- \n
- Before you start planning the road trip<\/a><\/li>\n
- How many kilometres really fit in a day<\/a><\/li>\n
- Where to stay on a road trip<\/a><\/li>\n
- Car or van?<\/a><\/li>\n
- Budget and costs<\/a><\/li>\n
- Vignettes, tolls and borders<\/a><\/li>\n
- 5 road trips in Europe we actually know<\/a><\/li>\n
- First road trip? Where to start<\/a><\/li>\n
- Frequently asked questions<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Before you open Google Maps, decide what kind of road trip you want<\/h2>\n
The first mistake usually happens before the first pin even goes in.<\/p>\n
You open the map and start adding places. This one. And this one. And since it is fairly close, that one too.<\/p>\n
Except a road trip does not start from the places you want to see. It starts from the kind of trip you want to have<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Do you want seven days of nature and small towns? Do you want to change country every two days? Do you want long distances and many hours on the road? Do you want hikes, which means days with less driving? Do you want evenings in cities, or would you rather wake up as close as possible to the next stretch of the route?<\/p>\n
These decisions change everything.<\/p>\n
A road trip in the Balkans can give you several countries and big changes of scenery in relatively few days. In Norway, on the other hand, you can spend hours on the road without caring much that you “have not arrived yet”, because the road itself is part of what you came for.<\/p>\n
In Iceland you can go to sleep with one plan and wake up with another, simply because the weather now has a different opinion.<\/p>\n
So before you fill the map, decide what kind of days you want to live<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
That is where the route begins.<\/p>\n
Do you drive from Greece or fly and pick up a vehicle there?<\/h3>\n
Not every road trip in Europe has to start with your own car from Greece.<\/p>\n
For the Balkans we have done it and it makes complete sense. On other routes, though, flying to the right starting point and picking up a car or van there can give you back one or two whole days of travel.<\/p>\n
And the “right point” is not always the obvious one.<\/p>\n
We often look at the route backwards. Not only:<\/p>\n
“Where do I want to go and which flight gets me there?”<\/strong><\/p>\n
but:<\/p>\n
“Where does it make most sense to join the road?”<\/strong><\/p>\n
Bergamo, for example, can work far better as a gateway for a loop towards Como and the Alps than you would think if you simply checked which airport is closest to your final destination.<\/p>\n
The airport is part of route planning. Not just the place where you land.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/roadtrip-parea-van-evropi-altervan.webp\")
Somewhere around here the planning ends and the road begins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The biggest mistake is putting in more than the road can hold<\/h2>\n
There is a thin line between “I have organised my trip well” and “I have written an army timetable”.<\/p>\n
On a road trip you cross it very easily.<\/p>\n
A village here. A waterfall there. A viewpoint another twenty minutes on. Some place everyone says you “have to see since you will be there anyway”.<\/p>\n
And suddenly the day has ten stops.<\/p>\n
Except real days do not work like pins.<\/p>\n
You will need fuel. You will look for parking. Someone will want a coffee. Somewhere you will sit a little longer. And almost certainly something will turn up that you had not noted anywhere.<\/p>\n
In the Balkans a simple stop at a petrol station or a small village has ended up in a chat with locals. And from there we have driven off with a tip for a beach, a meal, a handmade pie or a road that was on none of our pins.<\/p>\n
You cannot plan these.<\/p>\n
You can, however, organise the day so that they fit when they happen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
ALTERVAN TRUTH<\/strong>
\nAn itinerary is one thing. A checklist is another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSome places are essential. They are the ones you say “I really want to go here” about.<\/p>\n
The rest are options.<\/p>\n
If it works out, you went. If not, the trip is not ruined.<\/p>\n
Leave room for the good surprises too<\/h3>\n
Once in Norway we were looking for a specific spot we had seen in a photograph.<\/p>\n
It was not one of those you simply type into Maps and get taken to the door. We searched, asked people and in the end left the main road for a small track that brought us to a wooden jetty, in front of a landscape worth all the looking.<\/p>\n
If that day had been full to the last ten minutes, we would most likely never have gone.<\/p>\n
And that is something we want to remember every time we overload a plan:<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/roadtrip-random-stop.webp\")
A stop on the road that became a shared memory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n You do not leave slack only for when something goes wrong. You leave it for when you find something better than what you had planned.<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/roadtrip-stin-evropi-tyxaia-stasi-katsika-altervan.webp\")
