We are making a long journey by car across England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. It will take around 16 hours of driving which we are splitting over two days. We have the hotel booked at the halfway point, but we will also need a few stops for toilet and to stretch our legs during the day.
We would like to avoid traditional motorway services. Instead, we will be looking for places which are not so busy, cleaner and quieter. I found several websites with places like this in the UK, but I am looking for a sure-fire way to find these along whatever road we're on in Europe. A few more notes:
- I will be driving and my companion would prefer to avoid looking at screens for an extended period of time.
- The best way I can think off is to look for "country parks" along the route, but that way we weill miss lots of suitable locations.
- We're not fussy (I'd like to think) - Newton Lane Car Park, Cossall is an example of the sort of place we're after, 5 minutes from J26 of the M1.
- Another example: Harlow Wood near Mansfield - this is not near a motorway junction, but exactly the sort of place we're after
- We're a young family and cannot really schedule our breaks and research specific locations in advance - they will be dictated by when the kids sleep etc.
Is there an app that finds these? Or a European mapping service that has an online map with places like the above examples marked?