Driving Opinions

A snowHead

After as many folks experiences as possible on the Feb HT drive down hell.
In the past we've either had inset day or taken kids out school to get a head start on the Friday morning. Unfortunately, we can't do that anymore as wife works in a school.
Last week was our first experience of HT driving helll after 7 successful trips leaving Friday morning. Friday the 14th the M25 was awful got to Reims 0030 up and out 0700 and arrived at Val Cenis 1800. Perhaps this year was particularly bad but we got caught in all of it?

Expecting people to say avoid HT, we can't as that's when we can ski or drive through the night. I'm not prepared to drive through the night I don't sleep well horizontally I've never slept in a car or plane seat plus I'd not sleep whilst my wife pushes through the darkness thats not how I roll. If we drove through the night we'd be there early the next morning but absolutely no use to anyone and nowhere to rest.

Options are get a later train on the Friday and pitch up St Quinten or similar or 0500-0600 train Saturday and do it in one day?

What is your routine? Trying to make the best from what we know is always going to be a difficult situation.

Real shame we can't get to ski area earlier on the Saturday as its usually fun getting kit, strolling about ans soaking it up

A snowHead

Not sure this will help. My wife was a teacher, so for many years we would travel half term week. One memorable trip started with an Operation Stack delay, then a (very) delayed tunnel - so Friday evening turned into Saturday morning. Then, without having stopped, very very slow around Grenoble.

The next year we went by train. Eurostar to Paris and then TGV to Grenoble, then bus to La Grave. At that time you could board the train at Ashford.. Not cheap -- but much much easier than driving.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

or train to Modane which opens up the Mauriene Valley, Val Cenis, La Toussuire, St Sorlin D'Arves to name a couple of resorts

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@James77,
Are you sure you can't ski at Easter? My wife is also a teacher, and won't countenance me taking even teenagers out of school on my own even if she didn't come, so we are similarly limited to school holidays. February crowded autoroute madness sounds terrible, and we haven't done it because of that. Easter has never been a problem.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Is getting flights an option?

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@Jonny996, this. Two days of driving would rule it out for me.

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We do drive over 2 days, but have the leisurely option of a 2 week trip, and we don't go for half-term. Is finding Sunday-Sunday accommodation an option? YOu could leave resort after skiing on Saturday, stay overnight in Beaune/Dijon and be home in reasonable time on Sunday afernoon.

After all it is free

The first week of Easter (I realise the dates vary) is fantastic in Val Thorens imho. Little to no slush, the whole thing is less busy on the roads and slopes than Feb HT. I know that might break a family tradition. Might save a few bob too.

Yes, I'd always take Easter over half term. And might well fly to Italy. Cheap rental car to, say, Cervinia.

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@James77, Where are you based? Do you have any access to an airport that would fly to Turin? From there, maybe a transfer or rent car to Val Cenis.

I get wanting to take "your" stuff etc, but maybe next year think about how much stress it is for you to be awake and alert that long. Flying may be more expensive but you are not the pilot! It's supposed to be a vacation, not the Long March.

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We had a good half term this year. Left Gloucester at 6pm friday. Got some fast food in dover and ate it getting through port which took about 45mins. Waited a while for ferry at midnight. Did Calais to Luxembourg-Stuttgart-Fern pass which was buy as Saturday afternoon. Stopped in Ruette for at late lunch and made our Check in near Brenner Pass for about 4pm.

Had a great week. Did 5 different resorts over 6 days, none of which were very busy. Left Friday at 4pm did Kufstein-Munich-Nurmberg-Aachen way which I found much better than the hilly roads between Luxembourg and Stuttgart. Made it back home for 10:30am yesterday. Happy wife and kids, doing the same again second week of easter, staying in Volderau to do 5 days on Stubai Glacier.

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@Pasigal, hi. We are 30 minutes from Heathrow and an hour from Gatwick, Luton and Southampton.
Good comments weighing up taking the kitchen sink versus sanity!

@tomj, we could ski at Easter we usually ski Feb half term as it's supposed to be winter but last 3 years its been 5 to 14 degrees. Definitely worth thinking about if quieter on the roads.

You know it makes sense.