It was not marked anywhere. And yet this is the stop we remember.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n 250 kilometres is not always 3 hours<\/h2>\n
If there is one thing worth knowing before you organise a serious road trip, it is this.<\/p>\n
Kilometres on their own tell you far less than you think.<\/p>\n
250 kilometres on a European motorway can be a simple transfer.<\/p>\n
250 kilometres between the fjords of Norway can eat your whole day.<\/p>\n
There are ferries, smaller roads, mountain passes, bends and stops you thought would take ten minutes and in the end nobody wants to leave.<\/p>\n
Trollstigen is perhaps the best visual explanation: on Maps it is a line joining two points. From above you see a road folding back on itself again and again up the mountain. Not everything in life is a straight line. Luckily, neither are road trips.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trollstigen-roadtrip-norvigia-altervan-scaled.webp\")
On Maps it is a line. From up here you understand why kilometres never tell the whole story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In Iceland the same problem shows up differently.<\/p>\n
A route can look perfectly logical when you plan it from home. Once you get there, the weather can change the whole day. The 90 or 200 kilometres you had counted on may need to be driven far more slowly, or you may decide that today you will not drive them at all.<\/p>\n
And in the Balkans, borders, traffic, roadworks and the season all come into play.<\/p>\n
So there is no magic number of kilometres that makes a road trip day right.<\/p>\n
There is the road, the season, the weather and everything you want to do between setting off and arriving.<\/p>\n
ALTERVAN TRUTH<\/strong>
\nGoogle Maps knows the route. It does not know your day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nMaps gives you driving time. You have to work out the day.<\/h3>\n
If it says three hours, it may be completely right.<\/p>\n
Three hours of pure driving.<\/p>\n
It does not include the ferry you missed by ten minutes, the car park that was full, the food, the fuel or the “stop here a second”.<\/p>\n
That is why, when we plan a road trip day, we do not only look at how many hours the blue line says. We look at what is in between<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
How many stops do we really want? Is there a ferry? Do we cross a border? Is there a hike? Will we need parking in a city? What weather might we meet?<\/p>\n
That is the difference between a route that “works” on Maps and a day that works in reality.<\/p>\n
The route you built three months ago may be a different story today<\/h2>\n
An easy planning mistake is to build the route once, consider it done and not look at it again until you leave.<\/p>\n
Except roads change.<\/p>\n
Roadworks start. New bridges open. Passes close. Timetables change. A border you cross almost without stopping off season can be a different story in August.<\/p>\n
In Croatia we once followed a route we had planned a good while earlier and crossed through Bosnia and Herzegovina, when in the meantime a new road link had opened that could have saved us the two border crossings.<\/p>\n
The trip was not ruined.<\/p>\n
We simply lost time we could have kept for somewhere else.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/xionismeni-diadromi-van-roadtrip-evropi-altervan.webp\")
The route on your phone is one thing. The road once the snow starts settling is another.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The lesson is simple:<\/p>\n
Look at the route again shortly before you leave.<\/strong><\/p>\n
And once you are on the road, do not be afraid to change it.<\/p>\n
The plan is there to help you. Not for you to serve it.<\/p>\n
On a road trip you are not always looking for the best place to stay. You are looking for the right spot.<\/h2>\n
A beautiful place to stay can be a terrible choice for a road trip.<\/p>\n
You realise it at eight in the morning when you drive forty minutes backwards just to rejoin your route.<\/p>\n
On a road trip you are not going all inclusive. You want to arrive easily, park without drama, sleep well and the next morning get back on the road without a chunk of the day already gone.<\/p>\n
On a road trip, the right location matters more than whether there is a pool<\/h3>\n
In Venice this becomes very clear.<\/p>\n
With a van or a car, before you get excited about the room or the view, there is a far more mundane question:<\/p>\n
Where will I leave the vehicle?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Is there parking? Does the van fit? How far is it? Are there access restrictions?<\/p>\n
Because you may have found the loveliest place in the area and in the end it costs you time and extra transfers every time you want to leave or come back.<\/p>\n
In Iceland, on the other hand, “a little way out” can mean something completely different depending on the road and the weather that day.<\/p>\n
That is why we look at location first and facilities second.<\/p>\n
And we usually keep a second option at the back of our minds. Not because we expect something to go wrong, but so we do not have to stress if it does.<\/p>\n
