Corsica by Van — a 16-day route with maps, hikes, beaches & camping

Day by day

The itinerary

The film does this in ten days. In a van, on these roads, ten days means driving past most of it — so it is stretched to fifteen, with the mountain days given room and two nights parked at the same beach. Every day names its sleep, its hike and its van hazard.

How the days are timed. Every day names the time you should be checked in — usually 18:00 — and the driving is sized to hit it, because campsite receptions shut around 19:30 and hotel check-in doesn't open until 15:00. Where the evening is the point (the Calanches, the Sanguinaires), the day checks in first and goes back out. And day 16 is a deliberate buffer: night 15 is 20 minutes from the ferry, so nothing that goes wrong in the mountains can cost you the crossing.

Want the film's ten days exactly? Merge days 1–2 into one long Cap Corse day, merge 4–5, run 6–7 together, and cut day 3 (the Agriates) and day 8 (the Niolu). That lands on ten days with every headline stop intact — the Calanches, Capo Rosso, Bavella, Melo, Bonifacio, the white beaches — and costs you Saleccia, Col de Vergio and Lac de Calacuccia. It also means three consecutive days of over four hours at the wheel, which is exactly what the fifteen-day version exists to avoid.

Where you actually sleep

Thirty campsites, one per night and a spare

All of these exist in OpenStreetMap with the coordinates below, and all take motorhomes and vans. Corsica has no legal wild camping, so this list is the accommodation plan — book the July–August nights, turn up anywhere else.

The law, briefly. Camping outside a campsite is prohibited across Corsica and enforced, with fines from €68 up to €1,500 for damage in protected areas — and the coastline and beaches are the most heavily policed zone of all. Two things make life easier:

1. Parking is not camping. A van parked like any other vehicle, with nothing deployed — no awning, no chairs, no table, no levelling blocks — is legally parked, for up to seven consecutive days in one place. The moment you set up, it becomes camping.

2. High mountains are tolerated. Bivouac above roughly 1,000 m inside the Parc Naturel Régional is generally accepted from sunset to sunrise, one night in one spot, leaving nothing. That covers Vergio, Bavella, Haut-Asco and the Ospedale forest — which is most of the good stuff.

Campsite	Night	Price band	Links	Coordinates

€ under €22 · €€ €22–32 · €€€ €32–45 per night for a van and two people. Most Corsican sites close between mid-October and April.

Eating vegan

Corsica is hard for vegans. Here is how to do it anyway.

No point pretending otherwise: this is a cuisine built on charcuterie, brocciu, wild boar and fish, and there are exactly three fully plant-based or all-vegetarian kitchens on the whole island. Every day of the itinerary above names where to eat and, on the days when the honest answer is "carry your own", says so.

The four things that always work

1. Pizza marinara. Tomato, garlic, oregano, olive oil, no cheese — vegan by default and on the menu of every pizzeria in Corsica, of which there are hundreds. Order it by name and add sans mozzarella to be certain. This is your floor: you will never go hungry.

2. Self-catering. Village markets, greengrocers and the organic chains (Biocoop, La Vie Claire, Eau Vive) are listed day by day above. In a van this is the backbone; in hotels it is at least lunch.

3. Asking, in the right words. Say végétalien, not végétarien — in rural France the latter is widely read as "fish and lardons are fine". The sentence that works: "Je suis végétalien — sans viande, sans poisson, sans fromage, sans œufs, sans beurre. C'est possible ?" Corsicans are hospitable and will usually improvise something good.

4. Notice. Ring a mountain auberge in the morning and they will cook for you. Walk in at 20:00 and they will apologise. This matters most at Bavella, Zonza and in the Niolu.

Corsican things that happen to be vegan

Chestnut flour is the island's other staple and it is everywhere: pulenta castagnina, chestnut bread, chestnut beer. Check how the polenta is cooked — it is often finished with cheese or served under charcuterie, but the base is just flour, water and salt.