Done flying with family a few times, they prefer the car and im impartial tbh, saves me about a grand driving but it is a chore. I get my own week without them when I fly I do what I want so that's the deal.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

We did the HT drive for many years, and now still drive but not HT. like you, I can’t sleep in a moving car, so we’ve always left the uk on Friday afternoon,
Aimed for the 7pm-9pm train. Then drive through the night with me as sole driver taking regular stops for a 30-60m kip/powernap.
Arriving at the resort for 9-10am

I’m now 56, and with a decent car it is still eminently doable.

A snowHead

We flew to Zurich and got the train to Wengen once and it was an absolute nightmare and that is an easier trip than Geneva-BSG-Les Arcs which I did with a friend last year on my free week and was ok with the two of us. It didn't help that we managed to miss the direct train to interlaken. It would probably be loads easier if we did it again but they would take some convincing .Nope, they enjoy nothing more than loading an e class estate and roof box to breaking point and having their safe space. To be fair they sleep half the journey in the car, they never slept on any of the flights or barely on the train. We once did a sleeper train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi which sounds quite nice but even that was a nightmare because of other people. I managed to get in a long argument with an Iranian who could barely speak English who thought it was acceptable to have a neverending phone call at the top of his voice in the hallway of the car everyone was trying to sleep in. I fact now I think about everything that has happened the car seems like heaven. Coming to think of it, last easter I had a massive chunk of aluminium go through my tyre at 4am on the autoroute on the way to 3V with no spare and had to be recovered and get new tyres fitted and they still prefer the car.

A snowHead

@James77, if I’m renting kit, there’s no question re flying. I can get all my gear (including boots) into cabin baggage. If you can do this it has the added advantage that you don’t queue for checkin, you just go straight through security to the lounge or plane. Your family might grumble the first time, but in my experience once they’ve done a trip cabin-bags-only, they won’t want to go back to checkin queues or long waits at the baggage carousel.

We do drive sometimes - often at Easter or if we’re going for 3 weeks at Xmas. But never for HT.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

All sounds a bit dramatic.

It's not like you're trekking up the Amazon.

Truckers do long distance 5 days a week.

Just point and drive.

One drive, one sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I do the same, I do it on my own with a power nap if I get a long blink.

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@Whitegold, the troll strikes again. Go to bed wee fella.

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After all it is free

If I had to drive at half-term I'd be going to Switzerland. The route (to many of the closest resorts) leaves the A39 south of Dijon to cross the Jura mountains to Lausanne by Lake Geneva. I suspect you would avoid many of the holiday autoroute traffic jams this way.

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@Snow&skifanRoughly half of it but in one go, my wife drives to dover and in the day time the other end and I drive overnight but I do stop quite a lot and sometimes sleep maybe once or twice. Very cautious with the night bit. Id stop and miss ferry if I thought there was any risk.

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Having driven (but not at half term) back and forth a lot, often non stop sometimes overnight and many times on my own, I find it very difficult to predict when I'm going to get tired. A lot depends on weather. Rain is trying, and fog is lethal - I would always get off a foggy motorway. But a clear, starry, night is a glorious driving time - as long as you don't get those "long blinks"! And I stop for coffee every two hours quite religiously.

I have done some "power naps" (I used to have a CD, made by the Road Research Lab which talked you through it, but don't have the CD or a CD player any more!!) I found it very effective. A coffee, followed immediately by a nap, followed by a brisk walk around in the cold, then back on the road. But you can only do that once!

I think people's response to lack of a decent night's sleep is very variable. My sister and I can both cope pretty well. I sleep fitfully these days, and often only get a couple of hours but can function perfectly OK next day and then catch up. My brother in law, an experienced long-distance driver, just couldn't do an "all night" - but equally, he was one of those people who goes to bed and expects to go to sleep all night! I never found a night in a hotel, after a long active day, very satisfactory and as for a night on a car ferry, getting to sleep late (if at all) and then being door-bashed awake hours before going ashore, forget it! There's nothing as frustrating as lying in a hotel, wide awake, at 4 am, thinking how many hundreds of miles you could have done. I've never slept well in a car, either - especially if my husband was driving!

I live very near Portsmouth ferry port - but going to the Alps, it's always Eurotunnel.

