach.

Handing the van back in Barcelona was harder than expected after a week on the road, but there was time for one last flourish before the flight home: a decadent night at Hotel España, all Art Nouveau rooms and hand-painted ceramic motifs in the breakfast room, each representing a different Spanish region, and an evening visit to the Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi for a Luminiscence light show, colour projected across the architecture while a narrated history plays alongside it (book an English-language slot). A fitting, slightly unexpected way to close out a trip built on exactly that kind of contrast. Thank you, Spain.