Car or van? The right choice does not start with the vehicle<\/h2>\n
If you are travelling alone or there are two of you, a car is often the most sensible choice.<\/p>\n
But if we are talking about a bigger group, for us the answer changes quickly.<\/p>\n
Van.<\/strong><\/p>\n
With two vehicles you have two lots of fuel, two lots of tolls, two car parks and two cars that need to coordinate.<\/p>\n
And sooner or later comes the classic:<\/p>\n
“Guys, where are you?”<\/p>\n
“We stopped.”<\/p>\n
“Where?”<\/p>\n
“At the petrol station.”<\/p>\n
“Which petrol station?”<\/p>\n
But the main reason to all be in one van is not the fuel, the tolls or the parking.<\/p>\n
The group stays inside the same experience.<\/strong><\/p>\n
You listen to the same music. You see the same landscape. Someone says something daft and it becomes a joke that lasts until the end. Someone shouts “stop here” and you all get out.<\/p>\n
With two cars you easily end up with two small groups moving towards the same place.<\/p>\n
With one van, you are inside the same trip.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/parea-mprosta-apo-van-roadtrip-altervan.webp\")
With one van, the route is not split. You all live the same trip together.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n And that is a far bigger advantage than the extra space for suitcases.<\/p>\n
The budget usually slips on the things you did not count<\/h2>\n
Most people, when they cost a road trip, start with fuel, accommodation and flights.<\/p>\n
And then real life begins.<\/p>\n
Parking, tolls, ferries, vignettes, city taxes, an activity you decided on at the last minute, a car park next to a natural attraction you assumed would be free.<\/p>\n
It is these small amounts that add up in the end.<\/p>\n
That is why we make a realistic budget before we start looking at how to cut it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
If a trip costs 1,000, it does not become 600 because you decided that is what you want to spend. First you see what it really needs and then you decide where you can save without spoiling the trip.<\/p>\n
You can spend less without feeling like you are scrimping<\/h3>\n
In expensive destinations like Iceland or Norway, you do not need to sit in a restaurant twice a day to feel you are travelling “properly”.<\/p>\n
We have spent evenings with a pot of pasta, a pizza or supermarket food all together at the place we were staying, and we remember them more than quite a few restaurants.<\/p>\n
Saving does not have to mean going without.<\/p>\n
ALTERVAN TRUTH<\/strong>
\nSave where you lose no experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nFor more, we have written separately about how to keep your travel budget under control<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Vignettes, tolls and borders: the boring bits you need to know<\/h2>\n
It is not the part of the road trip you will post a story about.<\/p>\n
But it can change your day.<\/p>\n
Every country works differently. In some you pay tolls, in others you need a vignette, in others there are special zones or restrictions.<\/p>\n
And at borders there is no “standard time”.<\/p>\n
In the Balkans we have crossed almost without stopping, and at other times found ourselves in queues or facing a more thorough check.<\/p>\n
So do not treat a border as an invisible line on the map.<\/p>\n
Before you leave, check what applies at that time<\/strong> in the countries you will pass through, and do the final check from official, up-to-date sources.<\/p>\n
The details change. The logic does not.<\/p>\n
What to pack? Less than you think<\/h2>\n
There is one thing we have almost never regretted on a road trip:<\/p>\n
not bringing something.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Things we carried from country to country and never used?<\/p>\n
There we have plenty of stories.<\/p>\n
We have travelled in winter in Iceland, in summer in the Balkans and in many different conditions with a cabin suitcase.<\/p>\n
For us, in most cases, it is more than enough.<\/p>\n
The point is not to leave unprepared. It is to separate “I might need it”<\/strong> from “I will actually use it”<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
In a van especially, every useless item is carried by the whole group for hundreds of kilometres.<\/p>\n
For the practical side, see our detailed cabin suitcase packing guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n
5 road trips in Europe we actually know<\/h2>\n
We could list fifteen routes here.<\/p>\n
We will not.<\/p>\n
We prefer five we have genuinely lived, and five different ways of understanding what a road trip in Europe means.<\/p>\n
The Balkans: when the route changes character every few hours<\/h3>\n
Cities, sea, mountains, different languages, borders, villages, capitals.<\/p>\n
In the Balkans you do not always need huge distances to feel that the whole scene has changed.<\/p>\n
And here we have learnt two things: do not treat borders as just another blue line on Maps, and talk to people.<\/p>\n
A chat in a village or a stop along the way can give you a beach, a meal or a spot you would not find with hours of scrolling.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tyxaia-stasi-xorio-valkania-roadtrip-altervan.webp\")