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I worked night shifts for a few years in my early twenties so my body clock is pretty well broken from that and I only sleep 6 hours a night anyway. So if I dont work the day before I drive that is enough to make up for it I find.

I drove all of the luggage down to Venice to collect the family on the 14th Feb for a week in the Dolomites. Drive was easy; set off 8 days earlier and broke the journey with a week in Saalbach. All flew out of Milan on Saturday and I will fly back on Friday to retrieve the car and drive it home again with their luggage...... Via France for a couple of weeks skiing

With a little forward planning, you can make things easy for the family at half term and reward yourself too! It's a win-win!

You know it makes sense.

@Klamm Franzer, now that is how its done!, taken note and will be informing wife shortly Eh oh!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I think a single drive down is OK if you have two, or preferably thee or more drivers. If they swap every 2 hours then you can do the 10 hours in 5 slots. Then you can alternate drivers in the way that works best for you. The big challenge is if conditions are bad, especially if foggy or snowy. We have winter tyres and they or all-seasons make a difference if it’s cold or snowy en route.

We do the route mentioned by @HilbertSpace, coming off the Autoroute des Anglais and driving over the Jura to Lausanne. Then around Lake Geneva to the Swiss 4 Vallées. The only downside is if the Jura (1000m) is snowy, but then you’ll have the same challenge at your destination.

Personally, we do the drive down in 2 days, with an overnight near Troyes, and make it part of the holiday. But we have that luxury given we’re retired. And not doing the school holiday run. When we did have to do this, we found that an overnight worked better for us even though we could driver-share between two. We’ve done long drives in the summer but you can pull over for a sleep then, whereas in the winter you have to keep the engine running to fend off the cold and it just didn’t work as well.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Glad I'm not on the roads at UK half term...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lklqk4p1vo

"Tiredness is even more dangerous for drivers than drink and drugs, warned a sleep scientist."

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@James77, find somewhere that takes a Sunday=Sunday booking. Then you can set off after the main wave on Saturday, overnight 6 hours into France and arrive on Sunday, either early afternoon after a relaxed day or early start and ski from the car.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Take the kids out of school, drive down Friday with a stop near a French airport. get wife to fly down first thing Saturday so you pick her up from the airport and carry on the resort. Just a thought.

After all it is free

@gixxerniknik, That is an interesting thought. Thank you.

We drive regularly, but this year was our first half term drive. We typically go the first week of easter, leaving on the saturday, stay somewhere overnight and finish the journey into resort on the sunday, then doing the return journey in one go the following sunday.

This time, we drove to Dijon on friday 14th Feb, overnighted and left at 7.30 from Dijon on the saturday morning to finish the journey to Val D'Isere. The intention was to get back on saturday rather than the sunday to give us a day to sort ourselves out before going back to work/school on the monday.

It was obviously peak week, but what should have been a 4.5 hour journey took us 8.5 hrs. It was like groudhog day. Satnav said 4.5 hrs when we left, and 4 hrs later still said 4.5 hrs. All the main routes were gridlocked, with the police closing the work arounds off the main routes. The rockfall had been fully cleared, there were no noticeable accidents or breakdowns blocking the roads. It was all just weight of traffic.

Next year, what ever date we chose to travel, we'll be going back to leaving on the saturday, arriving in resort on the sunday. Sooooo much easier.

We were staying with friends, so chose to stay an extra day and return on the sunday. Obviously the benefit of an extra day's (quiet slopes) skiing, but a much easier journey home.

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To summarise the options in no particular order:

1) Drive through the night solo (as mentioned depends how you can cope)
2) Get Sunday to Sunday accommodation (restricted options but definitely doable)
3) Fly (usual fly v drive pros/cons apply)
4) Train (restricted to where trains go and booking early to get best prices)
5) Go at Easter

We drive through the night (2 drivers who can sleep OK in a moving car) but we've only been HT once - usually go Christmas and Easter.

We have got off Sat-Sat accommodation a couple of times (but not HT).

Note: Easter just means when the schools break up which can be late March or early April. Easter w/e itself varies a lot.

Feb HT is as you mention mid-winter so theoritically excellent conditions where as Christmas/Easter is more 50/50. but tbh I think people often overstate the significance.

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