The region people say does not exist
Fewer than three hundred thousand inhabitants, two provinces, and a hundred and thirty-six towns to hold them.
For years a joke has gone round the internet that Molise does not exist. The region has taken it well and printed it on T-shirts and road signs, but the reason the joke works is serious: it is the Italian region with the fewest inhabitants after Valle d'Aosta, it has no airport, no large city, and no important road crosses it on the way somewhere else. You pass through only if it is where you are going.
How it is laid out
Three quarters of the territory is hill and the rest is mountain, and the only flat land is the strip behind the beach and a few valley floors. Almost every village sits on top of a hill, often at eight or nine hundred metres, and they can see one another. The main river is the Biferno, which rises below the Matese and reaches the sea at Termoli, and its valley is also the road.
The two provinces are not alike. Campobasso holds the coast, the regional capital and the hills running down towards Puglia: it is the more populated half and the one you reach from the motorway. Isernia is all mountain, bordering Abruzzo, Lazio and Campania, and has villages at a thousand metres that are cut off for days in winter.
Where the campsites are
On the coast, and in practice all in the same stretch: Termoli, Campomarino, Petacciato. They are seaside sites, with the beach in front and the Adriatic railway behind, and they serve as a base for everything else. Inland the sites are very rare and seasonal: anyone wanting to stay on the Matese or near the drove roads will more easily find a motorhome stop than a campsite.
Molise does not exist.
The oldest joke on the internet about the region, which nevertheless has a beach and two provinces
How to plan it
The region can be crossed in barely an hour and a half, so a single base does for everything. From the coast you drive up the Bifernina to Campobasso in an hour, reach Sepino a little later, Isernia and Pietrabbondante in an hour and three quarters. The Tremiti are the sea trip, and the boats leave from Termoli.
Summer on the coast is quiet even in August, and the prices are among the lowest on the Adriatic. In June and September the sea is the same and every inland village is easy to reach.