It was not one of the stops we had marked. It was one of those that make you hit the brakes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n That is how we have ended up in places like a quiet viewpoint above Dubrovnik, far from the commotion you expect when you hear the city’s name.<\/p>\n
![\"Dubrovnik](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dubrovnik-viewpoint-roadtrip-valkania-altervan.webp\")
Dubrovnik without the crowds. Sometimes all it takes is climbing a little higher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Who it suits:<\/strong> someone who wants plenty of variety without endless days on the motorway.<\/p>\n
The Altervan lesson:<\/strong> do not fill the day. In the Balkans the best small stops often appear where you did not expect them.<\/p>\n
See more from our own road trip in the Balkans<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Norway: here the road is not the time between two sights<\/h3>\n
In Norway you understand very quickly why we do not organise road trips by kilometres alone.<\/p>\n
Ferries. Smaller roads. Viewpoints. The Atlantic Road. Trollstigen.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/atlantic-road-norvigia-roadtrip-altervan.webp\")
It is not just a crossing. It is one of the reasons you go to Norway by car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n And the classic:<\/p>\n
“Stop here a second.”<\/p>\n
Which is often not a second at all.<\/p>\n
We have miscalculated a ferry, searched for spots that did not show up easily on the map and “lost time” in places where, in practice, nobody felt they had lost anything.<\/p>\n
That is the lovely thing about Norway. You do not have to reach the destination for the day to begin.<\/p>\n
Who it suits:<\/strong> someone who does not measure a good day by how many things they managed to see.<\/p>\n
The Altervan lesson:<\/strong> if a route looks like “only 220 kilometres”, do not decide anything until you have seen what lies between them.<\/p>\n
We have written more about the road trip in Norway and the Atlantic Road<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Iceland: the plan has to know how to change<\/h3>\n
Iceland is perhaps the best place to break a bad habit:<\/p>\n
the need for the plan to happen exactly as you wrote it.<\/p>\n
Here the weather is not particularly interested in your spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
We have woken up to a different day from the one we thought we had the night before, because conditions had changed.<\/p>\n
It does not mean the trip is ruined.<\/p>\n
It means you are in Iceland.<\/p>\n
Who it suits:<\/strong> someone who loves nature more than the need to control everything.<\/p>\n
The Altervan lesson:<\/strong> plan well, but always have another route in mind.<\/p>\n
Ireland: northern weather, but people who remind you of the Mediterranean<\/h3>\n
Ireland struck us for a reason that is hard to see on a map.<\/p>\n
You expect northern Europe. And then you walk into a pub.<\/p>\n
Music, people, conversation, places packed until late and an openness that reminded us more of the Mediterranean with northern European weather.<\/p>\n
In Killarney we happened to meet a Greek bass player from the diaspora. He played bass with Last Call, a band of Irish musicians, and when they realised we were Greek, “Misirlou” went into the set.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/last-call-killarney-live-mousiki-altervan.webp\")
We went in for a drink. We stayed for the music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n We found the same scene in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Music, packed pubs, people out until late and a feeling that often reminded us more of the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Some of the best moments came simply because we let the evening go where it wanted.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dublin-by-night-ireland-roadtrip-altervan-1.webp\")
People out until late, packed pubs and music everywhere. That is how Ireland stayed with us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n That is a big part of Ireland for us.<\/p>\n
Who it suits:<\/strong> someone who wants people and life between the landscapes, not just photo stops.<\/p>\n
The Altervan lesson:<\/strong> in Ireland, do not plan every evening before you even arrive. Let one or two decide for themselves how they will turn out.<\/p>\n
We have kept the whole route in our 7-day loop of Ireland<\/a>, and for the city there is Dublin in 10 experiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Italy – Switzerland – France: a good road trip does not need identical days<\/h3>\n
We like this route because it shows something we often forget:<\/p>\n
- How many kilometres really fit in a day<\/a><\/li>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/simplon-car-train-van-elvetia-italia-altervan.webp\")
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![\"View](\"https:\/\/www.altervan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dolomites-viewpoint-roadtrip-altervan.webp\")
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