UKC

Hi all,

My wife and I are currently looking at a summer trip down to the french Alps. We are about 4.5hrs from the tunnel, and its 8.5 hours to Samoens area from Calais.

We have a 1 and a 3 year old. Does anybody have any good tips or experience on how to split the journey up and timetable it all?

i.e good location to stop at cheap hotel, or just blast it all through the night etc. I feel reluctant to mess about with their sleep parents too much. Im sure any parent would agree that that is not an area you want to regress in. 

Another idea I had was Disney land for a day with a stop nearby night before and night of.

any info or ideas appreciated.

Thanks Ed

In reply to Ed Booth:

Depends on how your kids sleep. Assuming you are taking the peage, there will be almost no sharp braking or tight turns so if they just nod off in the car and then stay asleep, it might be a win-win to do a night-time drive and get the whole lot done while they are unconscious. If they don't, well.....

In reply to Ed Booth:

We've travelled to the south of France, with 3 children, for climbing which took two days. The youngest was 9 months. We just pulled into a random town and got a room in a hotel.  If you want to take a less risky approach and pre-book the French chain hotels (Ibis, etc) are fine.

Our experience is that children adapt to any situation. We have camped with a 3 month old.

On other occasions we have driven non stop for 12-14 hours through the night. Had breakfast then found a beach/park for a few hours. One adult sleeps and the other is on sentry duty.

It's just a holiday. What's the worse than go wrong?  The minor glitches become mini adventures and great stories to tell later in life. It all depends on the parents' perception of risk.

Enjoy

In reply to Ed Booth:

My advice having done it with two boys both from a very early age; get the driving over and done with ASAP and drive later (the better) in the day; don't drag the journey out any longer than you have to.

Before we got fully vanned, with the young kids (same age/younger than yours) we'd often aim to get to the F1 at south Troyes (maybe under new name now, close to A5/A26 interchange) as useful stopover point (getting late afternoon / early evening tunnel and getting there late).  Then be about ~ 4 hours in morning to Samoens

Kids are amazingly flexible; if you're lucky, you'll instil long journey robustness in them from an early age.

On the way back we've done some massive in-a-oners.  South of France to Peak, non-stop. 

Audio books for all to listen too proved awesome when they got a bit bigger (the how to train a dragon series were just brilliant with Tennant)  

In reply to Ed Booth:

We've done it a few times from South Shropshire, including with kids the same age as yours.  When they were little best option was:

• Early afternoon ferry from Dover.  DFDS are good, usually cheap and they have softplay on board.
• Arrive in France late-afternoon.
• Drive as far as we could manage straight from the ferry, hoping that the kids sleep most of the way.  This usually meant stopping between 10:30 and midnight, Dijon is a good place to aim for.  Find a Formula 1, pay for one room, 40 euros ish (which technically only sleeps 3 people).  Sneak one of the children past the front desk when they're not looking.
• 1 adult sleeps on the top bed.  1 sleeps in the bed with the children (in practice this was always my wife as she was the one who refused to pay extra for a room that had space for 4 people).  
• Get back on the road about 8am, you'll have 3-4 hours driving left to get to the Alps.

Once you're off the ferry, the plan above is pretty flexible depending on the needs of the children.  1 year olds aren't very persuadable, and constant screaming can make the journey pretty miserable.

If you've got any family in the South East and can stay with them the night before the ferry (or just book a Travelodge) that breaks it up a bit. 

In reply to Ed Booth:

As others have said. We would tend to use the budget hotels (F1 or Etap), occasionally pushing the boat our for an Ibis (but these tend to be more into towns and therefore off route). We would just see how the driving was going and book ahead en route. When the eldest was 4 plus they got the excitement of camping on the floor with a thermarest!! 

There are other options of stopping off somewhere for a few days (e.g Font).

In reply to djwilse:

I would add that Disneyland for a day (or more) is in no way restful for the parents -cauchemar!

In reply to Sam W:

By the time you've got to Dijon you might as well just press on to Samoens in a oner

We have stopped at Dijon on past trips when they were younger - but the good thing about the Troyes A5/A26 interchange hotel was that it was just two minutes off the motorway.  We tend to cross via the Tunnel much later in the day though.

In reply to Ed Booth:

Are you taking camping gear? If so most towns have camping municipals, we found some really nice ones in slightly random places - maybe have time for an evening stroll round a town you've never even heard of before. If it's peeing down Formula 1 or similar is the next cheapest and more simple option but can be slightly odd places! 

