Would you drive to Italy with small children?

[cupofteaplease]

I have just priced up flights and car hire to Le Marche in Italy this summer and they come to £1000. I'm assuming even with diesel, we could drive there for a lot less money and use our own car on holiday (the property is not served by buses as it is up a mountain, so a car is a necessity).

However, we have children who will be 5 and 3 and the routefinder says it is a 19hour drive from our house.

Is it madness to even consider doing this?

We drove with our 5 and 3 year old from Scotland to Nice this summer. It took three days - we stayed with friends in London and then a hotel for the second night. The kids were pretty amazing and found it all quite fun, though we did have to listen to Abba all the way.

Coming back was a lot less exciting - we did in in two very long days and we were all completely fed up of being in the car by the end.

I would definitely do it again - after all it is only going to get easier. Much cheaper, easier packing, we took our bikes too which was great. I guess it depends on your kids, but no, I don't think you are mad.

Depends how much you value your holiday days. To spend 4 of them in a car would probably be worth spending the money on the flights for us, tbh.

we did it for years when the dc were small. Always in one hit. Starting off late afternoon and through the tunnel arriving in the morning. Stopped for a meal during the evening, then the dc slept on the journey. We were exhausted though!

We are not far from the tunnel so were very quickly into france. then 915 miles to tuscany. or 710 to the cote d'azur.

we fly now though.

Agree with pesto, we would never waste more than a day travelling. If you are going to break it oup over several days each way i deffo wouldn't do it.

Depends on the car. We would - and have - in our van, using the trip as part of the holiday, but I don't think I would in an ordinary car.

Also depends on the children. Ours are hang-overs from the 50's and are a bit "lashings of ginger beer" about any sort of adventure.

I wouldn't want to do it.

I really don't like flying and before we had DS we always went on holiday overland on the coach, but decided it wouldn't be fair to force this on a child. This year we did drive from the midlands to Paris and it was quite enjoyable, although even then we took two days on the way down. We have considered driving further south in France but I don't think I'd want to drive as far as Italy.

I'm not sure where Le Marche is - but have you looked for alternative airports/airlines? We've flown to various places in Italy (Rome, Trieste, Bari, Bergamo) and have found it to be one of the cheapest places to get to - although we had to drive to various airports in the UK to get the flights. Car Hire is expensive in Italy though I think.

We're going on the motor rail from Holland to Livorno for £1200, back from Allessandria. We didn't want to fly because we liked the idea of travelling through the landscapes and the kids experiencing that.