I recently wrote about our European driving holiday and a couple of people have since asked me for some more detailed information about the planning process. 人々はまったく同じ旅行をしたい場合を除き, many of the details will be different, しかし、チェックするために重要な点は同じまま. Here I’ll detail how I planned our holiday and what tools and sites I used, along with specific examples from our trip
前書き
The original idea for the trip was at least partly inspired by the rising cost of flights to Crete. A return flight now costs around £250 during the summer holidays. The best site I am aware of for finding cheap flights (and tracking their price) あります SkyScanner. I set SkyScanner alerts for a 2 8月上旬でクレタ島への週間リターンとオーバーのためにそれを追跡 9 ヶ月, during which time it varied between £229[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“229”] そして、£280[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“280”]. 我々はクレタ島に飛ぶした場合、私たちは車を雇う必要がありました, 私たちは常に過去に持っているとして. 基本的な小型車のレンタカー昨年は€400でした[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“400”] とともに 121レンタカー, which hasn’t changed significantly since 2009, トヨタアイゴは€359だったとき[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“359”] from TheBestCars. The basic cost of a holiday to Crete for 4 people would therefore be about £320[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“320”] — £380[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“320”]. Any driving plan would have to be reasonably comparable to this for me to “sell it” to my fellow travellers.
推定旅の費用
I started by putting our start and end points into Google Maps, which suggested the drive (done without diversions or stop offs) だろう 2,400 マイル片道. From this I subtracted the distance travelled on the sea crossings of the channel and the Mediterranean (35 そして 205 miles respectively according to google) to get an estimate of the total “land miles” we’d need fuel for which came in at 2,160 それぞれの方法または 4,320 合計で.
Next I needed an estimate of the economy of our car. The car in question is a Vauxhall Astra 1.7 diesel eco car, それはかなり良い燃費を取得します. 私は見ていました HonestJohn for the official extra-urban MPG (62.8) and also a more realistic estimate of what MPG we might achieve, 52.7mpgであることが判明しています. I assumed we’d be using air conditioning and knocked a bit off for this as well and went with a figure of 48mpg.
最後に, I did some conversions to estimate that at 48mpg we’d need 90 gallons of fuel, また 410 リットル. At current UK prices (£1.45[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“1.45”] またはリットル当たりそう) それはほぼ正確に£600の費用がかかるだろう[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“600”], または£150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”] 各. So far so good — well under budget, しかし、我々はまた、必要があると思います 2 ferries each way.
We decided to get the Eurotunnel service across the channel which ended up being just over £240[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“240”], altho had we booked it earlier it would have been closer to £150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”]. So this took our total per person up to £210[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“210”].
最後に, 我々はクレタ島ギリシャからフェリーを必要と. These run day or night and it is possible to book a cabin for either voyage. As both myself and my partner suffer with sea sickness we decided to travel at night with a cabin — whilst more expensive this would save us a night of accommodation in Athens and give us an extra 2 クレタ島の日. An overnight ferry with 4‑bed cabin and the car was €577[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“577”] リターン. This actually dropped to only €400[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“400”] 私が予約した時間によって, but I didn’t know this when estimating the journey cost. At the summer 2013 為替レート (周りに 1.15) この€577がほぼ正確に£125に等しくなり[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“125”] 各, taking our total per person up to £335[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“335”].
There was one final number to take account of — unlike the UK many European countries charge tolls or require road tax. Investigating this was the most challenging part of the planning, but was made considerably easier once I discovered ViaMichelin which provides impressively accurate pricing for both tolls and taxes. ViaMichelin suggested we would require €60[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“60”] 通行料、€24[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“24”] 税のそれぞれの道. This equated to approximately £35 per person in total. This took my estimated journey grand total up to £370[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“370”] each — within my target price range!
I also discovered that many taxes could be paid in advance (and automated toll passes obtained) from TollTickets. I got tax for Hungary and Austria from TollTickets and both worked flawlessly.
訪問するピッキング場所
Having established the viability of our plan, and given approval by the other travellers, I started to look in more detail at what route we might go. I quickly decided there wasn’t much point in travelling in the same direction each way — we’d be better to take more of a “loop” to maximise where we could visit. I looked at the “direct route” map and quickly noticed that it passed to the east of Croatia and Austria, both places I wanted to visit. The route also passed to the west of the Czech Republic and Hungary which I was also interested to visit. A more Western route through Croatia and Austria only added 100 miles to the journey, and a more eastern route through the Czech Republic and Hungary only added 80 マイル! 余分の余分な時間とコスト 180 miles was a fairly insignificant fraction of our 4,300 mile total made the decision very easy — we’d take the 2 routes and see lots of interesting places on the way.
