Drive to Europe!

Your car gives you the flexibility to fetch a load of shopping from Carrefour or do a run out to a water park you missed last time. All the time you are living out the back of it, using it as a shelter, a larder, a bar.

CONSUMER HOLIDAY PRIORITIES

To what extent these habits have changed are reflected in the findings of the British Travel Awards survey. Despite their finding that consumers will continue to see holidays as one of their priorities, this year there's no mention of motoring holidays in their digest.

What has happened to the motoring holiday? As much as a thirst for the exotic and the preponderance of cheaper flights, the pressure on our time seems to have pushed the motoring holiday out of the picture for many people.

We're happy to embrace the hassles of flying in the name of guaranteed better weather; though the irony of course is that after you've driven to the airport, parked, checked-in, and done all these things in reverse the other side of your flight, you probably could have driven there in less time in the first place.

FLYING - HIDDEN CHARGES

With the hidden charges involved in flying with even low-cost carriers these days, driving might even have worked out cheaper.

And what happens when air travel fails is only too evident following the chaos of the last few days, as the patron saint of anybody-who-lives-near-an-airport continues to belch its dirt into the atmosphere.

FUEL ECONOMY IN FRANCE

Despite escalating fuel costs and the inevitable road tolls, a trip to the continent in the new BMW 318 Touring would give you an easy 60 mpg and priceless peace of mind. As long as you pack your own picnic, avoiding the cruel pricing at French service stations, you would have a good shot at serious economy.

But to think of any holiday in purely economic terms is surely something of a mistake.

DRIVING HOLIDAYS ARE ABOUT LIBERTY

Driving holidays in your own car are about liberty, about being able to leave it by the side of a road for a few days and not worry about the money you are wasting on rental. To have booked nothing and be driving round an unknown country in the near-dark is a rite of passage for the young family and teenage road-tripper alike.

Almost regardless of the pitfalls, to drive on holiday is to feel like you've been on holiday. And there will always be a body of people for whom the driving holiday is the perfect holiday, regardless of the more exotic alternatives.

 

Ben Williams, 21st April 2010