This page aims to give road trips advice and lessons learned from twenty years of mistakes and hindsight. Hopefully it will help others to plan, book and enjoy your realistic road trip and stay within budget!
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘it’s about the journey, not the destination’. Well, for road trips this really is the case!
Road trips don’t have to be a once a year or once in a lifetime epic trip. Indeed, a 2 or 3 day break can be just as good for the soul and a lot more achievable! After some memorable fails and blinding visions with hindsight I have learned a few things when it comes to arranging a road trip.
General Road Trips advice
Planning is king
Work out your ‘must see’ sights and then map it. Look at travel time and then look in more detail to find other places to see on the way and break the driving down into manageable chunks.
Be realistic
Be realistic when you look at how far you can drive in a day. A road trip should be fun, not an endurance marathon. While driving in the US we could do 500 miles in a day but that was pretty tedious and now we’d rather do less miles and enjoy ourselves.
In Bulgaria even 100 miles a day was hard work as the roads there made distances a struggle. Know where you are going and allow for it.
Don’t drive every day
Don’t drive every day – it’s lovely to be somewhere for 2 or 3 days and walk or use public transport for a change.
Remember the basics
In my case, this is : sat nav, phone mount, charging leads, plenty of good music and audio books. Personally I love audio books for making the time pass whilst driving. As a final resort you could even chat to the people you’re with!
Sat nav is now pretty universal but it isn’t faultless. Take a map so you have a rough idea of where you’re going which helps with navigating anyway! It’s also useful for areas with patchy signal, ie; most of the UK.
Be aware of local laws
Not just speed limits but laws about what you need to have in the car. If you’re hiring a car this should be covered by the hire company but let the hire company know if you’re driving out of the country as different rules (and charges!) may apply.
We got caught driving back into Bulgaria from Romania as we hadn’t bought a little tax disc that I didn’t even know about. The fine was €300 but when I showed them my empty wallet we negotiated down to €3 for a cappuccino!
Think about where to stay
If you’re planning three days in a city as part of a trip then make it a city break and hire a car back at the airport. Driving in cities is not fun and it defeats the object of a road trip if you’re parked up for a few days!
Do your research
Sites like Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor are great for getting information and advice on destinations, routes and sights as well as places to stay and eat. Make sure you factor in hire car surcharges if you aren’t going to be doing a round trip and dropping the car at the original location. A useful piece of road trips advice is to look at nearby tours to get ideas for itineraries.
Budget sensibly
It’s easy to pay for the car, flight and hotel upfront and then think that’s it but it is just the start! Toll roads can add a lot to your daily expenses in some areas of Europe, we have spent over €60 in a day on Spanish tolls.
Fuel can be expensive, sometimes it’s cheaper to explore an area and then fly to the next centre rather than do an extended drive with the associated fuel, tolls, car hire and tedium involved.
Hire cars
Before the trip
If you’re doing a fly-drive then I’d recommend buying a car insurance excess policy. These cover you for the excess on your hire car insurance and are massively cheaper than the rates charged by hire car companies.
I have an excess policy that covers up to a £1000 excess on hire car damage for a year and costs about £40. This is usually what hire car companies charge for a day to give you zero excess so it’s good value! I have only claimed once and that went through immediately with no problems, they dealt with Hertz direct and I didn’t have to pay out anything.
If you’re hiring a car it’s also working out who will do the driving – if you have more than one named driver the costs mount up as the companies charge a surcharge each day. Remember to take your own sat nav or a mount for your phone and charging cables . In my experience as the sat nav provided by hire companies is both very expensive and very old.
One other thing I have learned is that, rather than booking the top of the range car you’d really like for the trip, book a basic car. I now tend to book the minimum size that’s acceptable for me and then when I get to the desk to collect the car, see what upgrades they have.
Collecting your hire car
I have had some amazing deals for a minimal extra cost (Mini convertible, Mercedes SLK, Volvo XC60 for between £10 and £20 a day more than a Corsa!). It is also worth joining the hire company loyalty scheme if you travel a lot as that often gets you free upgrades.
Finally, when hiring any car, inspect it fully before driving away. Take pictures and video and query any damage. Companies seem to charge for cosmetic damage but not actually do the repair work so the car you get may look more like a mobile scrapheap than a new vehicle.
Record and note everything as you will get stung otherwise! Oh and finally finally – remember your driving license!! I didn’t for one trip so Deb had to drive for a week in Spain, relaxing for me but not so much for her!
Hotels and loyalty programs
I like to be organised when I go away and have everything booked and planned. If you do a lot of travelling it is worth joining the hotel loyalty programs and then, where feasible, sticking to those brands. I often have had almost free holidays using Avios points for flights, hotel points to get free nights stay (and free breakfast if you are a Hilton Diamond member!) and free car upgrades for the hire car.
It is a bit of hassle juggling them all but it is, in my opinion, worth it. You can also opt for a program such as Hotels.com where, after staying 10 nights, you get the average spend for those 10 nights to use as a discount on another stay.
Flying
Depending on how much flying you do there are various cost reducing options here. There are plenty of sites/apps with cheap flight deals, I’ve listed a couple below. If you’re doing city breaks it’s often better to book a package rather than arranging it independently as the deals you get can be excellent.
There are also some airline programs by the budget airlines that give you free seat upgrades/speedy boarding/extra baggage for a year in return for an annual payment. Almost all airlines seem to have loyalty programs and these can often be merged with other schemes so it is quite easy to accumulate points quickly.
Hire car excess policies
Car hire insurance
Hilton hotels
Hotels.com
Europcar
British Airways
Easyjet Plus
Lonely Planet
Trip Advisor
Kayak
Cheap flights
Fuel costs