My Road Trip Through Europe With Kids: Ideas & Planning [#01]

I once did a road trip in the US and since I have kids I always had the idea to show them Europe so they know where they live, what cultures and languages people speak and ultimately what surrounds and influences them. This is the first post in a series of many more to come and is about my initial ideas and plans of our roadtrip through Europe.

I have a rough idea about the cities we want to drive to, and, a brief idea of what I would like them to see and do. For example eating a real croissant in France and visiting Disneyland, hanging out at the beach in Barcelona and visiting the famous Aquarium, going really high up in the Swiss alps, and many more interesting sights. It will be me and my two kids (6 and 4) so the route should enable them to get an idea of Europe but also not be too long so we don’t spend most of the time in the car.

I think a successful road trip would be if I am able to show them the diversity of Europe and spend three weeks of quality time together.

Car or Camper or Plane?

I think a car is the best option to get around with, especially when driving into the cities and visiting the sites. With a camper we would need to use costly camping places further away from the centre, except if we don’t do it legally. A plane is pretty much out of the equation as it is much too expensive and once being in a city a car would be handy anyway.

Favorite Route

Starting in Berlin and driving to Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Marseille, Nice, Milan, Zurich, Munich, Nuremberg, Leipzig and back to Berlin. The route is not set in stone yet and I am still looking for ways to make it shorter but it is the best I can think of currently. It will probably change slightly once I have written down all the attractions we want to visit.

The alternative route would go further east including Vienna and Prague. The advantage being we could see their grandmother in Vienna but the disadvantage is that this route is 300km longer, and, they can see grandmother anytime 🙂

Costs?

If I rent a car in Berlin and hand it back there, a simple VW Golf-like car would cost me around 400 EUR, that is without Gasoline of course. If I would rent it in Berlin and give it back in Barcelona, for example, it would cost nearly 1600 EUR, so going back in the car is best.

In most of the cities we would need a hotel room (luckily they are small enough to sleep in a bed with me) or we could stay over at a friend’s place.

Another big chunk of cash would be spent for admissions, food, drinks, stuff, etc. – I’ll probably do a more detailed cost planning in the course of this series.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments about this trip!