Has anybody done this? How long do you think it will take? Any special precautions I should consider. I have a young son and will be travelling from Sunny Wolverhampton
My family are finally joining me next weekend. Instead of flying them over I was thinking about hiring a biggish car and driving over. This way I can bring over some essentials.
Yep, we actually moved here like that.
We lived in Horsham, West Sussex so the run to the Eurotunnel was only about an hour. We got a fairly early train, about 07:00 from memory.
We then pootled through France and into CH via Basel (don't forget you will need to buy a vignette at Basel as the border crossing is on a motorway!)
We arrived at our apartment in the center of Zurich at 17:30; way sooner than we expected.
the journey is not bad at all. I am used to fairly long journeys as we holiday by car in the south of France a few times a year.
We did the journey with our Border Collie and 3 cats on board so one small child shouldn't be bad.
Obviously, leaving Wolves would mean a pretty early start or maybe a later arrival.
The car journey will be well worth doing as you can bring a good chunk of supplies with you without fear of reprisal at the border as you are genuinely importing your belongings... (don't quote me on the legality of this)
I hope this helps.
We drive over quite regularly. Can be done in 12 hours non stop but we sometimes stop somewhere on the way....maybe Strasbourg or Reims. If you are hiring a car in Switzerland you should have no problems coming back with your "essentials". If the car is UK registered you may risk being stopped at customs...but unlikely. Likely to be more expensive than flying given car rental, petrol costs, Eurotunnel charges and French toll charges. But there again definitely more convenient.
Hi Brainchy,
I drove over from Manchester in August for the first time. I found the drive absolutely perfect once we got on board the ferry at Dover! (Typical UK traffic didnt help)
I took the motorways right through France, and there wasnt much traffic at all. It was a real pleasant run. There is however a lot of tolls on these roads so expect to pay about 50 Euros in total for them. To me it was absolutely worth the money as the roads were clear and a pleasure to drive.
I stopped off at Saint Quentin, about an hour from Calais and stayed over night. You can get some really nice cheap hotels here, and its only 5 mins off the route. Quite a nice little place to walk around too, although whether was nice when I was there.
Just a couple of tips before you get to Dover/Chunnel.
1 - You need headlight/beam deflectors on your car, as you are driving on the other side of the road. I didnt know this until arriving at Dover and had to buy them there. They are just stickers that you put on the front of your lights. You could probably get them cheaper elsewhere.
2 - You need a warning triangle in the car if you dont have one already
3 - You need high viz jackets too. Not sure if it is one or two though. I only had one?
4 - Might be worth taking a spare set of bulbs for your lights etc because you can get pulled up quite easy for this if they are not working.
All these things you can buy at Dover like I did, but like I said they might be cheaper elsewhere.
I would say the drive straight from Calais would be approximately 7-8 hours not going too fast, and as mentioned above, when you cross the border at Basel, you will be required to buy a Vignette which costs 40CHF. This is a sticker that you put on your windscreen, that allows you to drive on the motorways over here. A bit like our roadtax...sort of. The 40CHF is a yearly fee, but unfortunately it doesnt matter what time of year you buy it, it runs out in Dec 31st.
Hope all info is helpful. I stand to be corrected on above points by the way...im quite new here!
Hope you enjoy Switzerland!
We did that just last week...we drove from Basel to Geneve and then onto Calais and from Dover to Swindon in one day with two kids. One 2 and half years and the other 8 months...takes a toll on the kids... but the older one loved the ferry.. if you dont intend to stop much on the way... pack loads of food the kids like... plus entertainment... in my case I had the ipod filled with the kids favourite videos and music plus the books...But its one LOOOOONG drive... though the experience is worth it... we are doing it again next month but this time we will be skipping Geneve... Best of luck it will be fun with more family....
I did it from London once and took the car through the channel tunnel. We stopped at one of the hotels just as you come of the train in France and the did the drive to Zug. Zurich would be a comparable drive time.
I think it was about 8hrs from Calais.
One thing is don't always trust the GPS. My one took me off the main highway, through a toll and then back onto the same highway 3mins later. WTF?
Good luck.
Calais - Zurich = 850km
My record is 6hr15mins - it was 5hrs to Basel!!!
I estimate 8hrs - and a "normal" journey will be around 7.5-8 hours.
There is a new TOTAL garage opened up just off the motorway in Calais - heading to the ferry. If you are going to the Tunnel - stay on the motorway and head into Coquelles itself - there is a fuel station opposite where the Majestic/Sainbury wine places are.
I have yet to find a 100% traffic free route round Strasbourg - but I will be trying a different route next Wednesday
I would claim the opposite: When I had a foreign number for a year, the Swiss customs could not care less about me - after all I looked like a tourist on my way to Italy or something. As soon as I had Swiss plates, I was checked regularly as I could be importing something into Switzerland.
Does not exist, but the short-cut Obernai -Molsheim - Saverne is best IMHO.
we do it quite a bit too (3 times in the last 6 weeks), the toll roads way is pretty easy, usually no traffic hold ups, and can easily be done in 8 hours with just fuel stops. Or you can avoid the toll roads and head through germany etc takes a couple of hours more but is far less boring.
try to avoid hitting strasbourg at rush hour (you can avoid it totally if you don't use gps) and if your heading from zurich then take the motorway exit to germany direct after the Feldschlossen brewry , you'll cut out basel and save a whole heap of time, just follow the motorway straight, ignore your gps telling you to turn round, through a tunnel then it should re-calculate and keep you going onwards, you end up re-joining the motorway near mullhouse by the pegeot factory.
I'm still not convinced by that route - it does cut a chunk out - but it can get busy and is single file for a while!
I did go that way last time and wasn't too bad though
there is still a lot of roadworks in basel, down to 40kph at one point, hitting it at rush hour is a real time killer. (not to mention those blasted speed cameras)
I drove with my boyfriend from Scotland to Zurich when I moved here, via the ferry from Dover to Calais. We avoided all of the tolls on the mainland by taking the smaller roads. Of course, this takes a lot more time, but it was very beautiful. And of course, it was cheap! We could have done the trip in a day using the highways, but we chose to take our time, stopping at Bologne, Reims, Vittel, and Nancy. If you have the time to do this with your family, I would highly recommend it. There are so many nice places along the way, and your son would probably really enjoy it-- as long as there are frequent breaks. Of course it also helps if you can trade drivers once in awhile
Have a nice trip!!