How far is too far to drive?

I was raised by parents who loved to drive.

No distance too far if I have the available time.

Mt daughter/son-in-law and joy of our life granddaughter live 11 hours away in Kentucky.

Drive out to see them 4-5 times a year.
 
Lynne Guinne said:
Someone's post, perhaps @Lullabelle(?) mentioned that she doesn't drive and her dear hubby has been driving on vacation when they are off-tour for the day and on their own. That got me to thinking about how far most Europeans think is just too far to
Click to expand...
When @Lullabelle snd I went on holiday we didn't go with a tour, we went on our own. The driving was fine, almost 800km over six days, about a third if it on 'brown roads' which are at times just dirt tracks. With the regular stops to stare at the fantastic landscapes and the entire lack of traffic (one day I drove 50km without being passed by another vehicle), there was no stress to the motoring at all.
Here in the UK about 250 miles is as far as I would comfortably go in one day, and about 450 is the maximum I have ever done.
 
Ah, my rememberer wasn't remembering correctly, @The Velvet Curtain. Sorry. It sounds like you were driving at a good pace - lots of time to see things and stop along the way. When we travel between where we live and where our kids live, we take two days for about 1000km. Used to be when we first moved we could knock that baby out in one day. Age has slowed us down. Either that, or the pleasure of not having a deadline as to when you need to head back because of a work commitment. Once hubby retired, it's very easy to rearrange the schedule when our daughter says "but can't you stay another _______ many days?"

My personal high of driving alone in one day is 420 miles (675km). It's amazing what one can do when things need to be done.
 
I used to have to commute from Haslemere in Surrey to Hatfield in, well its about 12 oclock on the M25 and up... 65 miles or so each way... another was Haslemere to Chatham Docks (80 miles), Haslemere to Bristol daily (120 miles each way)... I did Haslemere to Petersfield on a weekly basis for a longtime. The commute to Aberdeen was by air, though I wish now I had driven up and just stayed up there for the duration of the project rather than flying home on a Friday night on the last plane... back again on a Monday morning on the first one...

As for vacations - well we have done from the farthest reaches of the Orkney Isles (Westray) to Haslemere (so basically 2 ferries and the entire length of the UK) in one go but there were 2 drivers.
We have also done from Surrey to Stockholm and then on to an island called Gotland - that was done with an overnight ferry to Denmark, a drive non-stop (in winter) to Stockholm, where we stayed overnight and then on 4 hours north to the island. Esbjerg to Stockholm alone is 1,000 miles. so add another couple of hundred minimum at each end and you may have an idea of what we drove including dirt roads in the dark on snow without snow chains :whistling: But then I come from a family that thought nothing of a driving holiday through Scandinavia (when the Harwich - Goteborg ferry still existed) driving up through Sweden via Stockholm then on to Norway, Oslo, Alesund and back again...

We also used to frequently (and I really do mean it) drive from Portsmouth to Pitlochry and then an hour west... it was a 550 mile each way journey. On a good day, at the right time (we had to be out of the door before 6am to miss the various rush hours around the M25, Birmingham and Glasgow. It would take roughly 10 hrs with decent breaks between us, but I have done Portsmouth to Fort William and back again in a single day when thing went very wrong with my husband's back and the weather was dire (flooding was extensive and we were meant to be camping - an area I knew well and well enough to know it was not safe - landslides and extensive flooding followed closing roads not long after we baled)... I had to do all of the driving both ways.
 
Back when I was still driving, the longest trip I made by myself was almost 450 miles long. That was back in the 55 mph days. It should have been 459 but I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up in a ditch.
That was strange. The car didn't roll, but it landed so hard the driver side rims were sitting in the tires.
 
Looking back I really do not understand why we did this.

Every Saturday evening during the summer of '81, the Project Manager and I would drive home for the night. He lived in Nottingham and I lived in Leeds but we worked on a job in Consett, County Durham. Finishing work at c. 19:00, I would drive from Consett to Leeds and then he would take the car to his home in Nottingham. Unfortunately we needed to be back in Consett by 06:00 Sunday morning so I had to get up at 03:30 on Sunday morning for him to pick me up at 04:00. I would then drive the car to Consett.

My children were 5 and 3 years old then so I hardly saw them at all during the 7 hour visitation.
 
My daughter used to work with a young lady who used to drive 400 miles a day every day to go to work and get home again after. She was trying to get a transfer to a branch of the bank where they worked which was nearer to home but there were no jobs available locally. In the end she came to stay in our house during the week - a distance of about 30 miles a day.
 
The longest regular commute I did was 65 miles from Welling to Heathrow.....it took about 2 hours around the M25 in rush hour. I tried the trains for a few months and then decided to drive....at least if I was driving I got a seat :rolleyes: Did that for about 6 months then moved nearer to the office. I think the longest I've ever driven on my own was Nottingham to Edinburgh and back again the same day (300 miles each way) - it seemed like a good idea at the time, I remember I was exhausted though.

In terms of general driving these days, I don't really do that much as I work from home most of the time, and when we go out hubby does most of the driving. We only really tend to use public transport if we're going into London, for anywhere else driving is usually cheaper and more convenient: we'll happily drive an hour or two for a day out or several hours for an overnight visit.

