European Road Trip Advice

mcgeec77

So im just finishing my penultimate year of college and finish exams mid May 2015. I have a total of 5 weeks free which I plan to fill with a road trip to Europe. I am looking for any advise ie Fuel cost, tolls, ferries from Dublin to hollyhead, Helsinki to Sweden etc and some tips in general. My itinerary is:
Dublin to Greece via Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

Then either to return straight home, or drive back to Dublin via Romania/Poland/Latvia/Finland,Sweden/Denmark etc

This trip a minimum of 10,000kms and we (2 of us) plan to camp combined with staying in AirBnBs. Can anyone who has attempted such a trip give use tips it would be greatly appreciated.

gypsy79

Constanta is a great spot in romania, Bucharest is a little dull and dank

Slovenia - Piran is worth a detour

Croatia - Lake Plitvice is one of the nicest places I have been

Depending time of year get to Scandics/Baltics for midsummers (around June 21st). You might be able celebrate twice due slight differences in dates when they celebrate (depending on weekends)

6541

Lucky duck !

munchkin_utd

working out fuel cost is easy.
Find out the L / 100km consumption of your car (MPH is useless for calculations). Most would be about 7 or 8 L/100km which is then say 800L of fuel for 10000km which @ €1.40 per L would be €1120.

Ferries are cheap, if you go by England (which saves on Tolls but adds a few km of fuel).
A landbridge of both Irish sea and channel crossing is €145 for car and driver plus €28 per extra passenger. http://www.stenaline.ie/ferries-to-britain/europe-by-car
For going to Germany I'd normally go for the ferry to Dunkirk which saves a few km and its only a half hour longer on the ferry, which is essentially well earned rest time anyhow.
Also checkout stena and Irish ferries for direct ferries from Rosslare to Cherbourg which would be a similar cost, or extra if you want a cabin.

browniepoints

I always do the Rosslare to France crossing 22hours on the ship and saves me the long drive on UK motorways unless you have the UK on your to see list.

I prefer to travel at 50MPH on the non motorways system in France . You can stop any time you like and enjoy the view do picnic whatever.Motor ways are awful way to see France . However sat nav would be useful as they often dont sign post the roundabouts .I hit Le Mans with no sat nav and there must be easy 50 roundabouts that I went through going past the town and most had no sign posts so it was follow the sun to go south driving .The average town has a few roundabout but Le Mans is roundabout city .

German motor ways are hard going if you dont drive fast .You either tuck in between the continuous as far as the eye can see trucks all driving at speed limit or you drive faster and that costs big bucks .
Looking the butt end of the same truck for hundreds of kilometers is no fun and the truck behind you is meters away and one glitch and and the train stops and your the sandwitch for the trucks .

Again national roads with good sat naV makes it more easy and you can drive at slower speeds .

Greece there are many hundreds of ferry services to Islands and foot passengers are cheap . Cars used to be cheap on Greek ferries but prices have gone up somewhat with the rip off EU eating up all the Greeks money so my mate told me the other day .
Consider to find place to park car on mainland Greece and foot passenger it .get to islands and sleep on the roofs of the hotels they are the cheapest accommodation and often the coolest .Cheapest is sleep on beaches which i did anyway many a night when i worked there as i was not able to crawl home from a skin full of the local brews .

There are 3000 plus islands so probably better to look the Shedule
Cheapest is go to Bredisi Italy and ferry to Corfu and then to mainland and get a few near by islands

Might be best do France Italy Greece Albania up towards Austrai ,Germany then Lux and then either north France for Rosslare or go via UK maybe through Holland or continue up to Sweden via Danmark .You can take the land bridge they got to Sweden .

If funds are tight then consider to not hit the med in august prime time as many costs can triple as it is tourist season money plucking time .

In cheap food countries stock up on certain types of foods liked tinned goods or similar .
France is cheap food mostly .In Italy it can be pricy food unless it fruit and veggies in the market places .
Greece can be sometimes as cheap to eat out as to buy from shops .

Europe is huge when your zig zagging across it that kinda route so I cant say for all of it as I haven't seen all of it .

I normally camp whenever I stop over often camping savage eg not camp sites . Camp sites are now often for camping cars with plots and the plots can easy cost in many countries €30 a night .many of them dont do or want camps with cars .If they do the prices can vary a lot in Greece probably dirt cheap but in north Europe expect easy €20 plus .

