Finally the Coast – A Traveller's Journal Entry

2026-03-10

Sunday Morning, 23 November

Arriving at the coast. Not Spain yet, but the coast. Somewhere past Montpellier. The sea is waiting. I slept last night at a motorway rest stop for campervans. I drove a long way — until 11 at night. Now, in the morning, I’m heading on. 40 minutes to the beach parking.

Today’s plan? The whole day here. Probably the night too. Tomorrow morning, back on the road.

Temperature today should be between 5 and 12 degrees. Warmer already. Better already. Zora — my dog — is already without her jumper. Me without coffee and without breakfast. I decided though: I’ll have my coffee at the coast, overlooking the sea.

A more serious goal? Get through the mathematical analysis assignments. The next submission deadline is approaching.

Stopping at the Beach

Parking at the beach in France, after the season — it’s brilliant. Eight euros a day. The spot says up to 6 metres (I initially thought it was 3, but I’ll check more carefully). Either way, after the season there are plenty of spaces, so no worries. I can see that even longer vehicles than mine are parked here, so I don’t stress about it.

Infrastructure? Solid. You can empty grey water, black water, and fill up with fresh water — everything’s there. For eight euros that’s genuinely good.

First beach of the trip - France past Montpellier

Beach and Dog

Letting the dog off required a bit of improvisation. The leash started bothering her, she began chewing it. Switched to a cord — problem solved.

The beach is right next to us — literally just a path through some dunes that aren’t tall, but tall enough to separate the road from the sea. In the morning there was nobody there. Zora ran like crazy. She hadn’t seen sand to dig in for a long time. You could see the joy in every leap. That alone was worth coming here.

Technical Problems — The Reality of Campervanning

Let’s move on to the less romantic stuff.

Laptop charging. I have a 90W socket. I thought that should be enough — except not quite. When the laptop is idle and charging — fine. When I’m working and it’s plugged in — also fine. But when I’ve drained it, I’m working on it and charging at the same time? That needs more power and the voltage drops below 12V. Problem.

There must be energy losses somewhere. The cables going from the electrical box are thick enough to handle it. Maybe the problem is in the box itself. I’ll probably need to run power directly from the battery. Worth checking. I’m not sure if it’s critical, but if I want to stop for longer and work on the laptop all day — it will become a problem.

Starlink. While constantly driving you can feel relaxed and enjoy unlimited internet, but at a stationary stop you need to start managing energy more carefully. Fortunately the Starlink app lets you set a schedule.

GoPro — Disappointment

This is where I get frustrated.

I was driving through a lovely French village. I turned recording on. Half an hour later — red light and nothing. Neither on, nor off, nor reset. Tried cooling it down. Nothing. Only removing and reinserting the battery helped, but the footage? Gone. Ten minutes of great material. The village was only just waking up — people were coming out of their homes and restaurants, putting tables out on the street. Sunday, 9 in the morning, and the town was already alive.

It was a good idea to film the road, but GoPro is not a camera for that. If I want to make a proper video documentary, I need to invest in something better. It’ll be an expensive decision, but what I’ve managed to film so far looks pretty good. Why not?

At the End of the Day

I spent the day studying maths. Good times. I’m enjoying it. Beach, happy dog, view of the sea, mathematical analysis — a strange combination, but it works.

I already know I’ll need to buy a power station — I’d factored this in before leaving anyway. Plus foldable solar panels. Without those, stopping for longer just won’t work.

And a new camera. Invest properly if I want to film the journey. Those are topics for the coming days. For now, sunset with a sea view is waiting.