Sites to help plan a road trip

didgemaster

didgemaster

didgemaster

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Joined
11 Aug 2003
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1,233
Location
Taunton, Somerset
Hi all, My better half and I are mulling over the idea of a a European road trip with our kids this summer. We love the med, France, Spain but its starting to be too hot in the summer. We were thinking of taking the chunnel and then driving up through Germany and into Poland, perhaps taking in Prague to Zakopane. We'd like to spend some time seeing the Alps and I have been lead to believe the Eastern Alps are cheaper to visit. Then Budapest through Austria and France and back to the chunnel. We plan to do this in the last 3 weeks of August. Wanted to flesh out an itinerary and maybe get some suggestions of you please.
 
July last year i did 10 day euro road trip covering 2500 miles. Did Belgium/Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France

I found google maps best for planning as you can create routes for each day and save them onto your devices or email them where you need them to be then each day just load up that days itinery when on the road.
 
The_One said:
July last year i did 10 day euro road trip covering 2500 miles. Did Belgium/Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France

I found google maps best for planning as you can create routes for each day and save them onto your devices or email them where you need them to be then each day just load up that days itinery when on the road.
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Thanks for the reply. That's how I thought that I would navigate my way around and like you say downloading the journey when I have WiFi to save on mobile data . I was more after ideas on where to stop and what to see along the way
 
The_One said:
July last year i did 10 day euro road trip covering 2500 miles. Did Belgium/Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France

I found google maps best for planning as you can create routes for each day and save them onto your devices or email them where you need them to be then each day just load up that days itinery when on the road.
Click to expand...
Did something similar ourselves, Did Calais -> Stuttgart (Germany) -> Bregenz (Austria) -> Attersee (Austria) -> Bonn (Germany) -> Brugge -> Calais.

Main stay was in Attersee and others listed were overnight stop-offs.

On trip took in;

Koblenz
Stuttgart Porsche Museum
Lake Konstanz and Bregenz Festspiel Opera
Neuschwanstein Castle
Salzburg
Salzburg Red Bull Hanger
Hallstadt
Attersee, Wolfgangsee, Mondsee
Dachstein Mountain with the Ice Caves and Five Fingers View Platform over Hallstadt etc
St Wolfgang im Salzkammergut
Brugge

Our phone contracts allow roaming so didn't really need to worry about saving routes etc. For main journey we tend to see route in google maps and plan stops along the way, then just research what we want to do when at main stop. We don't tend to book much up before hand in terms of day trips as don't want to be tied to the weather etc so leaves us flexible to decide what we want to do on each day etc. That was four of us so 2adults, 1 kid, and our friend in Poland whose daughter we invited caught a bus from Poznan to Stuttgart to join us from for the trip.

Were just sketching out this year but looking something like

Calais -> Munich -> Lake Bled via Grossglockner as ran out of time to do that last year -> Split -> Vienna -> (somewhere in Germany) -> Calais. Split being the place we spend a week.

Also, going back to original post, @didgemaster can vouch for Zakopane, have been there and was a definitely worth a visit, plan to go back. Plenty to do in Krakow and surrounding area too (depending on age of kids, you have Auschwitz for example), the Salt mines to name a few.

A couple of years back we did Calais -> Annecy (via Dijon) - stayed in Annecy for a week -> Lake Konstanz via Laussane, Thun, Interlaken, Rheinfalls, Stein am Rhien (spent a few days on western side of Lake Konstanz) -> then back up through the black forrest via Triberg -> Metz -> Calais. Would really rate this round as well and really enjoyed it. We have been to Annecy a few times and always happy to go back. Definitely rate that area of the Alps if you like mountains as lots of things to do.
 
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We’ve done a couple of road trips across Europe and one thing that dictates where you visit is how long you are willing to drive to get to the next place/city you want to visit, so you have to be realistic, more so with children in the car. I always planned on not driving for more than 3 to 4 hours, so we would leave after breakfast and aimed to be at the next place by lunch.

I used Google maps to plan our trips
 
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The_One said:
July last year i did 10 day euro road trip covering 2500 miles. Did Belgium/Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France

I found google maps best for planning as you can create routes for each day and save them onto your devices or email them where you need them to be then each day just load up that days itinery when on the road.
Click to expand...
@didgemaster We did a 6 day Iceland road trip in Feb last year, planned everything through Google maps, labelled each day within the map, downloaded offline in case of signal dramas and it was amazingly easy, the added bonus was finding out the hire car had Android auto which meant everything could be selected on there without touching the phone.
 
JRJ said:
@didgemaster We did a 6 day Iceland road trip in Feb last year, planned everything through Google maps, labelled each day within the map, downloaded offline in case of signal dramas and it was amazingly easy, the added bonus was finding out the hire car had Android auto which meant everything could be selected on there without touching the phone.
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I want to get iceland in maybe next year! Would love to hear your experiences / recs!
 
randomshenans said:
Legend, thanks!
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@randomshenans sorry for the delay got side tracked and been unable to locate my Google routes only the pins.
@didgemaster sorry for the thread hijack

Flew Bristol to Keflavik with Easyjet arriving about 1200
Day 1 collected the hire car from the airport and took a left out of the airport and travelled anti clockwise around the western tip of Iceland taking in the bridge over 2 continents, Gunnuhver Volcano and hot springs, some pretty light houses and churches before heading into Grindavik for some food, following food we were booked into Blue lagoon for a sunset visit, once done we drove up to Reykjavik for the first and second night.

