Driving from London to Madrid - are we insane?

[Oscarlucinda]

Hi, my DH would like to drive from London to Madrid - taking the Eurotunnel to Calais - in August. I think it's madness as we have to kids

We do similar but drive to Switzerland and have driven to Italy in the past. It's fine, we enjoy the road trip and have even done when children were under 2.
How long are you away for? We do 6 weeks which make the journey worth it.

My DF drove Manchester to Malta every year in a Yaris!!

We drive to near Alicante and did with young DC. Lots of handy snacks and drinks that they can help themselves to and two screen in car DVD. Or an iPad each! (You can get splitters for the lighter socket.

Oh. And on one journey we put a barricade between the two!!

Most we've driven is 12hrs (not including tunnel etc). That really was the limit and I wouldnt attempt it with kids!

Why have you left it too late to fly? There are always loads of cheap flights to Madrid.

That said, it's a heck of a drive. We have driven from Yorkshire to north-eastern Spain and that was bad enough. Also done train from Belgium to Salamanca. What about getting the train from Paris down to Madrid? Would be less arduous.

How many hours you looking at? How many km is it?

I would find this hard though just possible. Is the ferry to bilbao an option? (Always too pricy for us.) Or could you fly to barcelona or southern France and get the train?

Is your dh right about not wanting a whole hol with your inlaws? We stopped doing hols with our inlaws after 10 years - this will be the first summer without one and I'm embarrassingly happy about it -and i like my inlaws. However, their relationship with our ds is definitely closer because of those holidays so it was worth it to us.

Would not even consider driving there even from Calais; its a heck of a drive in terms of distance and your children and you hated a similar journey last time around. How long are you planning to be away for?.

I would also think you have not left it too late to book a flight for August either.

You can get the train from Calais to Madrid.

uk.voyages-sncf.com/en/train/route/calais/madrid#/

Its nearly 1000 miles to Madrid from Calais; that's further than driving from London to Edinburgh and back again.

As a child, my family drove from Cumbria to Madrid ( five children under 11!), towing a caravan. I remember my dad taking a wrong turn over a municipal flower bed.

We took those large bottles of boiled sweets that you see in old fashioned sweet shops. We got a sherbet lemon every hundred km.

We stayed on campsites with swimming pools and probably wore the same clothes for a month.

So, sorry, no advice for you but, as you can tell, that trip lives on as a legendary family adventure in my memory 40 years later.

Do it!

That's a hell of a long way. Why not take the train and hire a car in Madrid? Much nicer than driving.

We are taking our car to Madrid in August we are going via the Brittany ferry to Santander.

We have done this journey many times through France and Spain from Calais as well to the Costa Blanca and Dorada.

You do have to make the journey part of your holiday I think, or it can become boring. We have stopped in some lovely places.

We are club voyage members now so we tend to get the ferry to Spain.

It really isn't that bad of a drive, we have been doing it for the past 10 years since my two were tiny. They are very good travellers now.

I can appreciate the journey is not for everybody though, but we love a road trip.

it's pricey, unless you drive non-toll side roads most of the way.
factor in petrol & possibly hotel stopover and you can as well take a more expensive flight

My DF drove Manchester to Malta every year in a Yaris

Intrigued by this - did he drive to Sicilly (or somewhere else in southern Italy) and then get a ferry?

I've also driven from Yorkshire to Costa Brava area and it was OK. Google maps says 17 hours driving each way, which is realistically a total of 4 days driving and an extra 2 overnight stops over flying. Flying from London to Madrid is really quite quick and easy in comparison.

I'd also look carefully at costs of fuel, tolls, ferry, extra wear and tear/mileage on the car, European breakdown cover, hotels and extra food on the road. Also consider if there are other airports in the UK that you can fly to Madrid - Bristol, Birmingham East Midlands etc?

He did drive to Sicily. He took a week to ge there, stopping off, whenever they fancied.
Then spent 2 weeks in Malta and drove back taking another week.

I never did this journey with him but he absolutely loved it.

I just looked at the route online, I think take 3-4 days each way and you'll be fine. I say this as someone who got back yesterday from doing England to the French Riviera with a toddler in tow. I know Madrid is further but its not that much further. We stayed in eurocamp places on our trip and it was great. Meant my DS could have some really fun down time when we weren't driving!

I'm not going to do the calculations, but I'm sure once you've factored in petrol, hotel costs and wear and tear on tyres etc flying wouldn't be so expensive, as well as much more pleasant.

Just looking at mid August flights from London for four and you can get returns for under £400 - if you factor in the Eurotunnel costs and four or five tanks of petrol for the return journey at a minimum, tolls (it looks as if you'd be looking at up to 100 Euros for motorways all the way) and maybe an overnight hotel stay I can't believe it would work out much cheaper.

But I hate driving and think long drives in hot weather with small children are one of the inner circles of hell.

Having done London- Italy last year I would say no, unless you are prepared to take at least a week over it. Roads were very busy, we were very hot, and no-one was talking to anyone else by the time we got there.

(And we drive to the Alps to ski twice a year so we are not exactly long drive novices!)

On your own as a couple on a road trip: brilliant!

With two u5s: madness!

Hi Hazel, we are doing West Sussex to Madrid in the car for Xmas to stay two weeks. My kids are 13, 11 & 9 and I am so nervous about it… any tips would be very much appreciated. Thank you ;-:-)

This is a very old thread.

I would fly to Madrid instead of taking the car. Have you planned for toll costs, petrol, accommodation on the way to and from Madrid?. It may work out cheaper overall to take a flight from Gatwick and to hire a car in Madrid. It may also take the best part of 3-4 days to drive there let alone back again and your kids could well grow to hate the car and seeing the back of their parents heads.

The journey will take you 2 solid days of driving. That's driving about 10-12 hours each day. If you are OK with that then go for it but I'm not sure I would want to do that journey with two kids in the car.