We had never planned to drive all the way in 1 行きます, so I started looking along our 2 滞在する場所のための新しいルート. The criteria were fairly simple — we wanted to stay near significant population centres as these are where most tourist accommodation is found, and the wider the choice the better value we could get. There were also limits to how long we could stay in a car for if we wanted to have a proper bed to sleep in each night. Our total journey time each way (excluding the ferry to Crete) 周りにいました 34 hours. 我々が持っていた場合 4 days each way this would average to 9 hours of driving each day. とともに 7 時間の睡眠は、この私たちを残すことになります 8 食べるために時間, refresh and see the local area. Whilst this would be quite a hectic period we decided it was worth it as we could spend 4 days travelling each way and have 8 days relaxing in Crete. 私たちは、後でこれは自分自身を与えるために改訂します 5 days on the return journey based on the lower quality of some of the roads.
With the above criteria in mind I looked along our route for places we could stay that we also wanted to see. On the Eastern route we wanted to see Prague, and also see some family near Budapest so I selected these as 2 オフ停止する場所. 第3の停止オフはギリシャの第二の都市となりました: Thessaloniki as it was right next to the route and split the journey from Budapest in half. The only downside to this plan was the mammoth journey on day 1 from Sheffield to Prague, a journey of over 900 miles taking an estimated 16 hours.
On the western route I was very keen to see Dubrovnik, the Adriatic coast and the Alps. I was also quite keen to see somewhere in Germany with Munich being the obvious choice on our route. The most obvious place to stop off between Dubrovnik and Munich was Venice and this was a no-brainer to add as none of us had been before. 私たちを与えました 2 long journeys, ドゥブロヴニクへアテネ (an estimated 14 hours) ミュンヘンバック英国 (オーバー 800 miles and an estimated 14 hours). We decided not to attempt the Athens to Dubrovnik journey in 1 go as we knew we had to cross through Albania which has challenging roads and potential boder crossing delays. We weren’t keen to stay in Albania so we elected to stay in northern Greece near Ionannina. This had the added bonus of giving us a bit more time in Athens, and I also discovered that there is a very impressive 1km deep gorge near Ioannina which we could add to out list of places to see.
The last detail to decide was which direction to travel. We decided that we’d rather do the longest journey first (Sheffield — Prague) and we had also heard the border crossing heading south from Italy via Slovenia to Croatia, しばしば非常に遅かったです. When we actually passed it coming the other direction the queue of cars was over 4 miles long — we’d really dodged a bullet! So we opted to take the more eastern route first, and return via the more western route
宿泊施設
The next task was to find accommodation at each of the places we were planning to stop off. Our accommodation for Athens was effectively sorted by using the ferry overnight, and our accommodation in Hungary was provided by family. This left me to find accommodation in Prague, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, ドゥブロブニク, ヴェネツィア、ミュンヘン. I estimated initially that it would cost around £20[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“20”] per person per night (または£120[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“120”] 各) for the accommodation which would take our grand total (minus spending money for food and drink) £480まで[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“480”] — a very reasonable price when compared to a 2 week package holiday to southern Europe!
We wanted private accommodation (だから何の寮の部屋はありません), but other than that we really just needed a bed. We didn’t want to drive into major European cities, which can be very stressful in a UK car, but we wanted to be able to visit them quickly from where we stayed, so my criteria for accommodation was that it should be located on the outskirts near to a motorway we’d be travelling on, and it should be within 1 地下鉄のマイル, subway, or rail station we could use to get into each city. I tried several sites like Expedia and some of the sites advertised on the TV like アカウント but these typically came up with prices around £50[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“50”] 頁. 私も使用します HostelWorld そして HostelBookers, which despite their names, both find all types of accommodation. My sister had recommended these when she had spent 3 months inter-railing in Europe several years ago. They were excellent and I was able to find accommodation meeting my criteria in each city. に 2 instances it was cheaper to book through booking.com for the same accommodation which I did.
自動車および関連書類を準備
It goes without saying that you will require insurance for driving in Europe. We already had European cover as part of our insurance, if you don’t you will need to contact your insurer. If you are planning well in advance you may well have your insurance renewal due before you travel which gives an opportunity to find a new deal which includes European cover at better value than your current insurer. The usual price comparison sites are great for this — I always go via MoneySavingExpert to see which comparison sites are the best to use.