I've driven from Finland to Worcestershire and back a few times when my older kids were little, and we've slept in German autobahn stops for a few hours and so on, ok for one night, the kids just tended to sleep in their car seats fine - from long before I needed to stop. A couple of years ago we did it the other way around (we now live in Sheffield) - so to Finland and back. We now have child 3 who slept happily in his seat much of the way. But Children 1 and 2 - now teens didn't enjoy it so much so we stopped and camped each night. But getting down to the Alps is nothing in comparison! 😉 

Have a great trip. Like everyone else says, the kids will probably be totally chilled and happy. You and your wife on the other hand... 😀

In reply to Ed Booth: I’d second the south  Troyes F1...  it’s not the classiest but it does the job.

We did it a couple of times prelockdown and will be doing it again this summer hopefully.

We live in Northumberland and have done Newcastle to Amsterdam and the Calais option. 
 

I prefer leaving in the afternoon driving as far south as possible the staying near Calais. Get an early ferry then just get onto the toll roads and drive. All our 3kids are good in the van and  don’t take much amusing so travelling is pretty easy, the services/facilities are always good and there’s lots of picnic spots to stop. 
 

We always found campsites to be amazing and well looked after. I think the biggest thing we found was the heat for the really little ones can be stifling at times.

Also don’t leave the side door of the tent open if it’s stormy season. 

In reply to Ed Booth:

Only done it with a 6-month old, which is actually easier, as they sleep, but you have to stop every 2 hours to get them out of the car seat (avoids spinal problems).

Stop at the bigger Aires (services) - they're brilliant. Some have playgrounds and nice picnic areas and so on - especially good if they have a farm shop with local produce. We stopped at one that was having a big kiddy thing going on and a nice French lady brought us over some picnic bits.

I've camped/bivvied in a couple of the larger ones and even a couple of the tiny ones with nothing other than a loo - just be a bit careful where you pitch your tent (make sure someone/a dog hasn't taken a dump there!).

In reply to henwardian:

We did the drive through the night thing once. Child got a full 8 hours and was full of beans the next day, parents were zombies. Didn't try it again 🤣

In reply to Ed Booth:

Make sure the air conditioning in your vehicle is working - nothing quite like 2 over-hot kids on a long car journey.

In reply to Ed Booth:

I don't have any kids but wouldn't personally do it in one day even so. What we've done in the past (ie per-covid) is leave work a bit early and drive to the tunnel, eat in the tunnel then drive a couple of hours the other side. The b&B hotels are a bit of an upgrade on hotel f1s (they're en-suite etc) but still decent value and near the autoroute. Next morning we try to get up fairly early and do an hour or 2 pre-breakfast, then have an early lunch and hopefully arrive mid-afternoon.

On the way back we tend to make a few stops in the morning, have a solid few hours on the autoroute in the afternoon then stop somewhere interesting for the evening. I can recommend Laon but I'm sure there are plenty of other places.

Aires come in 3 general varieties:

- Basic rest areas - just parking, toilets and some picnic benches. If you have your own supplies these are good for a quick drink/toilet stop.

- Small aires - basically a large filling station with a cafe. There's often parking beyond the filling station. Often under-equipped with toilets.

- Full aires - like motorway services in the uk. Can be pretty good but get very busy around lunchtime in the summer. The carparks are often not great so if you're just having a quick stop it could easily cost 20 mins before you've even got out the car.

A liber-T tag for the autoroutes makes things easier if you can get hold of one.

In reply to Michael Hood:

Spent a week following the TdF with a mate back in 2013 - stinking hot day on the way to Dover in his car.

"Let's put the air con on", says I - "We can't, it's broken", says he!

If I'd known before, we could have taken my car with working air con!

In reply to Ed Booth:

Don't do it the way our parents did on our Bakewell-Switzerland trip. Reached France, set up the tents in the evening and got a brew on, and someone confused washing powder with powdered milk. Drove off next morning with the passports still lying on the car roof; detour to Strasbourg for replacements. Arrived in Interlaken and the clutch gave up the ghost.

Otherwise - another vote for doing it in one go. We did Hamburg-Rome in one with three children, started mid afternoon and arrived the next morning. Crossing the Alps at sunrise with everybody else happily asleep was brilliant! 

In reply to Ed Booth:

Pretty much on the lines of what others have suggested, using budget hotels.  There was one memorable trip with two cars in which the kids were put to bed in a Campanile, and two sets of parents readjusted the blood level in their alcohol flow on the balcony/walkway outside.

The painful alternative is the tunnel late at night - food, refuel and reset in Folkestone and then drive though the night with a lot of the miles done before they wake up.  Then an lunch and run around before finishing the driving off.

As they get older, Harry Potter recordings are the way forward for all in the car

In reply to Ed Booth:

Heya,

Probably not adding much to what else has been said, but we've been doing south of France  / Geneva / snowboarding in the Alps at least twice a year since eldest was 6 months - they are now 12 and 13. So much easier with kids to just throw everything into the car!