Produce is superb and cheap: tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, figs, clementines, peaches, olives, olive oil, almonds. The Île-Rousse and Ajaccio markets are the best of them.

Canistrelli, the ubiquitous biscuit, are traditionally made with white wine and oil rather than butter — many are accidentally vegan. Read the packet, as recipes vary.

Watch out for: brocciu, which is in most traditional dishes (and seasonal, roughly November to June); soupe corse, which is built on pork; figatellu, which is liver sausage; and the habit of finishing pasta and salads with cheese unless you say otherwise.

The easy days and the hard ones. Bastia (day 1) and Ajaccio are genuinely easy — between them they hold all three of the island's plant-based kitchens, so eat well and shop properly on those days. Corte is a student town and copes fine. The stretches that need planning ahead are Cap Corse, the Agriates and Saleccia (nothing at all on that beach), Piana and Arone, the Niolu, Bavella and the Alta Rocca, and the Lavezzi islands. On each of those the itinerary tells you where to shop the day before.

Every place named above and in the daily plans exists in OpenStreetMap or HappyCow at the coordinates given — none are invented. The badges record how strong the evidence is: Fully vegan means a plant-based kitchen, Vegan options means vegan dishes are confirmed, and Veg-friendly — ask means vegetarian food is on the menu and vegan is a conversation. Menus change and small places close, so phone ahead where it matters.

Van logistics

Getting there, and getting round

Ferry outToulon → Bastia: The film's crossing, and the one this route is built on: Corsica Ferries, overnight, about 11–12 hours, arriving in Bastia in the morning ready to drive. Roughly €200–350 one way for a van up to 6 m plus two passengers in shoulder season, more in August, and priced by vehicle length — measure yours honestly, including the bike rack. Book a cabin for an overnight sailing; you'll be hiking the next day.
Ferry backBastia → Livorno: Also the film's choice, and the smart one: four hours instead of twelve, usually cheaper, and it puts you in Tuscany. Savona, Genoa, Nice and Marseille are the other options; Piombino and Livorno are the shortest hops. Booking a different port out and back costs nothing extra.
Speed and distancethe number that ruins plans: 1,448 km over 16 days sounds like nothing. It is 34 hours of moving time, an average of 43 km/h, and in a van on the D81 or the D268 it will be slower. Two hours of mapped driving is a half-day in Corsica. Never plan a hike and a long transfer on the same day.
Roads a van should respect: D81 through the Calanches de Piana — the pinch point of the island: single-lane sections, rock overhangs, 300 m drops, and coaches. Under about 6 m and 3 m high you are fine; do it at 07:00 or after 18:00, never mid-morning.
D268 to Col de Bavella, D147 to Haut-Asco, D69 to Ghisoni, D253 to Barcaggio, D71 through the Castagniccia — all narrow, all fine taken slowly, all twice as slow as the map says.
Restonica (D623) — closed beyond the Pont de Tragone since the 2023 storms. Shuttle only.
Saleccia and Roccapina tracks — unsurfaced. The Saleccia piste voids most rental contracts; take the boat.
Water, waste, gas: Campsites are the reliable option and most sell a service-only visit for a few euros. There are municipal aires de camping-car at Île-Rousse, Saint-Florent, Macinaggio, Solenzara and Porto-Vecchio. Village fountains in the interior are drinkable unless signed otherwise. French Butagaz/Campingaz bottles swap at any large supermarket; foreign bottles do not, so bring enough or buy a French one on arrival. Fuel is scarce and shut on Sundays in the interior — never cross the mountains below a half tank.
The buffer dayday 16 does nothing on purpose: The plan is fifteen days of content and sixteen days away. Night 15 is spent 20 minutes from the ferry gate, and day 16 has nothing in it that matters. Corsica will take a day off you sooner or later — a storm on the Bavella road, a puncture on the D81, a hike that runs three hours over, a ferry that reschedules — and the alternative to a buffer is that the missing day comes out of the crossing you already paid for. If nothing goes wrong, you get the Castagniccia and a calm morning. That is not a wasted day; it is the cheapest insurance on the trip.
Check-in windowsthe constraint most plans ignore: Corsican campsite receptions typically run 08:00–12:00 and 15:00–19:30, and close earlier at altitude and outside July–August; hotels check in from 15:00 and out by 10:00–11:00. So two rules shape every day here. Don't plan to arrive late: every day carries a "be at your bed by" time, generally 18:00, and the driving is sized to hit it. Don't plan to arrive early either: your room is not ready at 09:00, which is why day one leaves the bags at reception and goes walking. These windows are typical, not promises — confirm yours, especially if you will land after 19:00.
Sunsets need checking in first: Three of the best hours of this trip are after 20:30: the Calanches de Piana, the Îles Sanguinaires and the tower at Nonza. Late May sunset is around 21:00 and no reception is taking an arrival then. Each of those days is built to check in first and go back out — the pitch or the room is already yours, so coming back at 22:00 costs nothing.
When to go: May–June is what you are watching in the film: waterfalls at full flow, snow still on Cinto and Rotondo, wildflowers, sea around 19 °C, and campsites with space. September trades the waterfalls for a warm sea and the same emptiness. July–August means booked-out sites, doubled prices, fire bans and a queue at Palombaggia — go if you must, but reserve everything and start every day at dawn.
Three travellers, one route: The pins are tagged for the three moods this trip mixes. Nature & hiking days: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14. Beach & chill days: 3, 4, 13, plus the afternoons of 7 and 15. Towns & culture days: 1, 11, 12, with old towns also sitting inside days 4, 5 and 13. Days 9 and 10 are the natural split point: one of you takes the Navetta up the Restonica for Melo while the other has Corte's museums and a long lunch, and you meet for dinner in the old town.

