It is the summer holiday season and the Dutch are undoubtedly one of the people who crave their holidays the most.

Whenever I went on long (by my standards) holidays of two to three weeks to places such as India or Africa, there were always Dutch or Germans who were traveling for six weeks or sometimes even for months.

Many of them were students or people on sabbaticals, or those who were in between jobs.

But even when they have regular jobs, every year, many Dutch people enjoy uninterrupted summer holidays of at least three weeks and winter holidays of about two weeks.

In summer, the destinations for many are the south of France, Spain or Italy. But while three weeks on the French Riviera or Costa Dorada sound like luxury, the reality is quite different since many people just drive their mobile homes or take their camping cars to campsites in those places. (I could not believe it when I heard that some Dutch people even take mobile homes to go skiing in winter!)

When I first came to Holland in the 1990s, I heard that a French campsite had put up a sign boycotting Dutch campers because the "stingy" Dutch bought absolutely nothing on the site or in France — bringing all their food, like bread and meat frozen in the refrigerator in the mobile homes, not forgetting other necessities, such as beer or toilet paper.

Furthermore, the way they spend their time at the camp is not so appealing to me.

Very often, such relatively inexpensive campsites are full of fellow Dutchmen, which means families and children talk or play with people from their own country throughout their three-week stay.

But if they do it the way they do at home — just have people over for a cup of coffee and a cookie ― it doesn't cost that much to socialize.

Of course, there's the sun and the warm beach that is often lacking in the Dutch summer, which they drove hours to to enjoy with a can of beer in their hand.

But for the rest, it is quite like home, with the Dutch even putting lacy curtains on their campers. And the beer they sip is Heineken that they brought from home.

So why do the Dutch take such long holidays?

Some people, such as Martine from Belgium, believe this has to do with the relative congestion the Dutch feel at home and a need to escape from it.

The population density is quite high in the Netherlands. According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision and the Demographic Yearbook 2006, the number of inhabitants per square kilometer in Holland is 399, surpassing that of Japan's 336 and Belgium's 348.

This seems surprising when one thinks of the crowds in central Tokyo or Osaka.

But it should not be forgotten that there are many regions in the approximately 380,000 sq. km of land in Japan (nine times that of Holland) that are rapidly depopulating due to the aging society and declining birthrate.

Anyway, I always thought I would never want to be found dead in a Dutch-invaded French campsite. But a family friend recently came back from an upmarket French campsite that defied my prejudice.

Complete with a beauty salon, massage parlor, four bars, several gourmet restaurants and even a fresh fish market, it seemed to also maintain the freedom and child-friendliness of a campsite, and it did not only have Dutch people staying there.

Perhaps it's time I tried one of those places for my holidays.