European road trip

[fluffynotebook]

Hi there,
It's my 40th next year and planning on doing road trip with DC aged 13 and 11 and DH; would like to go to Germany, Switzerland and Italy... has anyone else done anything like this? Thought about renting motor home but can't see any that we can travel across Europe in... would it better getting a tent? Or just stay in hostels? Any tips appreciated thanks 😊

How long are you thinking of going for?

are you planning on driving to Germany or flying and starting there then flying back from Italy?

You may have to hire cars in different countries - look at cross border fees. We’ve driven in Europe but always taken our own car and we’ve stayed in hotels.

We did a Krakow to Vienna Road trip. Hired a car in Krakow, dropped off in Bratislava and got the train to Vienna. You will probably need to use one of the bigger car hire companies and pay extra for one way. We stayed in hostels and b&bs.

We hire cars in the Netherlands and drive to Germany. We also took our German-hired car over the border to Austria.

It all depends on the fine print, some companies have it as part of their standard set-up, others don't.
A motor home may be different though.
You will need an international drivering licence though to hire in the EU.

If you hire in the UK and drive into the EU you most likely will have additinonal fees.

If you want to be on the move all the time I think I would go for hotels, 4 people in a motorhome is cramped. I would look for hostels with family rooms and maybe the odd hotel inbetween.

Hi, fab idea - you’re right to start planning early! We have done 4 European road trips like this (one was Germany, Switzerland Italy!) and several ski trips over last decade. We have always driven our car - we only have a medium sized boot so I make sure we stay somewhere so we can run laundry twice during the trip, and we therefore just pack the bare minimum.

I use various sites like booking.com to find hidden gems - we’ve stayed in some gorgeous places that are a little outside the main tourist zones for <eur120 per night for all four of us - sometimes we manage two bedrooms and sometimes we are sharing one large room. Hostels would definitely open up possibilities if you are prepared to use them!

I absolutely love planning trips and researching interesting places to visit though, so I’m happy to invest a hundred hours+ setting up a holiday itinerary. I would recommend picking a few key places where you really want to stop, eg Phantasialand or GardaLand, and then think about logically where your nights will fall - do you want a few long stops, or happy to move about a bit more? In a two week trip I find 5 different places is about the max I can handle - so I would usually make one long stop say 5 nights so you can relax and enjoy activities, explore more fully one area and I usually find a long stop handy for doing laundry and keeping self catering costs down (if you can plan 5 days of food, it’s more efficient than shopping day by day).

The thing about a motor home is if you want to take a day trip or pop to the supermarket or to a restaurant then you’re limited to small trips by public transport/on foot or going in your motor home, aren’t you?

Camping is do-able …are you experienced campers with all the kit, and do you have a suitable vehicle?

We've done lots of European roads trips. Some times down to northern Italy via Germany or France, also to Spain as as far as Croatia another year. We started doing this for cheap sunshine when our youngest was one and have never had issues with long days in the car as long as you take breaks and go with the flow.

Unless you're a long way from calais it's not bad taking your own car honestly- most main roads in Europe are easy and you can get quite far on day 2 of your holiday. We've done a combination of camping, hotels and Airbnb's. It depends on how much you need a proper bed and your own toilet.

Switzerland is gorgeous but pricy. Austria and Southern Germany /northern Italy are as lovely but cheaper.
First step is to decide priority destinations and then work out itineries from there. Via Michelin is a great planning tool for routes.
My only advice would be that the weather is always nicer once you go over the top of the alps, and that going over a mountain pass ( we like the gottard pass) is infinitely better than queuing and going through the tunnel but takes longer so build that into timings.

Enjoy!

We recently drove to Switzerland from the UK. It was great and didn't feel too far at all. We did a night in France, 2 in Germany, 7 in Switzerland and 1 in Luxembourg, then home.

Have a look at the different documents you need to drive in each country and what you need to have in the car with you.

Hostels are a good idea. I'm not sure I could with pitching and taking down camping stuff multiple times in a holiday. Also if you get a spell of rain, it could be miserable.

We have done several road trips with our 3 DC (younger than yours). Unless you are going from the north of Scotland, I'd take your own car and use booking.com to find accommodation. The Harwich - Hook of Holland ferry crossing is a great jumping off point for Germany. Personally I'd do Germany/Switzerland/Austria, and leave Italy for another time, but depends on exactly where you want to go.

We drive our own car and use a mix of Eurocamp (can do 2-3 nights) and budget hotels or B&B. We did a week in Garda staying at a holiday park and drive different routes through France there and back. We drove there through Switzerland but no overnight (a very long day over multiple mountain passes). We’re planning on doing similar but stopping in Germany or Austria next time. I think with kids you need a few longer stays mixed in with the driving so they don’t get fed up.

You will need an international drivering licence though to hire in the EU.

No, you don't. A UK photocard licence is still accepted for car and camper rental throughout the EU, despite Brexit. Mutual driving licence recognition for tourist and business visits is guaranteed by the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of December 2020. You only need an IDP if your licence (a) doesn't have a photo or (b) was issued by the Channel Islands or Isle of Man.

Source: Ten million UK holidaymakers have rented cars in the EU since Brexit and if people were getting turned away for not having an IDP, you can guarantee that the Express would have been on it in a flash ("NOW heartless Eurocrats PUNISH hard-working Brits for holiday car hire with demand for 1940s-era documents!"), and the travel pages would have been reporting it pretty much weekly.

Thanks for all your replies everyone. Lots to think about! We'll be taking our own car... we did another road trip last year to Bruges/Amsterdam/Ghent/Paris and stayed in a mix of accommodation including a hostel which was actually really good! I think the motor home idea is out as like someone else said it limits you when you need to make a smaller journey. We've got some camping bits just but would just need to get a bigger tent beforehand as the one we've got is too small.

And meant to say would like to go for at least 2 weeks to allow for us to stay longer in certain places x

@samarrange

Ah, that's not what they told us in Berlin. They originally asked for it as we have a UK permanent address but were relieved as we still have our German drivers license.

They said Europecar (that's where we hired from) tells them that they need an international one.

We were asked for an international licence when we rented in Sardinia last year.

Well, then Europcar were being morons. Perhaps not uncoincidentally, I avoid Europcar and their sub-brands (InterRent, GoldCar, and any others that I notice) like the plague when renting a car. Their entire business model seems to be based around charging 20 customers for the same scratch.

This does illustrate a common problem in the tourism industry though, namely clueless / poorly trained / poorly paid counter staff denying car rental / airline boarding to people whose documents are perfectly in order when the staff don't understand the rules. During Covid there were many stories of people not being allowed on planes when their tests were perfectly in order for the country they were going to, because staff were overwhelmed with all the different possibilities. We've also seen cases on UK check-in staff denying boarding because "Your passport must have 6 months left to go to the EU", which is usually not true.

We've done quite a few European road trip holidays over the years, mostly camping, a bit of Airbnb. We've been across France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, Spain and Portugal. Also did some cycle touring back in the day - Iceland, Faroes, Denmark, Germany, Belgium.

My advice for touring is to keep the camping fairly minimal in terms of gear, especially if you are going to be moving on every two or three days. Find a tent that's easy to erect and pack down and just take basic cooking stuff. Also be aware if you are travelling long distances and might change climate. One year we travelled at the end of August from 38 degree temperatures in Southern France to a site near Strasbourg where autumn has started. After one extremely chilly night (with small children) we had to stock up on blankets and snuggly pj's.

We've never had to worry about booking campsite slots in advance, but we mostly went to small places, off the beaten track. We only plan a vague route at the start and decide the detail as we go. The beauty of camping is that if you don't like a place you can just move on.