After our last year’s camper van experience in Slovenia, we just had to have another camper van travel. This time, we chose the low season and a much camper van friendlier destination. So instead of going South, we headed North, to Denmark.
Day 1 – Bremen, Germany
Finishing work at 3 pm in Brussels, we directly started our trip from there, direction Bremen in Germany. This time, we had rented a camper near Flensburg in northern Germany right next to the danish border and, therefore, we had booked a hostal for our first night on the road.
Bremen is only a 5 hours drive from Brussels away. We arrived just on time in order to enjoy the sunset, have a German Schnitzel and Beer and discover the beautiful Old town with its majestic main square.
Day 2 – Ribe
We had booked our camper on yescapa again, this great platform where individuals can rent their camper vans to part-time campers as we are in order to cover their fees.
In the afternoon, after the handover of the camper (and after shopping for grocery on the German side of the border, where this is so much cheaper), we finally arrived in Denmark and headed to our first destination, Ribe, a small town of 8000 inhabitants in southern Denmark. Its impressing cathedral is surrounded by small streets with colourful traditional houses.
This is where we spent the night
Day 3 – Mandø island
This was one of our favourite activities in Denmark. Mandø island is a small island 7 kilometres from the main land away. Its access route is flooded by the tides twice per day, so be careful. We had parked and spent the night on the main parking area. From there, we took our bikes to discover the island.
On this small and lonely island, with only 40 inhabitants, time stood still and only some birds, sheep and rabbits crossed our path.
If you want to know more about this great day excursion, ckeck out our article Mando island Denmark: Alone in Nature.
In the afternoon, we went to Esbjerg beach with its white giant statutes that oversee the beach.
It is nothing fancy but the great advantage of travelling with a camper is that we only stopped for a small break, had a coffee in the camper van, walked along the beach and then continued our road.
At the end of the day, we went north and spent the night on a small parking with a fjord view 45 minutes from the Thy National Park away. For the second time in a row, we were the only camper van at this place.
Day 4 – Rubjerg Knude and Grenen
In order to get to Rubjerg Knude, we decided to take a small detour via the Thy National Park. Most parts of this 12 ha park are sand dunes just next to the sea.
After a small walk in the dunes we continued our way to a much bigger sand dune, Rubjerg Knude where we had a long lunch break on our mobile terrace, enjoying the sun and the view on this famous huge dune and its lighthouse. After that, we walked all the way to the dune and climbed up the lighthouse to enjoy a spectacular sea view. Count a bit more than one hour for the round trip.
As there was still enough time, we moved on to the most northern point of Denmark, called Grenen where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet. From the main parking in Grenen you can walk on the white sand beach to the most northern point of this beach. Even though, our guidebook explains that the place is very crowded, we did not make the same experience. End of April, only few tourists were walking on the beach.
We spent the night not far from Skagen, in a small parking area in the middle of the dunes with a huge and empty beach only a stone’s throw away. Once again, a perfect spot that we shared with three other campers.
This is where we spent the night
Day 5 – lindholm hoje and aarhus
After the short trip to the north of Denmark, it was time to go back South in order to have enough time to discover the rest of the country. As the Voergard castle, which we had planned to see initially, was still closed to visitors at this time of the year, we only stopped at Lindholm Hoje, a viking burial site from around 1000 AD. Not much to see, really, and we must admit that we did not visit the museum because we were told that it was in Danish only with a short brochure being handed out in other languages.
So we quickly continued our way to Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city with a big University. You can visit the cathedral, have a drink at the canal, do some shopping or walk on the rainbow observation platform. But the most famous thing to do was actually on our to do list for the next day: The Gamling By Museum.
This is where we spent the night
Day 6 – Den Gamle By and Jelling
Today, we were travelling in time with a visit of the open air museum in Aarhus, Den Gamle By. The museum exposes 75 buildings and is divided in three different areas with streets from three different times: 1867, 1927 and 1976. You can walk through the streets, see handcrafts and shops of the time and discover people’s homes. Also don’t miss the different exhibitions. We really liked the interactive time travel exhibition which shows the history of Aarhus from the vikings to today. You should foresee three hours for visiting this museum.
After a lunch break in our camper, we went back in time again and learned all about the Christianization of Denmark in the beginning of 11th century by visiting Jelling and its UNESCO World heritage. Indeed, in front of its church a stone signed by king Harald, the first danish king to be christian is considered to be the birth certificate of Christianity in Denmark. Also don’t miss the free but great exhibition on the other side of the street, which explains the history of the site using interactive technology.
