In July 2024 we drove from Leicester to Trogir, Croatia for our family holiday. After months of planning we finally set off for a 25 day adventure which would take us to ten countries, over thirteen border crossings, six capital cities and a total of 3,500 miles driving.
We are a family of six and travelled in our family car – a Seat Alhambra. At the time, the kids were 17, 13 and 9 year old twins.
We had a great time and created lots of memories that the whole family will always remember. Spending time together on an adventure, exploring new places, experiencing different cultures and relaxing by the beach was priceless.
Road Trip Itinerary
We started in Leicester, United Kingdom, and had ten days to drive to Trogir, Croatia, for a seven night stay at a campsite on the beach. We met up with two other families who flew to Croatia. On the way home we had eight days to drive home via the Channel Tunnel, Calais, France.
Our eldest daughter didn’t travel with us for the first part of the road-trip due to college and work commitments. We picked her up from the airport in Croatia on day ten and she continued the rest of the holiday with us in the car.
The basic itinerary for the trip included the places on the list below (click on the underlined links for more details about that leg of the trip):
- Leicester, UK
- Harwich overnight ferry to the Hook of Holland (1 night)
- Efteling Theme Park, Netherlands (1 night, 2 days)
- Hunxe, Germany (1 night on a farm)
- Bay Arena football stadium and Cologne, Germany (for lunch)
- Burgebrach, Germany (1 night)
- Bamburg, Germany (for lunch)
- Prague, Czech Republic (2 nights)
- Vienna, Austria (for lunch)
- Bratislava, Slovakia (2 nights)
- Budapest, Hungary (for lunch)
- Miskolc, Hungary (2 nights)
- Lake Balaton, Hungary (for lunch)
- Zagreb, Croatia (1 night)
- Zadar, Croatia (for lunch and to pick eldest daughter up from airport)
- Trogir, Croatia (7 nights)
- Ljubljana, Slovenia (for lunch)
- Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj, Slovenia (2 nights)
- Ehrwald, Austria (via Italy, 1 night)
- Heidelburg, Germany (2 nights)
- Aÿ-Champagne, France (2 nights)
You can see more photos and reels of the places we visited on our Facebook and Instagram pages by clicking on the icons at the top of this page.
Now that we are back and have settled into home and work life I’ll review the best places that we stayed and our favourite activities on upcoming blog posts.
Planning a family road trip
After returning home from Lake Garda, Italy, last summer our attention soon turned to booking our 2024 summer holiday. We had wanted to visit Croatia for several years but considered it just too far to drive and too expensive to fly as a family of six. With the oldest kids growing up fast, we also wanted to do something special for what might be the last summer holiday we all go on together as a family.
Susie was the driving force behind the whole idea and had initially thought about a four week trip. I did think that I would struggle to get more than two weeks annual leave. Fortunately, my line manager was very accommodating and we negotiated three weeks and two days off. This gave us a total of 25 days to play with (including weekends).
Planning the route and booking the accommodation took several months. This was a process that the whole family got involved with. We enjoyed making suggestions and researching destinations that we would want to visit.
For more detail on the planning of the trip you can read my earlier post:
Road trip highlights
We visited many wonderful places over the course of the trip including these highlights:
- Kicking off the trip with two days at Efteling Theme Park in the Netherlands.
- Visiting Eastern Bloc countries for the first time and learning about Communist rule and the struggle for democracy in Prague and Bratislava.
- A visit to a thermal cave spa in Miskolc, Hungary.
- A relaxing week’s beach holiday with great friends in Trogir, Croatia.
- Slovenia – what a beautiful country.
- Driving through the Alps from Slovenia to Austria and staying in a mountain ski chalet.
- A visit to Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany, which was the inspiration for the Disney Princess Castle.
- A final stop in the Champagne Region of France, near Reims, and a Champagne Maison tour.
We would definitely like to go back to Croatia, Slovenia and Austria one day as the scenery is beautiful. In fact, everywhere we travelled we found the people to be very friendly and welcoming.
We tried to immerse ourselves in local culture and learn something about the places we visited. Booking walking tours in Prague and Bratislava, a vintage car tour around Vienna and a river cruise on the Danube, Budapest helped us to achieve this on our visits to these capital cities.
Sampling the local cuisine we discovered some delicious dishes including Dutch chimney cakes, ollebollen, sprinkles on toast, Austrian schnitzel, Slovakian dumplings, German strudel, bratwurst and beer bread, Croatian wild boar, Slovenian Bled cake, Hungarian langos, Czech poppy seed koláče and many many baguettes and croissants along with French champagne!
Another Road Trip?
Looking back, the road trip was fantastic. Having such a long period of time off work, together as a family, was really special. We all experienced new places, and cultures; saw some amazing sites and landscapes; swam in the sea, pools, lakes and thermal spa caves; went to a theme park; snorkelled; tackled an inflatable assault course in the sea; spent time with good friends; travelled on autobahns, trams, underground and overground trains, bendy-buses, trolley buses, boats, taxis and a funicular! It was a real adventure.
We hope that the trip will inspire the kids to want to travel when they are older and to be open-minded and welcoming to people of different cultures.
I can see us doing many more family road trips in the future although with work commitments, these are likely to be shorter in duration!
About Us
After the shock of finding out that we were expecting twins in 2015, one of the first things that we realised was that …we’re gonna need a bigger car!
We’re a family of six with two girls and two boys now aged 17, 14 and 9 year old twins.
Follow our blog and social media posts for inspiration, ideas, tips and hacks for non-package family holidays and as we prepare for our next adventure.
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