A family car dilemma

The Wood Clan will going to the south of France by car this year. We have flown twice, but we have found that it is not the best way to travel. Not because of any middle-class guilt about the environment, Oh NO!

Hell if I could i would fly everywhere, but only if it was a private plane that did not have any delays. No the reason we will be driving is that in September when we went to the south of France by plane with a 6 month old and a 2 1/2 year old we found the return trip a little bit of a nightmare (4 hour delay and getting home at midnight).

So we will be driving. The following questions had to be asked...

1) Ferry or Train:
Train, the Eurotunnel is cheap(ish) and only takes an hour or so. Sorted.

2) Drive all night or stop half way:
Well this is a hard one, the first issue being that the boys will bored as hell in the car. Second, We will need to do twice or three times as many stops during the day for food, toilet, play and general 'don't want to be in the car' breaks. Third is of course that we will be doing this in late July early August. The heat during the day in the south will easily top 30 degrees.

Thats all Linda and I want, hot, sticky, bored kids that need food and a toilet break, but we are stuck in a traffic jam in 30 degree weather.  So we are taking the hit and driving all 700 odd miles in about 10+ hours. (we must be mad)

3) The real dilemma - Use our old car or buy a new people carrier type vehicle:
Now I still have my BMW sports, which is bloody fun to drive and because Linda needed a car to fit the boys in, she had to give up her car and we got a Peugeot 306 estate. This was 3 years ago, so the question is keep that car or go for a people carrier.

The issue that i see is that you can either have 7 seats or you can have a boot (trunk for our American cousins) but its very rare to have both. The Zafira and Peugeot looked good (seats that folded in the floor), but no boot space if you want to fit more than 5 people in, same goes for most of the rest. The only ray of sunshine seems to come from the Ford Galaxy or the Renault Grand Espace. But these still have the issue with the fact that the seats have to be removed from the car to really get all the "extra" space. God knows what we will finally decide on, but i know one thing, it's Linda's and the boys opinion that counts, not mine!

So here I am driving down to the South of France at night, after a Eurotunnel crossing and for all i know i will be driving a very large bicycle...

Comments

[mike]

When we went to France last year, we tried driving through the night. We got a ferry rather than taking the Eurotunnel train (in hindsight a mistake, the train is a far better plan despite costing a bit more) and ended up having to stop for a sleep somewhere between Calais and Paris because we got so knackered. Make sure you get tons of sleep the evenings/nights before.

Re: Zafira, my mum and dad have one of these. Without the two rear-most seats removed, there really is very little boot space (probably less than your BMW!)

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