Driving from London to Pyrenees with a one year old...?

[MtnBikeChick]

OK - any advice please? We need to get to the Pyrenees the second week of August, and our son will be one year old. We are taking bikes so it would be better to drive. We have considered flying to Pau or Biarritz but my husband would still need to drive with the bikes and all our gear. The flights are also at an ungodly hour of the morning and I am not keen on that with a baby, and they are also expensive. Are we completely mad to consider this trip in August? We would do it in 2 days - taking the eurotunnel early on a friday morning and driving 7 hours or so each day. I have family in the US who think nothing of doing these distances with little kids...but for some reason everyone I ask seems to think it will be horrific! Anyone done it? It is about 825miles in total.

It's certainly do-able. We've driven from home (Brittany) to the South of Spain with DC's. Also, a 1 year old will be asleep for much of the journey hopefully. The only thing I would question is driving on a Saturday. Is there any way you could avoid that? Most of France are on holiday during August, and most people are on the move on Saturday. If you look at Bison Fute website nearer the time it will show the likely delays. Depending on your route it could be 7 hours of traffic jams not driving!

We drove from home (the Lake District) to Tuscany in August with a 1 year old, and I will never ever fly again!
It was fantastic, we could stop when we liked, we were in total control. We stopped one night in Reims in france and one night in Turin.
We got the ferry Dover to Calais.
We both said afterwards though that we could have done it with one less stopover but we were being cautious.
You can bung everything in the car and not worry about heavy luggage, and more importantly you can bring loads of goodies back with you.
Definitely do it!

agree that driving the second half of the trip (from mid-France to the Pyrenees) on the 2nd Saturday in August, is a bad idea! can you go midweek instead?

agree also that the journey itself is perfectly do-able - we've done it several times, & from NW England which adds 200 miles, but in June, not August...

good luck

Thanks so much for the thoughts....yes maybe avoiding the Saturday would be better. I have also looked at letting my husband and sister's boyfriend drive (they would do it in one go, in shifts) and taking the train with little one...it seems possible to go Eurostar to Lille, then Lille - Bordeaux and Bordeaux - Lourdes, 29km from where we are headed to in the Pyrenees. Still 10 hours on the train but with 2 stops for leg stretching and fresh air, and of course little one can be walked around on train, watch a movie on laptop, eat, play. Hmmm....

train would be wonderful (& very fast too for the distance covered) - excellent plan!

I love TGVs

Don't do it on a Friday/Saturday in August!

We've done the journey to south of France several times without an overnight stop out of peak season .

However, in August 2 years ago delays/jams meant the journey took us 24 hours in total.It started on the Friday with an M25 standstill meaning we were late for our crossing and subsequent trains were full so we had to wait several hours.It was OK in the northern part of France but mid way onwards it was just stop start.We all felt terrible by the time we arrived.

Last year we did the journey again but with an overnight stop.Saturday was still terrible despite us getting up at 5am to try to get ahead of the traffic.Doesn't work apart from the first couple of hours.

Services are packed in August and you cannot even get parked at lunchtimes , long queues for loos which are generally not clean purely because of the volume of people and traffic can just come to a standstill for hours.

Never again.

I hate flying but this year we are flying.

We did this trip last year, right down to the northern Costa Brava. I would say that the trip in itself is doable with a baby but as others have said, the problem is doing it on a Saturday. We travelled during the week and flew down the autoroutes with no problem. My parents were following a few days behind us so they travelled Friday/Saturday and their average speed from Calais to Spain was 30 miles an hour! They just hit so many accidents and jams, and they also tried getting up really early the second day only to find the roads still jammed because lots of people just carry on driving throughout the night.
Some things that really helped us as well were having a satnav that had live traffic updates so it guided us round the jams, plus the liberte electronic device so we could drive straight through the tolls - there's lots of information about it on here.

My best top tip is make sure your car has a/c. Nothing worse than being in a jam and being hot.

It will be fine.

Totally agree that you will need air con in the car.

we drove to Italy last year in August with a 2 year old. it was fine -we did it over 2 days too. we did get through alot of peppa pig dvds though.

I don't remember any traffic delays apart from in the Swiss tunnels -and we went (and came back ) on August weekends.

Then again some of my other children were awful travellers when they were babies and just spent their time screaming when they were in cars, so depends what our baby is like.

you would have been travelling in the opposite direction from the popular French destinations though, BB - I think the whole top half of France travels to the lower Atlantic coast those weekends

We've driven to French Alps with a 3yo and a 14mo. We did it in two days there, one day back.

The ferry breaks the time in the car up, and there are great motorway services/stops in france.

We drove 5hrs to Dover, Ferry to Calais, 3hrs I think to Reims (overnight stay). 6hrs next day. On the way back we left at 7am, did it all in a day and got back about 11pm.

We did have to stop a lot on the way back as DS had just started walking and got quite cross about being strapped in. However he slept a lot, and there are so many stopping points, that we just stopped for a 5 min leg-stretch every hour or so (on the way back). The in-car DVD was a GODSEND for 3yo DD!

Definitely do-able, however, we made sure that we went in July and travelled on weekdays.

This is totally do-able. It is such a great experience. Our top tips for the journey are:

• take regular breaks. We never go longer than 2 hours without a break. Only a fool goes without breaks.
• come off the road during peak times. Start early then come off during rush hour and have a leisurely breakfast. Stop for lunch early then drive when everyone else is having their lunch.
• The Liberte gizmo is really useful and does help at busy toll booths
• do book an overnight stop in advance. These get full in season.
• If your DC has a dummy, put it on a string - that way it doesnt get lost.

Enjoy!

The only other options I can think of are:

1. using the santander ferry one or both ways
2. using a motorail service called autotrain. I think you drive to paris and the car is put on a train there. You travel seperately on a TGV and pick the car up in the south of france.

I haven't tried either of these but might look into them if I were going as far as the pyrenees.

We went from London to Luchon (nr spanish border) on the train last summer. Eurostar and then night train. Twas a very relaxing way to travel and DS (3) loved it.

If you do decide to drive in August...

I have found driving long distances (7 hour drive) in France on a weekend in August have become better since I learned to happily use a squatter toilet at the small service areas with just toilets and parking, instead of relying on those at the large service areas with food and petrol. Plus, I also take all the food and drink we need in a cool box.

This means we can avoid the battle to find a parking space, toilet queues and food queues, and have a more relaxed break at the small service areas (these are still very busy on August weekends). If you are driving over two days I admit you might find it a challenge to keep food cool enough for day two...

Don't stop on the motorway to fill up with fuel if possible - I learned that lesson the hard way after sitting in a hideous queue on a Sunday in August. Instead top up when you stop overnight.

I have the badge to pay for the tolls automatically, so the queues are much shorter. If you don't have the badge, I have noticed that the queues are significantly shorter for the pay booths on the left that are not manned and have a height restriction, compared to the manned ones on the right that all the caravans and campervans have to go through.

Pre-book your en-route accommodation. We always stay in an Ibis just off the motorway on the first Friday night in August. I am always amazed at the number of people I see when checking in who haven't reserved anywhere and ask if there are any rooms available and are surprised at the negative response.

And finally, don't forget to take some tissues and wet wipes with you when you use the motorway toilets....