This is where we spent the night
Day 7 – Egeskov castle and Roskilde
We had spent the night on the huge parking area of Egeskov castle together with two other campervans. In the morning, as many museums in Denmark, the site opened only at 10 am and the castle itself even at 11 am. Entrance fee is super expensive. We paid 195 kr per person (around 26 €!) and started our tour by visiting the domain with its gardens. There are several museums which are included in the entrance fee, such as a car museum, a motorbike museum, a falk museum and plenty more. If you travel with kids there is a huge playground. The castle itself has only some rooms open for visitors. And the second floor looked more like a hotel than an authentic castle. It is important to know that the family that owns the castle still lives in it and this is why visiting hours are quite limited. Even though, the gardens and the castle from the outside are beautiful, we had the feeling that we lost a bit our time (and money) while visiting this place. This is, of course, a very personal opinion and if you travel with kids it is probably a great stop because of the amazing playground.
In the afternoon, we visited Roskilde, a city only 35 kilometers from Copenhagen away and the country’s capital from 10th to 15th century. We parked the camper on the free parking lot next to the harbour and the Viking museum. Without entering the museum, there are plenty of viking boats to see. It was 3pm when we arrived in the city and because of the limited opening hours of tourist attractions in Denmark, we had to chose between the museum and the cathedral, both recommended sites of the city. We chose the latter and crossed the park all the way up until we arrived in front of a majestic cathedral. At the entrance you receive a detailed book with explanations. This makes the visit quite an interesting experience.
This is where we spent the night
Day 8 Kronenborg castle and Mons Klint
Another day, another castle. This time, it is the famous Kronenborg castle, everybody knows from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The castle is situated in Helsingør, which sounds a lot like Elsinore, don’t you think?
The castle, like many other museums in Denmark, only opened at 11 am and, thus, we had lots of time to discover the colorful city center of Helsingør before our visit. Although many shops opened only at 10 am, it is always nice to wander around the small streets with its colorful houses.
For the castle, we had bought our tickets online in the morning and just had to show the bar code on our smartphone at the entrance. We would recommend the online purchase as the on-site ticket counter only opens at 11 am. With our online tickets we entered the castle directly at 11 am without waiting in line.
Even though many other tourists entered the castle at the same time, we somehow managed to lose the crowd very quickly by starting the visit with the main castle. We were able to wander around the empty halls with beautiful deco and furniture and we managed to see the main hall completely empty. Really impressive… when we came back half an hour later, the hall was packed with people.
We then went to the other parts of the castle, climbed up on the top of one of the towers and walked down the dark catacombs.
The whole visit took us about 1,5 hours, so we were quickly back in our camper to continue our road to the Mon island and its beautiful white cliffs.
After a lunch and coffee break on the road (we love these moments in our camper because we can just stop wherever we want and have a coffee in our mobile home), we arrived on Mon island. We quickly crossed the island in order to arrive to the cliffs early. Finding the cliffs with googlemaps was not that easy but at least it brought us to the entrance of a small street with a sign “Mons cliffs”. We were not sure whether we could continue with our camper but after reading our guidebook we gave it a try and we were right to do so. The road is small and curvy but after a few kilometres, we arrived at a huge parking space where we could easily leave the camper.
From there, you can chose between several paths to take. We started with a small walk on the top to the left in order to find some view points. Even though the forest is dense, we found some places where we could see the cliffs and took the picture you see above. After a while, we turned around and went back to the starting point. We wanted to take a closer look and decided to take the steep stairs all the way down to the beach where you can walk right next the cliffs. Their height is quite impressive.
This is where we spent the night
Day 9 Mon Island and its churches
We had spent the night alone in nature again. On Park4Night we found a small parking space in the middle of a yellow Raps fields. There was nobody around and we spent a realy quiet night.
We then slowly started our way back home, first following the “church road” on Mon island with its beautiful typical churches and then heading back to Germany. Just behind the danish border there is a huge shopping center with a free parking area for camper vans. Nothing glamorous but very practical for our last night on the road and shopping in Germany is always great for a German living abroad.
Day 10 Car drive back home
The last day, as usually, consisted of cleaning the camper van, bring it back to the owner (always count at least one hour at the owners place) and head back home with amazing memories.
Conclusion
Is Denmark a good destination for campervans? It definitely is! We were already fans of travelling in a camper but we did enjoy the advantages to travel that way even more than when we did in Slovenia in August 2018. In Denmark, during the low-season, we had no trouble at all to find beautiful, empty and free spots for the night. For those travelling on a budget, it is probably one of the best ways to discover Denmark which is quite an expensive country. The size of the country is also great for a one week trip and the advantage of travelling in a campervan is that you can see so much more in one day.
What about the season? It is true that we were a bit worried about travelling to the North in late April/early May. In the end, we really enjoyed this time of the year in Denmark. We were quite lucky with the weather. Even though we had some rain, most days were really sunny and we really enjoyed the lonely and beautiful nature. The only inconvenience during low-season (but from what we read it is not so much better in summer) are the terrible opening hours of museums. Most places only opened at 11 am, which gave us the feeling of losing some time in the morning. Keep this in mind when planning your itinerary. Also be aware that some castles open only End of April or early May. Most of the time we were lucky but if you plan a trip early April you might not be able to visit everything.
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