There is some rule my German friend told me who has log cabin in Sweden that you can camp in Sweden anyplace for one night even on the farmers land .Its some ancient rule but you need to check that

Avoid tolls they clean you out they are for rich peoples . France and Italy tolls are outrageous.

10,000 kilometers if the car does 10 liters per 100 kilometers means 1000 liters .If the average fuel is €1.50 a liter your talking €1500 in fuel alone

Ships to Europe France is €150 or less typically low an mid season The peak season like august the it goes up a lot sometimes to €500 for car and passengers so book ahead .

Best is get small car good miles to gallon say petrol 1000 cc thing
Drive at 45 to 55mph and you should get 6 liters to 100 kilometrs and save 405 on fuel so fuel cost on 10,000 kilometers will drop to €900

I dont do AA when i do Europe
It was mad money first the membership for Ireland AA and then the three months AA on top for AA europe so not much change out of €700 any time i looked at it .
I do buy a Japanese thing old for less than €500 that has good engine good brakes is safe but dont care if there is doors and wings are dented . I carry basic tool kit to fix basic stuff
If the car break down i just walk away from tools and all .Then I just it hitch hike it or find a bus or plane or and then go home .So far no car ever broke down enough on me that I had to do that .
If it had happened plan B for example Mega bus goes all over central section Europe dirt cheap .
It will take you from Barcelona Spain through to south France to Holland or Coln Germany often for less than €50 .
Buses in Greece are still fairly cheap.I have in the past used lots of those greek buses instead of my car .I parked up the car and bussed it
There are very cheap trans Europe bus services in most eastern European countries.
If car breaks down well change the schedule and bus and train it it around

Cheapest hotels in europe are the formula one types they often cost €40 a night and have twin beds and shower and tv .They often close to cities and some are central city .Some cities the parking there overnight will cost you €40 so booking the hotel you get car parked for free and get to live in city center that night .

Cheapest way to stay in Rome or Paris or many cities for one night its €20 each for one night .
However best to book in advance and they only take credit cards .There is no staff in the motels it all computer control. Its your credit card controls your entry to hotel and the entry to your room .

I got several friends that flew to europe rented car drove around and always stayed in formula 1 hotels then flew home .
Car rental in many parts of Europe in may and June is ok Fees of €15 a a day is possible on one month rentals . People neeed to make sure they dont have extra costs for leaving the rental cars country as they are all GPS now. Thats so rental company can know where car is all the time . Some rentals are limited to only their own country of origin .Luxembourg years ago was the cheapest rental place and often unlimited kilometers . Too many people I knew went there and came back several weeks later and they fell off the stool when they saw 10,000 kilometers in one month .
Holland is reputed to be cheapest these days .
Look the Ryan air rental sites Spain and France were cheap enough last I looked.
If car breaks down they supply another .
Many ways to skin a cat.

Accommodation in Germany is fairly easy the Germans are very friendly. I found most let you stay a few days easy if they had the space.Often i just met them coming from station and they invited me to their homes.yeah Germany was good for me the couple years i lived worked there
France is harder the culture and often the smaller apartments dont tend to make staying with people you meet so easy to do.France the few years I lived worked there was still good for me

Europes a buzz go for it







JED

keithclancy

Take a larger engined Diesel car, you will go absolutely mental in a 1000c Petrol, also it will use more fuel as it's designed for City Driving not motorway cruising, its a false economy for long distance driving.

Most countries on the continent, Diesel is Cheaper than Petrol, also a Diesel will get you more kilometers per liter than a petrol.

Especially in NL for example, 1.68 for Petrol, 1.38 for Diesel.

I get around 6/100km in my Volvo 2.0 Diesel driving between Eindhoven and Berlin, you don't need to blast down the Autobahn anyway, just keep right and don't overtake someone by crawling past them, you will really annoy the other drivers

Use this to calculate any tolls on your route:
http://www.viamichelin.com/

On the Autobahn almost everyone drives 130km/h maximum (the suggested speed)

Don't tailgate trucks, what it saves you in fuel you lose on your windscreen.

