If passing through the aisles of the Paris campsite, where vans, tents and motor homes come one after the other, you can't miss them. Piet Verdult and his seven friends, young retirees in shorts and flip-flops, are not the discreet type: their huge double-decker bus, equipped with eight beds, is parked on their pitch. They have driven from Bergen op Zoom, in the Netherlands, to attend the Paris Olympics.

These eight friends – all cyclists – are on a group trip; their wives stayed behind in the Netherlands. "They didn't want to come," they said, laughing. Under their awning, they set up a table, folding chairs, packs of beer and a flat-screen TV. They are happy as a clam. "We've already seen some rugby, and we're going to go to beach volleyball and the football quarter-final. We're paying €550 for our pitch for the week and splitting it eight ways. We're really happy," said Verdult, the owner of the converted bus, who has already taken the gang to several other places.

Verdult isn't the only one to have sniffed out the good deal that is the French capital's campsite. This little-known location in the Bois de Boulogne – technically in the 16^th arrondissement – is fully booked for the entire Olympics. Every night, around 2,000 people sleep at its 410 spots, 100 of which are permanent structures (cabins, mobile homes...). When bookings opened last fall, "everything sold out in two days," explained Joanna Baur, the manager of this 8-hectare, four-star establishment, which has been run by Huttopia since 2011.

One of the reasons why the campsite has been such a success is that its rates have increased very little: 5% in 2024, according to Baur. Pitches cost €45 a night for two people, and five-person cabins cost €178. The only downside has been that management imposed a minimum stay of seven nights during the Olympics. All in all, it remains a reasonable price compared to hotel rooms, which peaked in recent months before dropping drastically over the past few weeks. They have just fallen to €218 a night in the greater Paris area (from €522 in January) – roughly equivalent to the July 2023 rate, according to the latest numbers from the tourism office. Furnished tourist accommodation has followed the same trend, with an average price of over €300 per night in Paris.

"We were looking for a hotel, but when we saw the prices, we settled on camping," said Robert Macfarland, 75, a retired doctor who lives with his wife Diana in the suburbs of London. They have breakfast outside, in front of their camper van: tea, a baguette and strawberries with cream. The pitch isn't large, the ground a little muddy, but the place is green and calm, despite the density of campers. "It's not the comfort of a hotel, but it's very decent," said Diana. The couple had tickets for a tennis match at Roland-Garros: they went there on foot.

You have 40.31% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.