The holidays are approaching and among the options that are gaining more and more followers are those of renting a motorhome or traveling in your own camper van. The fact of having a space to sleep and cook within the same vehicle brings a degree of freedom and comfort compared to traditional forms of tourism. However, motorhomes are not exempt from regulation and among the issues that one must be clear about when organizing their trip are the places where it is allowed to spend the night.
Current regulations establish some nuances between the terms overnight, camping and parking for motorhomes and campervans. According to instruction 08/V-74 of the General Directorate of Traffic, in Spain it is legal to spend the night in your vehicle, regardless of whether it is classified as a car or a van. Drivers can spend the night inside their motorhome, as long as it is properly parked and its occupants do not exceed the perimeter of the vehicle.
Vehicles classified as housing can spend the night in any place designated for ordinary parking. The regulations allow users of caravans and campervans to open the skylights or raise the pop-up roofs, but it prohibits exceeding the road markings of the car park or the established time limit. In other words, nothing prevents you from sleeping in your van, as long as you do not do camping activities such as opening the awnings or taking chairs out into the street.
The circulation of vehicles is free, so municipal police officers can only prohibit the passage of those camper vans that exceed the weight or height of the streets for which there is a limitation of this type. Some councils try to redirect vehicles as housing to limited parking areas, but that is not always legal. Meanwhile, free camping is prohibited in Spain, so for activities that involve leaving the vehicle such as opening casement windows, placing shoehorns or levelers or taking out a table, you must go to regulated camping areas or to a public or private campsite. .
There are two circumstances in which the rules for staying overnight, parking or camping can change. The first exception concerns places close to the coast, since according to the Coastal Law, the parking and circulation of vehicles, as well as camping, are prohibited in a strip of 6 meters inland from the seashore. This territory is what is known as the maritime-terrestrial public domain and is normally marked with white monoliths or beacons. Violation of this rule carries a penalty of between 50 and 150 euros and, in exchange, the administrations must guarantee sufficient parking spaces in the vicinity of the coast.
Another special case is that of protected natural spaces, such as natural parks or biosphere reserves. In these cases, each park or natural space reserves the regulation of its own regulations regarding camping and parking of housing-type vehicles. In general, it is not allowed to spend the night in these special conservation areas, even though there are spaces for parking. Some spaces admit previously authorized campers and not all allow the stay of campervanized vehicles.