Camping wise, Alan Rogers has the nicer camp sites on it:
http://alanrogers.com/

You won't be able to use the Stelleplatzen in many cities as its only for campers but there are many campsites in Cities around Germany

Best of luck!

North by Northwest

Hello fellow posters, hoping some well-travelled European drivers can answer a query for me.

I am off on a first-time driving trip across Europe in a few weeks and will be travelling via Ljubljana down to Pula in Croatia for a few days. I’m hoping to divert off into Trieste in Italy on the way, just looks like a nice place to stop for a few hours and chillax, so I just wanted to know about Italian road tolls. I have a vignette for Slovenia but will I encounter Italian tolls if, when leaving Slovenia I take the A3 highway passing by Zirje and Sezana to cross the border into Italy and drive into Trieste? I expect I’ll head for Pula by taking the E70 out of Trieste, but then again maybe the best thing to do is to take the more scenic SR58 or SS14 instead?

Would welcome any suggestions, just haven’t driven on the continent before and my web research to date tells me that Italian tolls can be quite complicated, as various sections of highway seem to be run by different companies. Nervous but excited at the prospect of the drive though.

Thanks in advance.

munchkin_utd

italian toll roads are no problem. Normally its a mater of just pulling a ticket at the start of the motorway and then paying when you exit for the number of kilometers youve travelled.
So for a couple of km it'd be only 10 or 20c

but for that bit of the motorway down by Trieste it seems there is no toll, with it being tolled from a point a little farther north up to Venice.

North by Northwest

munchkin_utd wrote: »

italian toll roads are no problem. Normally its a mater of just pulling a ticket at the start of the motorway and then paying when you exit for the number of kilometers youve travelled.
So for a couple of km it'd be only 10 or 20c

but for that bit of the motorway down by Trieste it seems there is no toll, with it being tolled from a point a little farther north up to Venice.

thanks for that munchkin ;-)

Your Airbag

mcgeec77 wrote: »

So im just finishing my penultimate year of college and finish exams mid May 2015. I have a total of 5 weeks free which I plan to fill with a road trip to Europe. I am looking for any advise ie Fuel cost, tolls, ferries from Dublin to hollyhead, Helsinki to Sweden etc and some tips in general. My itinerary is:
Dublin to Greece via Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

Then either to return straight home, or drive back to Dublin via Romania/Poland/Latvia/Finland,Sweden/Denmark etc

This trip a minimum of 10,000kms and we (2 of us) plan to camp combined with staying in AirBnBs. Can anyone who has attempted such a trip give use tips it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently doing this, flew into Poland last Sunday (Kracow) and drove to Poznan, Wroclaw, Gdansk and into Lithuania (Vilinus) and then Latvia (Riga) and I'm currently in Estonia (Tallinn).

All I had booked was the flights in and out, I plan to return to Poland and fly home from Warsaw. The car is costing 430 euros for the 14 days, with my buddy splitting the cost with me its only 215 each.

I highly recommend paying the extra for the sat nav as you can waste hours getting lost on european roads that are not clearly marked, when you arrive in a city you can also put a point of interest and go straight to a hostel or hotel.

I haven't paid over 20 for a hostel, most are private rooms with seperate beds but a shared bathroom on the floor.

Last year I did Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic. Same thing, flights were the only thing I booked.

The only advise I can give is the sat nav, and bring some travrl padlocks, a lot of hostels have lockers but charge you to buy the padlock. Others will ask for a deposit on the locker and keys which you get back when you return the keys.

Beer and food is cheap in many places especially the further north you get in Europe, all I can say is have a blast

cdeb

munchkin_utd wrote: »

working out fuel cost is easy.
Find out the L / 100km consumption of your car (MPH is useless for calculations). Most would be about 7 or 8 L/100km which is then say 800L of fuel for 10000km which @ €1.40 per L would be €1120.

MPH would be useless for a fuel consumption calculation alright!

MPG is perfectly useable though.

Guess it's worth noting that the figure given in the car handbook wouldn't necessarily be the one to go with. Would be worthwhile noting how far you actually drive on a tank of petrol and basing calculations on that. More motorway driving (which you'd probably have) should help your mpg too (city driving would drive it up)

Only have experience on long drives in England/Wales (and Ireland obviously), but if you have the time, stay off the motorways - you see a lot more going through towns/on backroads, etc.