The Pros and Cons of Plane Free Travel

The Pro and Cons of Plane Free Travel

No Flying? No Problem, says Laura Hitchcock, who blogs at Have Kids Can Travel. For most people the first port of call when booking a holiday is checking flights – but her family does it differently. Here she examines some of the pros and cons of not flying…

I’m married to a determined non–flyer. It’s not always been the case – he dragged me on to my first plane for our honeymoon in Kenya, but over the years for whatever reason a deep instinctual fear of flying has set in. And he’s not alone – apparently 30% of us suffer from aviophobia, in varying degrees from faintly worried to unspeakably terrified. We’ve not actually set foot in a plane for 16 years – but that hasn’t stopped us travelling.

Travelling without a plane is surprisingly simple – though it’s not totally perfect, and there are definitely pros and cons…

You’re in charge

For us, the more freedom we have, the more we relax and enjoy ourselves. If you’re driving you can choose to stop when you’re hungry, or see something interesting, or just need to stretch your legs. Even the food choice itself is up to you; picnic, motorway service station or fabulous little restaurant you discover somewhere along the way.

Of course that also means you’re in charge of routes (and finding them), and also of handling delays, breakdowns and accidents. There’s just a little more planning needed when you’re in charge of getting there.

It’s a mental shift

If you’re flying, then the focus is all on the getting there – the travel is an inconvenience to be endured to get to where you’re going the fastest way you can. If you’re driving or going by train, then the journey becomes part of the adventure. This one’s a matter of choice whether it’s a pro or a con; for us, the holiday starts the minute we close the front door, and we try and enjoy the miles along the way. For others, it’s not till they’ve stepped onto the beach that they’ve truly begun, so getting there fast is the best option.

How much can you carry?

Obviously if you fly, there’s a huge premium if you want to take extra baggage. When there’s six of you heading for a self-catering fortnight in the sun that quickly adds up; but if you’re taking the car you can load it to the last few inches of gap between the seats and it doesn’t cost you a penny more. I can take pool toys and beach towels and anything else I remember and throw in at the last minute. If you’re choosing the train option then there’s still limitations of course – not so much in cost, but in terms of the amount you want to be lugging across train stations.

It’s not always cheaper.

There are of course some huge bargains to be had with flights – and subscribing to European train sites can keep you abreast of great train ticket deals. But if you’re driving, then the fuel isn’t ever on a bargain offer.

You’re very ‘together’

As a family we’re good at spending long periods of time in each others company – but I know many parents who raise their hands in horror at the very thought of 10 hours in a car with their children. Be realistic on this one – if your kids don’t get along brilliantly at home, being stuck next to each other in a metal box for hours isn’t necessarily going to improve their relationship.  It can be the time that they reconnect and and re-establish their relationship. But you could equally end up listening to ten hours of whiny bickering. Trains are better than cars for being able to get up and stretch your legs, but cars are more flexible in terms of stopping for a break just when you need it.

There are limits.

Unless you have months to travel, then staying out of the sky does put limits on your travel – if you’re creative and flexible then pretty much the whole of Europe is within reach. But it’s about wise choices – we frequently head to France for a couple of weeks in the summer; an early morning ferry from Cherbourg puts us within reach of our destinations before dinner time. But next year we’re off to Tuscany; we plan to head for Paris and explore for 24hrs before taking an overnight train on to Milan. Then it’s an hour onwards to Bologna where we’ll hire a car for the last leg – making a full three day adventure before we even reach our mountain villa.

Alternatively we could fly from London to Florence in just over two hours, and be on our terrace sipping something cold before the sun sets…