The cheapest way to travel

Published on Friday 27 June 2008 15:42

With petrol prices near record highs, Teresa Hunter looks at whether to fly or drive abroad.

HOWEVER you do the sums, soaring petrol prices have pushed up the cost of a holiday abroad. So is it still worth taking the car or is it now cheaper to fly?

When Scotland on Sunday compared the cost of driving to Bordeaux, Barcelona and Pisa for two weeks in the sun last year, driving won hands down. We estimated that the per-person cost of flying for a family of four was roughly double that of taking the car to these destinations.

But this year the picture has changed; and the further you are travelling, the cheaper flying now looks. This is hardly surprising with UK unleaded petrol now averaging 1.19p per litre (compared with 90p last summer). In France, the price has crept up to 1.17 from 85p. Petrol at 1.21 is even more eye-watering in Italy (up from 82p last year). These have fed straight through to the bottom line on holiday costs.

Spain has escaped the worst increases, with unleaded now averaging 94p per litre, compared with last year's 71p. So if driving to Spain, make sure you fill your tank to the brim at the border before heading home.

We have recalculated this year's costs, as last year, based on 35 miles per gallon and buying petrol largely in the country of travel. It's not all bad news. Ferry crossings are marginally cheaper than last year, although road tolls have risen on most routes.

Against this, most flight and hire car charges have also rocketed. So you need to work through the sums carefully before deciding which is the best option, whether you are a solo traveller, a couple, group of friends or a growing family.

For instance, despite soaring petrol costs driving still looks the cheapest option for a family heading for Bordeaux, though flying will be cheaper for single travellers as long as you don't want to hire a car.

The cheapest return flights to Bordeaux for a fortnight in July we could find currently start at around 290, with car hire costs around 584. Buying both would cost a single traveller 874. A family of four would pay 1,160 for the flights and 1,744 including car hire.

Yet we calculate (see table below) that the family could do the round trip in a car for about 596, giving a per-person cost of 149. Although this is 35% more than last year's 110 per head, it is still half the cost of flying, ignoring car hire and airport taxi costs.

However, the waters muddy the further you travel. We estimate it will set you back 736 to drive to Barcelona and home, some 41% more than last year's 520. You might be able to reduce that a little if you, as we suggest above, fill up at the Spanish border.

Yet cheap flights to Barcelona start at 190 return, allowing a family of four to travel for 760. Hiring a car for a fortnight will cost a further 381.

The per-person cost of driving with four in the car is now 184 (compared with 130 last year), and obviously much closer to the cost of flying. Even hiring a car for the full two weeks only pushes the per-person cost up by 100 to approximately 284.

Although Pisa is a similar distance from Edinburgh as Barcelona, we estimate it will cost about 100 more to take the car there, largely as a result of higher Italian petrol and toll costs. Yet interestingly the cost of flying to this destination has fallen.

Last year the cheapest flights we could find were 300, whereas this year they are starting at around 220. Like Barcelona, this means there is little difference in the cost of driving, at 834, compared with a family of four flying, at 880. Car hire again is pricey, at 470 for the fortnight.

This means the per-person cost of driving a family of four to Pisa has mushroomed by 49% to 208 from last year's 139.

By contrast, the cost of a flight has fallen 26%, while they have increased by 13% to Barcelona and 48% to Bordeaux.

One last ingredient to throw into the pot is the wear and tear on your vehicle, which the AA puts at 5.4 pence per mile. This technically adds a further 112 to the cost of a return road journey to Bordeaux, 142 to Barcelona, and 144 to Pisa.

AA cover rescued our holiday

TAXI driver Richard Smolnik wasn't daunted at driving the 1,200-mile round trip to Poland to visit his wife Dorotha's family, but their holiday plans nearly ended in tears when his Daewoo Leganza broke down near Brussels, writes Teresa Hunter.

Richard, who is French but has lived in Edinburgh for 36 years, has never been more relieved to have bought a breakdown policy with the AA.

He says: "The AA got an engineer out in three hours, but he said the car could not be repaired. So they provided a hire car for the rest of the journey to Gorzow."

The AA also arranged for the car to be towed back to Richard's Edinburgh home last week.

Richard, 56, says: "I can't fault the service. It was fantastic. They kept constantly in touch with us. We had three hire cars in all, but they were all big comfortable cars. We would have been lost without it, but in fact our holiday was hardly disrupted at all."

However, it does mean Richard is now without a car for work: "I'll have to get the car in the garage and see if it can be repaired. Otherwise I'll have to see if I can rent one."

Richard came to live in Edinburgh after he fell in love with the city during a holiday when he was 20. Dorotha similarly came for a visit when she was 18, and fell in love with Richard.