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Use our Travel forum for recommendations on everything from day trips to the best family-friendly holiday destinations.

European Road Trip

5 replies

Plumpippin · 05/06/2014 12:36

We are planning a road trip for our summer holiday next year. We've never done anything like this before and will be travelling with our 5 children camping/ eurocamp along the way. We have family to visit in Budapest and that's where we are heading but plan to spend 3-4 days in countries along the way. At the moment the rough itinerary is drive from Calais to Germany and stay down in the Black Forest. From there we go onto Austria and stay in Zell Am See for 4 nights and then drive to Budapest where we are staying with family for 5 nights. From Budapest we drive through Slovenia into Italy and have a few days at Lake Garda and then drive onto Switzerland where we will spend 3 nights and then head into France for a couple of days and then home. Has anyone done anything similar or got any advice or knowledge on a similar itinerary. We have about 3 weeks to do the trip in and we don't want to drive more then 7 hrs in one go.

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PortofinoRevisited · 05/06/2014 13:00

We did similar but to Tuscany rather than Budapest. We stopped:

  1. Oberwesel in Rhein Valley - overnight
2-3. Bavaria - with friends
  1. Valpolicella/Lake Garda - agriturismo in a vinyard
5 - 15 Tuscan Coast (Eurocamp) 16 -18 Tremezzo on Lake Como - trips to Bellagio and the Villa Balbianello (stunning) 18-21 Interlaken in Switzerland - trips to Reichenbach falls, Arschlucht gorge and Grindelwald (cable car to top of the mountain) 22. Colmar region in France

We weren't camping though. We enjoyed Switzerland, but it was REALLY expensive and the weather wasn't so good. Lake Como was the highlight. I always work on no more that 5 - 6 hours a day in the car.

mumtosome61 · 05/06/2014 13:20

Sounds fantastic - we did a eurotrip a month or so ago and loved it; when we have children I think it's a fantastic way of seeing the continent. I can't speak of your travel itinerary as were more France/Belgium based but I also go with the rule that anything more than 4-5 hours in a car (with the exception of first and last day of holiday) would be difficult - for all concerned!

I would recommend making sure you have access, at some point, to a Wifi signal "just in case" - we took our mobiles with us but turned the data off (smartphone) so when on the third day it pissed it down and ruined our plans to go walk round Brugge properly, we had to seek out an alternative. I hate mobile phones at the best of times, but it really did come in handy to have a quick check of where was worth going nearby - I'd imagine especially so with children. I'd avoid using data at all abroad - your mobile network may try and convince you but they also sting you in charges unless you are contracted for it.

If you're driving toll roads it can get quite expensive, but the smaller roads can be pretty difficult to navigate, especially in bad weather!

Sounds really, really obvious but we bought 6 packs of bottled water (for about 1.50E) every day - although we'd driven long distances before on quite a lot of the roads you can be going for a long time without any form of services, in addition to the fact opening/closing hours differ.

Keep an eye out for where is cheapest fuel wise - Switzerland will sting you for fuel, so if you can get it before you cross over the border do it.

Toospotty · 05/06/2014 17:35

We drove from Calais to Austria last month and it was a breeze. Easy roads, toll free, and lots to look at. The tip I got from here is to make sure you buy a vignette for your windscreen before you hit Austria (you can buy them from service stations and shops as you approach) as the fines for not having them are huge. (They're a sort of road tax you pay for using their roads, and not expensive for short trips.) I know other countries have them too, so check out the Czech Republic and Slovenia to see if they do the same.

Driving through Germany, I highly recommend staying in Nuremberg or Augsburg. Both lovely cities.

PortofinoRevisited · 05/06/2014 18:33

Oh yes - vignettes! The one for Switzerland is 40 euros.

Plumpippin · 06/06/2014 09:35

Thanks everyone that's all really useful info.

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