We're about 2h from the tunnel and then either 9h or 12+ the other side. I've always driven over night. Usually catch a 9pm ish tunnel as there is no way the kids sleep beforehand from excitement and the rule is that they sleep once we're in France. I used to be able to snooze on the tunnel and then just bang out the drive with everyone asleep. Now 13 years older I have one 1h stop roughly half way or if I've been really busy in the run up I'll stop if I'm tired.

Once you are used to the Dutch and Belgians treating the roads like their own personal racetrack it's actually far more pleasant than driving in the UK.

Kids and wife sleep soundly wrapped in blankets and pillows ,they wake up when it's light and then we tend to just let them watch DVDs.

I crash out with some beers when we arrive at the destination.

Whatever you do - get a tag for the motorways. So much easier than faffing around with tickets and paying. Also really worth using Tesco vouchers for the tunnel.

Hope that helps in some way.

Phil

In reply to Ed Booth:

When I was a kid (though not quite that young) we did south west France for a family holiday every other summer.  It was split up, typically we would take the Portsmouth-Caen ferry then stop overnight near the port, once more in mid-France, typically Tours or Saumur, and then on to the destination, and reverse on the way back but the night boat instead of the Caen stop on the way back.  It was Eurocamp so no tents to put up, but that pattern seems to make some sense to me.  Make the stopovers a decent part of the holiday (e.g. we used to choose the Saumur site as it had a very good swimming pool) rather than just a Formule 1 at a motorway services so they aren't a drag.

I can't support driving overnight, it is highly dangerous unless you're already properly adapted to a night shift and take the few days to properly adapt back for the return.  Ignoring the safety of others on the road, the mind boggles as to why anyone would put anything as precious as young children at the high risk this poses.

In reply to PhilWS:

Please don't do this.  It's horribly dangerous unless you're properly adjusted to the night shift, i.e. getting up well-rested at 6pm on the day, "breakfast" then leave.  Even if you're happy with the risk, consider other road users.

In reply to PhilWS:

My children travelled with us from the age dot, so very little trouble in the car. (The only time arguments broke out between the children, I would pull over, stop the car and tell them: "This car's going nowhere 'til you shut up". But most of the time they would be very good). My preference has always been to start very early (4 a.m.) and try to get to my final destination in the very early afternoon. Often my wife and children would sleep almost the whole way, and then when we got into the Swiss or French Alps my wife would wake up and usually make some pertinent observation like "Oh, mountains". For crossing the channel my personal preference (pre-Brexit - I don't know what it's like now) was to take the ferry. I find walking around the ship (and gazing out at the looming White Cliffs of Dover on the return) a nice break from the driving. Driving south from the ferry through France, I would choose to drive as far a possible and stop en route at a campsite, usually about 8pm, soon enough to be able to go straight into a nearby cafe for the evening meal. For these stops, we would use minimal tents that could be packed up in a hurry even if wet, without touching the main camping gear used at the destination campsite in Chamonix, say. Another thing I always do just before driving into the mountains is fuel the vehicle right up because fuel generally gets more expensive with altitude and the fuel consumption on mountains roads increases dramatically.  

In reply to Neil Williams:

+1 

the times I've done an over nighter I've been in a position to spend the previous 2 or 3 days at home switching my body clock around a bit. 

OP, when they are a little older, I'd recommend deprieving them of their usual entertainment and or phone the week before a long haul trip, so they have renewed novelty value when you travel.

In reply to nniff:

Ours really enjoyed mr stink by David walliams. None of the others have been anyway near as good! 
 

Narnia has been popular as well but it’s hard to follow for little ones.

In reply to Ed Booth:

I’ve literally driven from the Peak to Chamonix dozens of times with young kids. Always do it in one, night or day. Food and drinks for the duration and only stop for fuel coffee and toilet breaks. Absolutely no problem. Observing speed limits, 8 hours from Calais to Chamonix and you have an extra day from not overnighting and save on hotel expenses.w

In reply to Ed Booth:

The French side is the easy bit. Its gettig to Dover thats the PITA from the Peak and feels like it takes forever. English motorways so flippin busy.

In reply to ChrisJD: even more of a PITA from the lakes . To OP , your kids are a bit young for iPads / phones / laptops but they are a god send . I Download a few films on to various devices and they will happily zone out . I plan on doing this next time ( after years of tinkering with it ) akes to tunnel in late afternoon / evening , stop for tea on the way ( or better still make premier inn at the tunnel just before the restaurant shuts ) Night in the premier inn near the tunnel followed  by big cooked breakfast as soon as restaurant opens.  Early morning tunnel then drive through the day with two bigish stops.

other thought : . In winter If possible avoid driving into or out of the ski resorts on a Friday or Saturday as there are several choke points that cause delays ( although nothing like M25 carnage ) . 
 

ehrn my kids were younger I would happily take a few days over journey with stops at small French towns , camping or B and B . 

In reply to ChrisJD:

I gave up on crossings from Dover years ago in favour of overnight crossings from Portsmouth or Poole.