Day 2 was spent exploring Reykjavik, eating drinking and headed up the lift to the top of Hallhrimskirkja, we also did the 5d fly over Iceland experience which the kids loved.

Day 3 headed north out of Reykjavik and did the 3 main locations on the golden circle tour, with the freedom of the hire car we also dived into any places that we spotted tourist buses and normally found some lovely viewing spots, waterfalls etc from Gulfoss we then headed south to join the ring road stopping off in Seljandsfoss and its neighbouring waterfalls. We stayed the night in a small hotel about a mile from Skogafoss.

Day 4 Longest day of driving but drove the ring road east out to Diamond beach, before making our way back west via 3 or 4 glacier stops again stopping as we saw fit thanks to the hire car and discovered a lot more than we'd originally planned, we spent the night in a hostel near to the village of Kalfafell.

Day 5 we continued west taking in Gigjaja and then the town of Vik and Reynisfkara black sand beach before heading out for a walk to the iconic Solheimasandur plane wreck and then Skogafoss falls and the walk to the top. Bed for the night was a log cabin just outside the town of Hvolsvollur.

Day 6 we headed out early to take in the town of Selfoss and Kerid crater just to the north before driving the coastal road back towards Grindavik and through volcano country, there were no eruptions when we went Feb 23, before heading back to the aiprort for our late afternoon flight.
 
JRJ said:
@randomshenans sorry for the delay got side tracked and been unable to locate my Google routes only the pins.
@didgemaster sorry for the thread hijack

Flew Bristol to Keflavik with Easyjet arriving about 1200
Day 1 collected the hire car from the airport and took a left out of the airport and travelled anti clockwise around the western tip of Iceland taking in the bridge over 2 continents, Gunnuhver Volcano and hot springs, some pretty light houses and churches before heading into Grindavik for some food, following food we were booked into Blue lagoon for a sunset visit, once done we drove up to Reykjavik for the first and second night.

Day 2 was spent exploring Reykjavik, eating drinking and headed up the lift to the top of Hallhrimskirkja, we also did the 5d fly over Iceland experience which the kids loved.

Day 3 headed north out of Reykjavik and did the 3 main locations on the golden circle tour, with the freedom of the hire car we also dived into any places that we spotted tourist buses and normally found some lovely viewing spots, waterfalls etc from Gulfoss we then headed south to join the ring road stopping off in Seljandsfoss and its neighbouring waterfalls. We stayed the night in a small hotel about a mile from Skogafoss.

Day 4 Longest day of driving but drove the ring road east out to Diamond beach, before making our way back west via 3 or 4 glacier stops again stopping as we saw fit thanks to the hire car and discovered a lot more than we'd originally planned, we spent the night in a hostel near to the village of Kalfafell.

Day 5 we continued west taking in Gigjaja and then the town of Vik and Reynisfkara black sand beach before heading out for a walk to the iconic Solheimasandur plane wreck and then Skogafoss falls and the walk to the top. Bed for the night was a log cabin just outside the town of Hvolsvollur.

Day 6 we headed out early to take in the town of Selfoss and Kerid crater just to the north before driving the coastal road back towards Grindavik and through volcano country, there were no eruptions when we went Feb 23, before heading back to the aiprort for our late afternoon flight.
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Day 1, 2 and 3 seem very familiar to what we did :) We had to planned to cover some of your day 4 and 5 in our day 3 but a snow storm which closed all the roads out of Reykjavik put a stop to that one :(

Ours Was;

Arrival Day: Fly in Later Afternoon - Pick up hire car (if anyones going in feb, recommened a 4x4 with studded tyres, we had a Dacia - would have struggled without proper tyres on some of the trips we did). Drive into Reykjavic and saw Hallhrimskirkja by night

Day 1: Drove into Reykjavic, had a wonder around the sights for the morning, back up to the church, down to the seafront, grab a hot dog at the famous hot-dog stand etc. After that, headed out to the "Bridge Between Continents" which bridges the Eurasian and American tectonic plates. Then around to the coast to Valahnúkamöl, the nearby Gunnuhver Hot Springs, around to Grindavik and then up to Blue Lagoon then back to Reykjavic

Day 2 : Drove around Golden Circe taking in Thingvellir, Gulfoss, the Geysir, We had a Snowmobiling tour booked on the Glacier which you got up to on this crazy Icelandic bus which was effectivly a full size coach on monster truck tyres and raised up. Driving between Thingvellir and Gulfoss goes down as one of the sketchiest drives i have ever done as we had underestimated the time it would take and road conditions - can't believe how good studded tyres are in the snow but goes against what your mind is telling you! Then on Geysir back to Reykjavic the snow came in even worse and got back just before they shut all the roads down. If we had got stuck outside of Reykjavic in that situation not sure what we would have done!

Day 3 : Was meant to have been the drive out to the black sands beach, area - but as forementioned the roads were all closed. Spent day in Reykjavic again, walked around centre, did the aformentioned 5D experience, got some Icelandic Fish and Chips, and went up to the Perlan museum which was quite interesting.

Appetite was wetted! We will be back but late spring probably next time rather then deepest winter.
 
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