Once you are insured for Europe you will need to check which countries your route goes through — your European cover might not cover all of them. European cover will cover all EU countries and may cover a few others, but is unlikely to cover everywhere. Our cover didn’t cover us for Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro or Bosnia. It may be possible to get additional cover for some countries — you will need to contact your insurance company to find out. I managed to get cover for Montenegro for an additional £35[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“35”]. This cover is provided with what is known as an “international green card”. Even if you are only travelling to countries which are covered by standard EU cover it is worth getting a green card from your insurance company as some local police forces will ask for one and are likely to delay you if you don’t have one. A good example of somewhere like this is Serbia. We found ourselves unable to get cover for Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia. This is a very common state of affairs for most Western European insurance companies, and the countries in question provide a legal alternative — you can buy 3rd party insurance at the border. In Macedonia this cost €50[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“50”] アルバニア€27[worldcurrency curr=“EUR” value=“27”]. Bosnia didn’t require cover as we were driving along the national road from Croatia back to Croatia (Croatia is split in half by a 7 mile wide corridor giving Bosnia access to the Sea). The actual legal status of this road is unclear — Croatia and Bosnia both signed the “Neum Agreement” which in theory means if you stay on the road you stay in Croatia, but neither country ratified the agreement. かかわらず、, our experience is that you can pass through without a problem and within 10 分あなたが戻っクロアチアのです
Once you have made arrangements for insurance in each country you pass through you will need to make a list of required equipment. Many European countries require items like warning triangles to be carried at all times. ザ 単3 have useful guides to each country as well as a summary which include details of the equipment required. Our eventual list of items was: warning triangle, 応急処置キット, reflective vest inside the car, headlamp converters (およびスペア), GB プレート (スペア), fire extinguisher, スペア電球, スペアヒューズ, 2 breathalysers, けん引ロープ, V5 car registration document, 運転免許証 (両方の部分), insurance certificate, and greencard. We also decided to get international drivers permits, にもかかわらず、我々は彼らを必要と行きました無場所. 単なる£5.50のために[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“5.5”] we felt it was another document that might help prevent any delays or difficulties with foreign officialdom. このリストの項目の多くは、かなりお安くAAブランドのキットとして購入することができます (e.g. from アマゾン). であなたは、待っている間-IDPを得ることができます 一部の郵便局 — you will need your drivers license, a passport photo and proof of identity (we used our passports). 最後に, 我々は、安いを取得することを決めました windscreen shade for the car as we didn’t want a superheated steering wheel or seat belts when we came back to the car, 過去にレンタル車を私たちに何が起こっていたとして、.
他の必須管理
- Check your passport isn’t with 6 months of expiry — if it is, これを更新.
- Don’t forget to get travel insurance.
- Take your European health insurance card. Before setting off check that the EHIC is still valid — if not, それを得る 無料の置き換え!
- Contact your bank / credit card company and notify them of your travel plans to ensure they wont block the use of your card abroad.
- Contact your mobile phone provider and make sure you can use calls and texts abroad — this might not be on by default. You may also want to turn voicemail off as some providers charge you if someone leaves you a voicemail whilst you are abroad!
- Don’t forget time changes in your travel planning. ほとんどすべてのヨーロッパのです 1 時間進ん英国の. ギリシャで 2 前方の時間.
- We also took with us printed copies of European Motor Accident Report forms in a range of languages. As far as I’m aware these aren’t legally required, but they make a lot of sense to have just in case you have an accident. They can be downloaded in a range of languages from CarTravelDocs そして AccidentSketch.
通貨
Normally only 1 currency is required for going abroad, しかし、我々が通過したとして 18 countries we realised we couldn’t make do with just the Euro. Quite a few European countries still use their own currencies, 私たちは、それぞれのいくつかが必要になります. I wasn’t keen to carry lots of difference currencies for most of the journey so planned to keep it as minimised as possible. I e‑mailed each of the places we had booked to stay to find out if the accepted credit card. Where they did I arranged to pay on my Post Office Mastercard. I got this card several years ago primarily because foreign transactions aren’t subject to a charge and are exchanged at the official Mastercard daily rate — basically the same as the official exchange rate. MoneySavingExpert have an article dedicated to the best deals for foreign transactions which is worth reading. We eventually settled on Czech Coruna and Croatian Kuna in addition to the Euros we were taking. We opted not to get Hungarian Forints, Serbian Dinar, Macedonian Denar, Albanian Lek or Bosnian Marks. I made sure that anything we would need in these countries could be paid on card or in Euros (for example the Macedonian 3rd party insurance was paid in Euro cash and the toll roads in Macedonia and Serbia were paid on credit card). Whilst my writing about this section is quite short, the actual planning was quite substantial — I had to anticipate anything we might need money for in each country and check if it could be paid for in advance, カード上, またはユーロで.