What it costs

Budget: two people, sixteen days, own van

Shoulder-season estimate, mid-budget, cooking about half your meals.

Item	Assumption	Total
Ferry, return	Toulon→Bastia overnight + Bastia→Livorno, van ≤6 m, 2 people, 1 cabin	€420
Campsites	13 nights × €28 (15 island nights, 2 of them in hotels)	€364
Hotels	2 nights × €130 (Calvi, Corte)	€260
Fuel	≈1,600 km with detours, 9 L/100 km, €1.95/L	€281
Groceries	€35/day × 16	€560
Restaurants	8 dinners out × €55 for two	€440
Boats	Scandola/Girolata, Lavezzi, Saleccia shuttle	€160
Entries, parking, shuttles	Restonica navetta, Filitosa, Aleria, Cucuruzzu, beach parking	€120
Total for two	≈ €81 per person per day	€2,605

Renting a campervan instead adds roughly €90–160 a day in shoulder season and more in August; picking one up on the island avoids the ferry vehicle charge entirely, which is often the cheaper arithmetic for a two-week trip.

Pack for two climates

Proper hiking boots — Melo, Bavella and Capo Rosso are rock, not path
2 × 1 L bottles each plus a bladder for the long days
Fleece and windproof shell — Vergio and Bavella are 1,200–1,500 m and cold at dawn
Water shoes for the river canyons and shingle beaches
Head torch — for the 8-hour Melo day and for cooking after sunset
Levelling blocks and chocks — almost nowhere in Corsica is flat
Long water hose and a watering can — many taps are nowhere near a pitch
Mosquito net for the sliding door — the east-coast plain in summer
Paper map (IGN Corse) — mobile signal dies in the Niolu and Asco
Offline maps downloaded before you leave the coast
Snorkel and mask — Lavezzi, Rondinara and Scandola deserve it
Reef-safe sun cream, hat, sunglasses — no shade on any coastal hike
Tick remover and antihistamine — maquis and grazing animals
A French gas bottle or enough gas for two weeks
Cash — small mountain bars and some campsites still prefer it
A cool box or fridge you trust — brocciu, charcuterie and rosé are the point

Corsica, slowly, in a van.

Sixteen days, one anticlockwise loop