Driving to Portugal from London

[Summertim]

Has anyone driven from London to Algarve? We are considering it doing this, stopping overnight somewhere on the way there and back. 2 weeks holidays, but longer in the summer. Have family with s house there.

We have done this from the Home Counties. We take the ferry to Santander and it is around 11 hours drive from there so we do an en route stop in Spain. If you were to drive all the way using the tunnel you would need two overnight stops plus extra fuel and tolls. We enjoy taking the ferry with the onboard entertainment, dolphin watching etc

We have done this as part of a 7 week trip. We spent 5 weeks travelling round Spain and 2 in Algarve, so our route home was straight from Portugal.

We had very small children so stopped for the night twice, one night in Caceres and one day and night in Salamanca. We didn’t get to see much of Caceres but Salamanca is beautiful. We got the ferry from Santander.

I have as a child but friends of mine regularly drive to Southeast Spain, stopping in southern France to visit friends. I'm not sure why they don't fly, other than visiting friends they seem to want to get there as fast as possible (so don't do any stopping along the way). I guess they like driving and not having to rent a car (they have no fear of flying).

Another recommendation for taking the ferry to Bilbao or Santander.

I've driven as well, but it's a long way, i.e. 3-4 days at 300 miles a day.

It makes for an interesting cost comparison.

We recently did a driving holiday around Spain and Portugal but it was 7 weeks in total, so many stops.
You’d need to decide if you want to take the tunnel/short ferry crossing or a very long ferry crossing to Bilbao or Santander.
Personally I’d choose the tunnel and (at least) two overnight stops en route. If you take the toll roads they are relatively quiet and good condition but at a cost obviously.
We regularly do the trip from London to Glasgow and the motorways are so crowded with so many hold ups. It’s a tiring journey and usually takes much longer than it should. In comparison driving through France and Spain is a breeze. Probably weekends in August would be the exception though.

Thank you. I think the ferry to Santander is a good idea and reduce driving time.

Does it work cheaper than flying and renting a car? tickets are around £800 for 4 or £1,000 depending on when you buy them plus car rental.

Better for the environment too hopefully as we got a hybrid.

I found the ferry to Spain worked out cheaper than driving from the UK, by the time you factor in :-

Channel Crossing
Fuel
Tolls
Hotels
Meals
Time
Speeding fines ;-)

The roads in northern Spain and Portugal are good and a pleasure to drive on, much less stressful than France.

You might also like to consider :-
Toll Pass, www.bipandgo.com. or www.emovis-tag.co.uk
Great locations www.sawdays.co.uk/portugal
vidagopalace.com/en

Flying and hiring a car works out similar cost, less time, but less fun and more stress!

In summary if you have a suitable car, and can afford the time I would recommend doing the ferry, or at least compare the cost.

P.S. I thought the drivers in Portugal were really good especially on the motorways.

P.P.S. Car hire in the Algarve can be very expensive.

@Dbank i agree with your extra costs for driving the whole way.

Another thing to bear in mind for anyone with a car that is leased or PCP with for example a 10,000 a year mileage limit, that the mileage would be considerable for driving from the tunnel to the Algarve rather than using the Santander ferry.

the reason we drive rather than fly is not to do with cost but more the fact we like the ferry and consider it part of the holiday. As others have mentioned motorways in Portugal are far less busy than France or the UK. It is nice to pack up the car without worrying about luggage limits. Finally having the car means you can easily visit different places en route eg Salamanca, Porto and Lisbon.

one thing to be aware of is that temperatures are very high inland in Iberia in the summer holidays. Therefore if you stop at Salamanca or Seville you probably will not be doing any sightseeing until early evening as it is so hot.

the first time we went to Portugal we flew and had a frightening transfer with a driver who went way too fast on minor roads. Having your own car avoids this kind of experience. If we weren’t driving I would book a hire car.

finally you could look at travelling by train. The seat61 website is useful for train info.

Depends how many people are going and on what dates but could easily be cheaper to fly/hire than to drive. You can get return flights to Faro for less than £100 if you travel on the right dates. Car hire is going to be what - £100-£200 a week depending how big a car you want.

Thank you, that’s very helpful. I think we will definitely get the ferry to Santander in our next trip.

Thank you; I think the days were tickets were £100 per person in school holidays are gone; more like £200 to £300 return per person. 4 people

Which ferry company is it?

@Summertim The ferries to Spain are all Brittany Ferries. Pont Aven goes from Plymouth to Santander and has a pool and more in the way of entertainment/cafes etc and is a shorter crossing. The new ships Galicia/Salamanca and Santona go from Portsmouth to Bilbao and Santander respectively. They travel more slowly so it is usually two nights on the outward crossing but it doesn't feel that long as you go to bed soon after leaving Portsmouth on departure, have one full day at sea and then dock in Bilbao/Santander at breakfast time..meaning you can drive a long way south that day.

We drive to southern Spain via France usually as we aren't keen on the long crossings to Santander or Bilbao as the Bay of Biscay can be a nightmare, regardless of the time of year. We've had several very unpleasant crossings due to storms. It's also expensive as Brittany Ferries have a monopoly and I find it quite boring. The new ship Galicia is unfortunately more cramped and actually has less facilities than the older ones. Haven't been on the other new ones.
Saying all that it's obviously quicker than going through France, less driving and wear and tear on your car which you might prefer.

Thank you; just checked them out and didn’t realise it was so long and expensive

my family and I are planning on travelling from London to Paris, staying over and then getting high speed train from Paris to Madrid, staying over for 2 nights and then driving from Madeid to Algarve for our weeks holiday. We have two children aged 14 and 8.
Now I’m anxious that it is going to be a disaster! Has anyone done anything similar??

Madrid to Algave is about 400 Miles, so dull, but possible in a day, personally I would split it, or rethink it entirely especially with a 14 and 8 YO.

Anyone else done anything like this????!!!😥

As mentioned above we have driven to the Algarve by taking the ferry to Santander and driving from there. In the past I have travelled to southern spain by train.

However I am puzzled as to why you are thinking of travelling as far as Madrid by train but then driving the rest. There is definitely a fast train line from Madrid as far as Seville. I would suggest looking at the seat61 website which gives excellent information on travelling by train.

If you did want to drive from Madrid to the Algarve I imagine the hardest part would be driving out of Madrid. We have used the Spanish motorways from Santander to southern spain and onto the algarve with no issues at all. However we did not go through Madrid so I can't be sure what it would be like to drive there.

We have just driven from the South East of the UK to northern Portugal and back. We did it over 3 days each way but I think the Algarve would be another day’s driving on top of that. The Eurotunnel was fairly cheap - around £350 and we used the Via Michelin website to plan our route and stops. We stayed in Airbnbs and tried not to drive more than 6 hours a day. We stopped off and visited places along the way so it felt more like part of the holiday. It probably wasn’t cheaper than flying plus car hire would have been but it was nice to have our own car and to see some new places as we always go to the same place in Portugal every August. I’d do it again - it was great to have the freedom and flexibility.