燃料を購入
Buying fuel in Europe is much like in the UK — pull in, 埋めます, 支払う, そして、走り去ります. However there are a few things well worth knowing. Outside the EU there are often 2 or more grades of “Diesel”. You don’t want to put the really cheap stuff in a modern Diesel car — its designed for older HGVs and will not do good things to your car! Diesel that is of the same grade as standard EU diesel is sometimes called “Euro Diesel” — if you see “Euro Diesel” being offered then opt for this. That doesn’t mean you have to get branded “premium” fuels either though. Diesel is helpfully called Diesel or Dizel in every country (except France who of course have to invent a new word — Gazole) as it is named after a German gentleman who was called Diesel. I can’t tell you about petrol but generally look for the 95 octane stuff which is available everywhere.
The price of fuel varies substantially across Europe. Generally speaking Diesel is cheaper than petrol (in a reversal of typical UK prices). Our most expensive tank was bought in the UK at £1.40 [worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“1.4”] リットル. Our cheapest tank was bought in Macedonia at just under £1[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“1”] リットル! I did quite a lot of research in advance to find fuel prices in different countries, and locating specific petrol stations along our route. A good starting point for prices is 燃料価格は、ヨーロッパ which will give you a rough idea of prices in each country. Rather than actually tie ourselves to specific petrol stations I found “best prices” for each country, worked out which countries we should fill up in and which we shouldn’t, and then used the “best price” as a target as we drove. We aimed to pay no more than the equivalent of 3p per litre above the best price for each country and were very successful in doing so.
I hadn’t anticipated that “duty free” fuel would be available between some border crossings. I didn’t make a note of locations at the time, but there were several borders with petrol stations in between selling fuel for very low prices. This obviously doesn’t apply to borders between EU countries which are barely borders at all, それは南東ヨーロッパで大部分がありました. I will definitely investigate this prior to a future trip.
フード
ヨーロッパだけでなく、英国などの食品のために提供しています. Despite his fears, our vegetarian travel companion was always able to find things he liked, as was I despite my intolerance of various dairy related foods. I did a bit of research before travelling and concluded the European service stations are generally a lot better than UK ones, and certainly no worse. There are frequent fast food options (Subway, McDonalds etc) and a lot of Italian AutoGrills (which are a slightly higher grade of fast food). There is also the highly rated German Nordsee, a fish and seafood fast food chain. 私も発見 article by Heston Blumenthal recommending some specific service stations. As much as possible we ate a good breakfast and a good evening meal in the cities we were staying in, and snacked on food we took with us in the car during the journeys. We also had a few sandwich+crisps+drink deals at service stations. 我々は左の前に、私は車の食品のリストを作りました, where I deliberately tried to leave out very sugary foods (which tend to result in a sugar low and then argument!). また、パン粉をたくさんドロップ食品を避けるか、混乱を作りたかったです (e.g. bread or cherries), 溶融またはスティッキー行く食品 (e.g. chocolate) 冷蔵庫なしですぐにオフに行くだろうと食品 (例えば肉). The list I came up with served us surprisingly well: Seedless bagels, りんご, ハリボーのようなお菓子, ミンツ, Nuts, ドライフルーツ, ビーフジャーキー, 彼らは棒を持っていました, ポテトチップス, Small crackers (e.g. ザ・リッツ・ビスケット)
最終的な詳細
I made maps for each city we visited, including the location of our accommodation, the main tourist attractions, and the main public transport routes. They are all available on google maps: プラハ, Budapest, アテネ, クレタ島, ドゥブロブニク, ヴェネツィア & ミュンヘン. I took printed copies of these with our travel documents. I also made a set of fact sheets for the roads of each country which could be stuck onto the dash board (例は以下の通りです). These included the speed limits, any requirement to use headlights, the drink drive limit, the local currency and exchange rate, the local name for Diesel, and any other relevant notes (e.g. that speed camera warning systems are banned in France). I would also recommend a similar sheet with details of a few basic words and sentences in each local language although I didn’t make one for our trip I will in future.
