I took my dogs car camping in Brittany – it saved a fortune on pet sitters

The stone cross on the cliff is so engulfed in mist that it looks like a person. A wrecker, perhaps, from centuries gone by. It gazes out over granite rock piles that splinter away from the coast in thousands of treacherous shards, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the English Channel, and I can no longer see the lighthouse that protects the waters of Port de Mazou, Finistère, on Brittany’s west coast. I imagine there must be dozens of words for grey in Breton, with the seemingly infinite scope between the sombre sea, heavy sky, slate roofs and granite islets, but it turns out there are just two – louet, a dull shade, and glas, for the bluish or greenish grey of the sea. It feels like we’re all alone in the world: me, my partner Val and our two dogs, Ténor and Mimolette. We’re the only ones at our campsite. Choosing to have two big dogs as a full-time travel writer was pure masochism. Travelling with one the size of a sewer rat would be easy, but my Irish setter and Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever weigh more than 60kg combined. Even when hotels, holiday rentals and campsites accept large breeds, they generally have a one-dog policy, so we tend to fork out a small fortune for pet sitters and leave them at home when we travel. Val tried hoisting the dogs into the roof tent, but a ladder proved easier (Photo: Anna Richards) We found a solution in the form of a TentBox roof tent, which dwarfs our three-doored Renault Clio III. It means steep hills now have to be tackled in first gear, but RV-friendly campsites rarely have any restrictions on the number of dogs you can bring. After a trial run, when Val hoisted our dogs up into the roof tent on his shoulders like a crane lifting cows and was left unable to turn his neck for days, we invested in canvas stairs for our tent ladder. Videos on TentBox’s Instagram show perfectly behaved dogs trotting elegantly up and down them, but since our pair are neither elegant nor particularly well-behaved, the bedtime run involved plenty of coaxing and treats as they scrabbled up and down, limbs akimbo. Once inside, though, they slept like furry, duvet-stealing angels. Finistère fills me with nostalgia. My Cornish dad was a devout worshipper of what I used to call “French Cornwall” and we felt at home on family holidays in Brittany, with its moody weather, starkly beautiful beaches, black and white flags on every building and Celtic roots. We’d load up the car with badminton rackets, pétanque and Harry Potter cassettes, catch the Brittany Ferries service from Plymouth to Roscoff, and trundle through the region towing an enormous, retro trailer tent. It would often rain. Ténor and Mimolette cosy up in the roof tent (Photo: Anna Richards) More than 20 years on, here I am, in the same rain-lashed landscape with a more modern take on the tent. After blustery walks and plenty of sea swims, we leave Port de Mazou and travel north to the former fishing hamlet of Meneham, where the granite rock pillars seem to have grown around the thatched roofs and 17th-century guardhouse. The little homes are now mostly boutiques, selling things like bags made from recycled kitesurf sails. From here, we make for Lilia, where Europe’s tallest lighthouse, Île Vierge, looks over a messy mass of rocks and islands, like building blocks from an upended play box. It’s on an island, only accessible by boat, although sometimes spring tides create a causeway that can be crossed on foot. We tramp along the flats in its shadow, past neat sand coils left by lugworms and moss-coloured crabs scuttling among bladderwrack and sea spaghetti. Afterwards, we tuck into galettes filled with creamed leeks and scallops at Crêperie la Route des Phares, where we’re in good company: there are just as many dogs as children. Shorts Île Vierge looks out over rochs, islets and Aber Wrac’h, the mouth of the Wrac’h river (Photo: Mathieu Rivrin/Getty) Our quest for pastries takes us inland to the little village of Plouider, where chic, warehouse-style bakery Le Fournil de la Butte wouldn’t look out of place in the Cotswolds. Everything it sells is pure hedonism, like salted Breton butter infused with lobster. We buy every pastry we’ve never heard of — after all, we’ve saved money on the pet-sitter. Our picnic breakfast consists of ty gâteau Breton (a buttery mash-up between shortbread and pound cake, the highlight of our pastry spread), caramel Kroasamann (a hybrid croissant and Kouign-Amann, Brittany’s signature pastry), ty far Breton (between a clafoutis and a flan), and croûte à thé (thick almond cake on a pastry base, topped with almonds). We take our feast to Plage du Lividic, an immense stretch of white sand backed by dunes, where dogs are allowed year-round. Once all of the cakes have been demolished, we waddle into the water to join our gleeful hounds. A beach picnic of speciality Breton baked goods and coffee (Photo: Anna Richards) “They’ve been swimming,” says the customs officer when we arrive at Roscoff, looking at our dogs, both covered in sand. Bar seasonal restrictions on some of Finistère’s beaches, our dogs have been able to come everywhere with us. The ferry glides out past the fragmented coast, past Île de Batz and louet rocks scattered like wedding confetti in a glass sea. How to do it The writer was a guest of TentBox and Brittany Ferries, which sails from Plymouth to Roscoff up to twice a day from March to November. Park4Night lists camp spots for vans and roof tents, with a filter to check dog-friendliness.