If you've travelled to France in the summer in the past few years...

[frogs]

...do you think it is cheaper to drive down or to fly and then hire a car?

We are going to the south of France next year for a family event, and then plan to rent a gite for a week or so afterwards. There are five of us, so even cheap plane fares add up once you multiply by 5, and we need a reasonably big car (ours is). I would also strongly prefer an automatic (again, ours is but they tend to be more expensive to hire).

If you've driven down from the UK, how much of a nightmare was it? And did you spend a fortune on staying in places overnight? Or should we look at campsites?

All advice gratefully received, we're novices at this, and I'm finding it really hard to weigh up the pros and cons.

Oh now you've all gone and confused the issue again, just as I was looking at ferry timetables.

Hmm. No, I think the car hire business will swing it for me. Plus the cost of flights.

How early do the budget airlines release their bookings?

not yet

be my baby thing are out and have been for a while - off to Geneva in January for £80 which these days is tres cheap.

I shall just have to haunt the ryanair and ferry websites and do a comparison when they're released.

Oh I do know how to live.

FlyBe from Southampton

Use it lots, so much nicer than Ryanair

hi frogs.

we did this in august. we drove right down to the eastern languedoc. imo it was much easier than (a) getting the motorail (which we'd done the year before (b) flying anywhere (which we had done - albeit to another short haul destination - earlier in the year). it was £000s cheaper than either of the other options also.

hi just read all posts and see you are going very near to where we went - near Nimes.

we got the eurotunnel to calais, drove south, circumnavigated paris, then south to orleans where we stopped overnight.

then south again. the only difficult bit is at the end when we came off the autoroute and drove through the cevennes.

hth.

OK you've convinced me to avoid motor rail next spring (one way at least) I/we shall attempt to drive to the south of france, all the way!! I would be very interested in a lovely list of nice aires please!

Last year we drove from Brussels to St Tropez. I found it highly stressful - arguements about driving speed etc and it took 2 days each way. I cannot do more than about 7 hours in the car at once....We've just been back to nearly the same place and flew/hired car. It was much better, though for a week probably more economical. Advantasge of flying being the speed/the car that you don't have to worry about luggage. I guess it all comes down to cost in the end.

Frizbe, can't recommend any personally (haven't been for years) but I just found this information on a camping site:

Can only find used ones on Amazon but you could buy one of those to be going on with?

We are planning to drive back from Northwest Spain with 5yo, 2yo and 8-month-old. In January. Gulp. At the moment we're looking at stopping overnight somewhere like Bordeaux and get the ferry from Caen to Portsmouth.

If you are going for Nimes next summer Nimes-Garrons may no longer exist as a commercial airport because Ryanair is heavily subsidised by the French military, who are shifting their airbase of there at some point (oh we love Sarky's budget cuts for the military, yes we do...). Depending on exactly where you're going near Nimes, Montpelier may be a good bet to fly, but unless you are an extremely confident European driver avoid Marseilles like the plague. Lorry drivers do actively try to kill people and 'rules of the road' are non-existent.

In this past I have driven Birmingham to Sauve, which is about 45mins on from Nimes and it took me nearly 18 hours, only one driver, including the ferry crossing, storm conditions and car fires (not mine). The actual driving in France bit was only 11 hours. That was August and it is ONLY to be done if you love driving....says she who drov her DP 845km overnight Paris to Toulon and didn't mind in the slightest.

If you are driving I DEFINITELY wouldn't do it during the day though, night driving is just that much easier, the autoroute is virtually empty and highly conduicive to cruise control.

frannikin, "Lorry drivers do actively try to kill people and 'rules of the road' are non-existent"

actively???

um - evidence, please?

There was a perfectly clear road (dual carriageway), I was passing a lorry, he moved out on top of me for no apparent reason, I got the hell out the way, feeling quite shaken actually and he was laughing. I personally class that as actively trying to kill me. My French companions then told me this wasn't uncommon! Had I had a videophone, and not being preoccupied with saving my life, I would have recorded some empirical evidence. That was the first time something of the sort happened, when I first moved over here, and the general standard of driving by lorries in the Marseilles/Toulon/Nice area hasn't really changed so I just steer clear of them, given that I can't not drive. I think it's their own special form of fun or something, kinda like the freight drivers on the M5 round Bristol in the middle of the night.

Ordinary drivers just don't use indicators, cut across 3 lanes to exit, stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason... Standard driving for round here really!

We drive to south of France frequently with 2dcs. For 2 weeks we drive, but for one week we would probably get cheap flights and a hire car. FWIW last summer we arrived on the Sat am of the "jour noir" - ie DO NOT DRIVE IN FRANCE UNLESS YOU ARE MAD ON THIS DAY. Actually it wasn't too bad, but we did think hard about the route. Normally we go Portsmouth, Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Gap, s Alps. Everythig said avoid that route like the plague. so we went straight south of Paris. got held up round Orleans, but then fine with no problems. Was a bit slower with a lot of cross country but still made destination in the one day.

Thanks for the info WW makes note to avoid lorry drivers round Nice