フランス | |
ライト | Headlights on (浸し) 推奨されます 視界不良で使用する必要があります |
Speed limits | Motorway: 130キロ/ hの (80MPH) Dual Carriageway: 110キロ/ hの (70MPH) Standard: 90キロ/ hの (55MPH) 組み立てました: 50キロ/ hの (30MPH) |
Currency | ユーロ |
ディーゼルの名前 | ディーゼル |
Target price | €1.29 / £1.13 |
Alcohol limit | 0.05 |
Notes | No speed camera monitoring allowed Must have reflective jacket, inside the passenger part of vehicle |
キーフレーズ | |
こんにちは お願いします ありがとうございました | Bonjour どうぞ ありがとう |
推定値はどのように良好でした
It’s not much good planning a holiday based on my system for estimating if my estimates ended up being way out. So below I’ve produced a table of my original estimates for the various costs, what they ended up costing, and any reasons for a discrepancy.
We ended up driving 5,160 マイル. Our original route estimate (after taking into account diversions to visit places) されていました 4,630 マイル (単なる 300 miles more than the most direct route). 余分 530 miles were racked up driving in Crete itself, driving the scenic route along the Croatian coast and taking a few drives to places along the way (e.g. Vikos峡谷へ). In future I would make an initial estimate the same way I did this time and then add 10% for these kind of trips to get a more accurate estimate.
Alternatively, it would be reasonable, with a similar vehicle, to estimate a cost of around 14p[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“0.14”] per mile assuming current fuel prices remain relatively stable (そのため、あなたの息を保持していません!)
Estimate | Reality | Difference | Reasons | |
Petrol | £600[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“600”] | £690[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“690”] | £90[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“90”] | 私たちでした 500 マイル (10%) further than anticipated which accounts for the majority of the difference. Whilst fuel was often cheaper than my estimates we didn’t always manage to get it from the cheapest places. |
EuroTunnel | £150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”] | £260[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“260”] | £110[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“110”] | The price went up just before I booked — book early in future! |
ギリシャのフェリー | £500[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“500”] | £350[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“350”] | £150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”] | The price dropped just before I booked — leave it fairly late to book. |
税金 & 通行料金 | £150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”] | £280[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“280”] | £130[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“130”] | ルートの私達の変化は、アルプスの上に連れて行ってくれました, over the Rio-Antirrio bridge, フランスのよりを通じて. In future we will avoid French and Italian roads as much as possible as they are some of the most expensive. German roads are far better and free. |
Accommodation | £480[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“480”] | £420[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“420”] | £60[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“60”] | I managed to get good deals thanks to HostelWorld and HostelBookers. |
Spending cash (フード, ドリンク, ツアー & 切符売場) | £1280[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“1280”] | £1300[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“1300”] | £20[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“20”] | The estimate of £20[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“20”] per person per day was pretty much spot on. We would have been under budget if we hadn’t spent over £100[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“100”] during the 2 フェリーの旅. |
Car equipment | £50[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“50”] | £50[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“50”] | £0[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“0”] | I managed to borrow some items, 牽引ロープ様, but we hadn’t anticipated paying £5.50[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“5.5”] 国内避難民のための各. Overall it balanced out. |
Car service | £150[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“150”] | £450[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“450”] | £300[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“300”] | We needed new brake pads and discs before we departed. We also developed a small leak from the radiator and had to have it replaced upon return. |
トータル | £3360[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“3360”] | £3800[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“3800”] | £440[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“440”] | We spent an unexpected £300[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“300”] 車上 (which would have had to be spent anyway in reality) そして、£100[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“100”] on expensive food and drink on the ferry. これらがなければ 2 expenses we would have been within £10[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“10”] 推定値の各. |
一人当たりの総 | £840[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“840”] | £950[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“950”] | £110[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“110”] |
最後に, I’d like to note that my original comparison with a 2 週間の飛行 + car hire price worked out absolutely bang on the estimate of £370[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“370”] (if you exclude the need for maintenance on our car and the extra miles we choose to do). We now have the required car equipment (e.g. warning triangle) so that is a 1‑off expense. In future we’ll also save money by using the cross channel ferry rather than the EuroTunnel and avoiding the French roads. A similar holiday in future should come in at about £180[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“180”] less for the channel crossing, そして、£50[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“50”] 通行料が少ないです, making an estimated total of £315[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“315”] per person. The ever rising cost of flights makes this an almost guaranteed better deal. The numbers even become worthwhile with only 3 people sharing: the estimate of a flight + レンタカーである£370[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“370”] and the estimate for driving being £420[worldcurrency curr=“GBP” value=“420”].
Next time we might investigate how taking the train compares. Bahn.com そして Seat61 look like good places to start…
“こんにちはジョン, 素晴らしいリソース、これを作成してくれてありがとう. R8074 を衝突させるのに苦労しています。…”