On holiday we'll generally drive around 750 miles a week, but in small chunks of a few hundred per day and with plenty of days with no driving. Our holiday earlier this year we covered 2700 miles in total - out through France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and back again. Having said that....driving in continental Europe is far easier than in the UK as there's a lot less congestion :okay:
 
My adopted daughter and I once drove nearly 600 miles in one day. 300 miles each way.
We were dropping kids off then picking them up the next week.
The funniest part of the trip was when her husband called while we were on the way back.
I answered the phone as she was driving. He said I really need to talk to her as there is a storm hitting a town on your route.
No you may not talk to her as we have been watching the storm and we are in the middle of it at the moment. Now I need to go because we need all eyes on the road.
 
MrsDangermouse said:
...Our holiday earlier this year we covered 2700 miles in total - out through France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and back again...
Click to expand...
It amazes me that you can drive through five different countries over a 2700 mile trip. I forget how close European countries are to each other and their sizes. When we left our house in Massachusetts and drove our son to college in Arizona, we were still one state away from reaching the western edge of the country after 2700 miles. Mind you there are many states that we drove through, but every state had some version of the same, fractured English language. No passports required. So different. So tiring of a drive, going out and back (and extra driving, too) in a two-week period.
 
Lynne Guinne said:
It amazes me that you can drive through five different countries over a 2700 mile trip. I forget how close European countries are to each other and their sizes. When we left our house in Massachusetts and drove our son to college in Arizona, we were still one state away from reaching the western edge of the country after 2700 miles.
Click to expand...
Actually make that 7 countries - I missed Luxembourg and Belgium off the list :laugh: Yes, Europe is geographically small compared to the distances within the US, but in terms of culture, architecture, scenery and FOOD :hungry:there is a huge variation within those miles.

Lynne Guinne said:
Mind you there are many states that we drove through, but every state had some version of the same, fractured English language.
Click to expand...
Luckily I can speak passable French and German, and I can (usually) figure out Dutch so that's most of north-western Europe taken care of :cool: but it was fun in Slovenia and Croatia where I found it really difficult not understanding anything! Thank goodness for Google Translate :laugh:

Lynne Guinne said:
No passports required. So different.
Click to expand...
No passports required in much of Europe either due to Schengen :okay:. The only borders we had to stop for were UK/France and Slovenia/Croatia. For the UK border even if we were part of Schengen we'd have still had to stop for transport (the channel tunnel in our case), but Croatia isn't part of Schengen....when you cross internal borders in Europe you'll often drive through the old abandoned border control posts, but I'd forgotten what it was like having to actually stop at them...and the resulting queues :laugh:

Lynne Guinne said:
So tiring of a drive, going out and back (and extra driving, too) in a two-week period.
Click to expand...
2700 miles is a lot in 2 weeks, we had just over 3 weeks for our holiday earlier this year and we did it in small easy stages. Our next trip in September will only be 2 weeks so we'll probably do around 1500 miles. My driving experience in the US is pretty much limited to Georgia and Florida but we found driving 6 or 7 hours in one go was pretty easy as the roads were wide and generally not very congested, whereas in Europe we try to keep each day's driving under 4 hours so we still have some time and energy to explore when we arrive.
 
Back in '86 my kids were 7 and 9 years old. We had a holiday booked in La Rochelle, south west France. The day before we were due to leave we had a major problem with a bid for which I was responsible. I said to my wife the problem would take a few days to sort - you drive down there with the kids and I'll fly over later when the problem is solved. The drive from Chester was about 750 miles via Dover and the Ferry to Calais.

I'd never heard my wife use language like that before!

We sorted the problem by phone and fax in the end - the guy in the resort office had never seen a 25 foot fax before!
 
Yorky said:
Looking back I really do not understand why we did this.

Every Saturday evening during the summer of '81, the Project Manager and I would drive home for the night. He lived in Nottingham and I lived in Leeds but we worked on a job in Consett, County Durham. Finishing work at c. 19:00, I would drive from Consett to Leeds and then he would take the car to his home in Nottingham. Unfortunately we needed to be back in Consett by 06:00 Sunday morning so I had to get up at 03:30 on Sunday morning for him to pick me up at 04:00. I would then drive the car to Consett.

My children were 5 and 3 years old then so I hardly saw them at all during the 7 hour visitation.
Click to expand...

That reminds me of when I worked dayshifts and my boy was about 2 or 3 a decade ago.

I would work double shifts every Saturday, 8A to 12M.
Since we had no nearby family to help, my wife was home all day taking care of our son by herself. In order to give her a break, I would take my 2 meal breaks together at 7PM after the Evening News was finished, hop in the car and race home (only 29km, but we're talking aboit driving through NYC on a Saturday- tourists, taxis, and amateur drivers everywhere). I'd run in the house, read a few books with my boy, then give him a bath, a bottle, and put him to bed.
Then it was back into the car as fast as possible back to work by 9ish.

It was crazy, but I'd do it again if I had to.
 
I love drive my car and I often do both for work and for holidays top or to have a ride in the surrounds. Ten years ago I had a terribile car accident while I came back home, the other driver didn't see the stop signal and my car was destroied and I went to hospital. I broke my hand, head, chest, and a lot of other things....but although this, I said my self "do you want to Live with this trauma or fight and at least try to drive again?"
After two months, I bought a new car and I drove from Milano to Puglia (1000km)...and I never stop to drive. Obviously now I'm more careful and when I see a stop signal, back in my mind a little light turns on, but then I go on.
I also love to take Flight, when my husband still lived in Roma, for two years I taken Airplane almost every weekends and he did the same. 50 minutes flight time. When I didn't find flight tickets or freccia rossa train tickets (Milano-Roma 3 hours non stop), well...full of gasoline and went by car (5 hours).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom