Driving countries.

[Drawweight]

We’re struggling to choose a holiday this year. The OH has arthritis in her ankles so that limits mobility.

Some of the best holidays we’ve had is basing ourselves in a hotel, hiring a car and just driving wherever the roads take us.

Recently we’ve done Cyprus for 2 weeks and Santorini for a week. However we can’t decide where to go next.

Warm but not too hot with decent driving roads enough to keep us occupied for 2 weeks. Not the US.

[Condi]

Italy, especially in the North, is a wonderful driving country.

[chip*]

Fly to Innsbruck and you can tour around Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, Fly further east to Graz, and you have Slovenia too. Something I used to do pre-kids days where I would travel around staying 3-4 nights and then moving on to a new destination.

[Huzzah]

Many yrs since I've been but ive fond memories of Corsica.

[InitialDave]

How far are you willing to go?

I love driving around Japan.

[NoPackDrill]

Few years ago now but we enjoyed touring Croatian coast and (especially) Bosnia.

Beautiful coast, waterfalls, lakes, lots of limestone features, Roman remains, decent food. Back then they really needed the money so happy to spend it.

Easy crossing over - on one occasion the border post was unmanned. We thought we’d better wait and eventually they came back from a coffee break, apologised, and waved us through.

[Drawweight]

InitialDave said:

How far are you willing to go?

I love driving around Japan.

Oh don't tempt me.

The best holiday we ever had was Japan last year. However the OH thinks that all that walking carrying rucksacks exacerbated the problem and so we had basically written off going back there.

Can you give a bit more info on what you did?

[InitialDave]

Drawweight said:

Oh don't tempt me.

The best holiday we ever had was Japan last year. However the OH thinks that all that walking carrying rucksacks exacerbated the problem and so we had basically written off going back there.

Can you give a bit more info on what you did?

I've been to a huge numbers of places over the years, so it very much depends on where you've been on your past trip, and where you'd like to see.

I really like Hokkaido, and did a road trip effectively orbiting the island with a friend. That's more your big, open countryside for the most part.

In Aomori, I wanted to go to the Seikan tunnel museum near Cape Tappi, and then I took the coastal route 339 down to Hirosaki, that's a beautiful bit of coast I otherwise wouldn't have seen.

When settjng off from Tokyo, I've taken a ratty AE86 round the Gunma mountains from Initial D, an R34 GTR on misty Mt Tsukuba passes, an S660 to Motegi circuit and the Honda museum, and last year I did a few hundred miles around Saitama and Nagano in a Jimny, visiting whisky distilleries. Even found an off-road course near Nagoya to try it out on.

Plus just hiring quirky more generic kei cars and getting out and about. I find overnight parking is easy to locate and often cheap, and renting from Toyota's own service is always really easy if I just decide, sod it, I want to go check out what's over there.

The only negative I find really is that expressway tolls can add up if you use them a lot, but it's not crippling.

[nvubu]

Not US - try Mexico

[fttm]

British Columbia, fly into either Vancouver or Calgary . Highway 3 is stunning through the rock pile then cross over the Trans Canada (boring ) to Whistler Banff Lake Louise

[GliderRider]

New Zealand - South Island

Roads are empty by British standards. Lots to see and do. People very friendly.

Just be aware, the recommended maximum speeds displayed on signs at tight bends do not allow much, if any, margin for error.

[craigjm]

chip* said:

Fly to Innsbruck and you can tour around Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, Fly further east to Graz, and you have Slovenia too. Something I used to do pre-kids days where I would travel around staying 3-4 nights and then moving on to a new destination.

That’s a great suggestion but just a reminder to the OP that if you did that you would need to declare it to the hire car company, pay extra fees and make sure you are insured outside of country of origin of the car

[KAgantua]

Ecuador is very pretty but they drive like aholes

[gamefreaks]

GliderRider said:

New Zealand - South Island

Roads are empty by British standards. Lots to see and do. People very friendly.

Just be aware, the recommended maximum speeds displayed on signs at tight bends do not allow much, if any, margin for error.

Agreed. Went a couple of years ago. Just booked flights to go to NZ again over this christmas and I can't wait!!!!

[elise2000]

Slovenia and Croatia. Lovely motorways, great views, cheap fuel, and semi-optional speed limits.

(And everything else about the countries is great too imo)

[chip*]

craigjm said:

chip* said:

Fly to Innsbruck and you can tour around Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, Fly further east to Graz, and you have Slovenia too. Something I used to do pre-kids days where I would travel around staying 3-4 nights and then moving on to a new destination.

That s a great suggestion but just a reminder to the OP that if you did that you would need to declare it to the hire car company, pay extra fees and make sure you are insured outside of country of origin of the car

I only use Hetz or Avis who publish a list of permitted countries on their websites, but as you rightly pointed out, you need to inform them in advance. Iirc, I wasn't charged any extra for hire across countries e.g. Austria/Italy / Slovenia, but that was over a decade ago so it could be different now. Do check on the website as every company also publish a list of high risk countries where travel is not permitted e.g. Romania, as there is a high chance they wouldn't see their hire car ever again

[GravelBen]

GliderRider said:

New Zealand - South Island

Roads are empty by British standards. Lots to see and do. People very friendly.

I agree, but I may be biased!

Lake Wakatipu by Ben, on Flickr

Winding Road by Ben, on Flickr



Newfoundland is a great place for a road-trip holiday too, I really enjoyed a couple of weeks travel there and would happily go back. Early summer is probably the best time to visit there, for icebergs and wildlife.

Tablelands Highway by Ben, on Flickr


In both cases I wouldn't want to base myself in one place the whole time though, you cover a lot more distance and see a lot more by travelling around averaging a few days (some areas are worth more days than others) in each place.

Edited by GravelBen on Tuesday 16th September 02:24

[fttm]

No speed cameras in Canada either Ben

[GravelBen]

fttm said:

No speed cameras in Canada either Ben

Yes, NZ speed enforcement is very mindlessly stringent! Very small tolerance threshold and little chance of discretion from cops, at least you won't find them away from main roads very often.

[shirt]

chip* said:

craigjm said:

chip* said:

Fly to Innsbruck and you can tour around Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, Fly further east to Graz, and you have Slovenia too. Something I used to do pre-kids days where I would travel around staying 3-4 nights and then moving on to a new destination.

That s a great suggestion but just a reminder to the OP that if you did that you would need to declare it to the hire car company, pay extra fees and make sure you are insured outside of country of origin of the car

I only use Hetz or Avis who publish a list of permitted countries on their websites, but as you rightly pointed out, you need to inform them in advance. Iirc, I wasn't charged any extra for hire across countries e.g. Austria/Italy / Slovenia, but that was over a decade ago so it could be different now. Do check on the website as every company also publish a list of high risk countries where travel is not permitted e.g. Romania, as there is a high chance they wouldn't see their hire car ever again

I hired from Europcar from Italy (Venice Airport) and only at the desk remembered to ask if I was actually covered to go to croatia which also meant briefly transiting through Slovenia.

I was. There was a very small list of countries you couldn’t, there was no extra fee.

Rented from budget in Amsterdam drive to Switzerland via France and Luxembourg. Again all ok no fee.

I’ve rented in Marseille and took the ferry to Corsica. That wasn’t in the plan originally so I phoned Avis to ask. The answer was ‘of course you idiot it’s a department of France so you’re still in France’ which made me want to find a ferry to reunion.