Belgium by campervan: best regions and routes

Areas of Belgium

The regions of Belgium: coast, art cities, capital, river and forest

A country you can cross in two hours still changes completely along the way, from a wall of beach apartments to an empty forest plateau with snow on it. Pick the region by the month and by which set of rules you are entering, because in Belgium those are two different questions and both have real answers.

The Flemish coast

The Flemish coast: one long beach, one tram, and the strictest parking in Belgium

Belgium's entire coastline is a single strip of sand running from De Panne at the French border to Knokke-Heist at the Dutch one, with a tram that runs the whole length of it. Ostend, Blankenberge, Nieuwpoort and De Haan sit along it, and the real dunes survive at the two ends, in the Westhoek and at the Zwin.

Best May, June and September

What it is like

• August is the warmest month at Ostend, with a mean daily maximum of 22 °C, and also one of the wettest at 84 mm.
• Much of the seafront is a wall of apartment blocks. The dunes at De Panne and Knokke are what the rest of it used to look like.

Where to go

• The Westhoek dunes at De Panne, the biggest dune area in the country
• The Zwin nature park at Knokke, for birds and salt marsh

For the vehicle

• Coastal communes are the strictest in Belgium on overnight parking, and each writes its own police regulation. Read the one for the town you stop in.
• Seafront car parks almost all carry height barriers, and the ones that do not fill by 10:00 in summer.

Flanders and the art cities

Flanders and the art cities: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven within an hour of each other

Flat, dense, Dutch speaking and heavily cycled. Four cities that would each be a trip on their own sit within an hour of one another: Bruges and its canals, Ghent and its castle, Antwerp and its port and diamonds, Leuven and its university. Between them is farmland, beer and the battlefields of the Westhoek.

Best May to September

What it is like

• July and August average a daily maximum of 24 °C at Antwerp, which is as warm as Belgium gets outside a heatwave.
• The cities are built to be walked and cycled. Bruges in particular is hostile to anything larger than a car, by design.

Where to go

• Bruges, best very early or after the day trippers leave
• Ghent, the one the Flemish rate above Bruges

For the vehicle

• Antwerp and Ghent both run low emission zones, and a foreign plate has to be registered first. One free registration covers both.
• Ghent says a motorhome may park on the road but not be slept in, and points you at the Blaarmeersen campsite or the Driebeek camper terrain at 12 euros a day.

Brussels and Brabant

Brussels and Brabant: the capital, and the zone you have to register for

Nineteen communes making up a bilingual city region, ringed by Flemish Brabant to the north and Walloon Brabant to the south. Around the edges: the Sonian Forest, a UNESCO-listed beech wood that starts at the tram terminus, the battlefield at Waterloo, and Leuven with the oldest university in the Low Countries.

Best May to September

What it is like

• Uccle, the reference station for the country, averages a daily maximum of 23 °C in July and August and 6 °C in January.
• The Sonian Forest is the reason Brussels feels less landlocked than it is. It is large and it starts inside the region.

Where to go

• The Grand Place, best at first light before the square fills
• The Sonian Forest, beech cathedral on the southern edge

For the vehicle

• The low emission zone covers all 19 communes, and a foreign plate must be registered, free, before you enter or within five days. Not doing it is 150 euros.
• Euro 5 diesel lost access on 1 January 2026. A day pass is 35 euros for a car or van, up to 24 a year.