Motorhome rental in mainland Europe

[Scuzi]

I want to take my family on a tour of northern Italy, Switzerland, and Austria at some point this summer. The wife wants to visit Venice, Bologna, and Pisa. I want to go to southern Switzerland and Austria. We have a couple of weeks.

One option is to rent a car and stay in hotels along the way. Car rental is reasonable (starting in Munich seems to offer best VFM) but in August hotels are quite expensive. One other option that was suggested to me is to fly over and rent a motorhome. I have done some initial research, but the discrepancy in prices and vehicles is difficult to decipher, not helped by the fact that there are so many brokers.

Has anyone done something similar and can offer advice?

 

[[TW]Fox]

I did basically exactly this but with hotels in June, right down to the starting and finishing in Munich thing for the best vfm on rental. I didn't find accommodation costs too bad and there were times when I found the car spoiled some of the roads - we had a BMW X5 - let alone a camper. It will be a proper mission on some of the Swiss passes.

Our route was Munich > Austria > Venice > Florence > Turin > Switzerland > Munich.

Stunning part of the world, whatever you drive you'll love it.

 

[Scuzi]

Sounds fantastic! Regarding the driving, were there many long stints? Due to an injury I can manage a maximum of about 2 hours at a time after which I require another couple of hours break, up to a maximum of 5-6 hours in a day. Having a look in the Michelin route planner this seems doable but what is your experience?

 

[[TW]Fox]

The only long days were Switzerland back to Munich and Austria to Venice though some of that was spent enjoying the mountains. Venice to Florence was a few hours and we broke up Florence to Turin with an overnight in Genoa and a quick trip to Cinq a Terre on the way past.

You could reduce the longer drives by adding intermediate stops and less nights in the bigger places - we tended to do 2-3 nights in one place then move on.

Turin was a real surprise, wasn't expecting anything and came away as a real highlight.

Probably my favourite Euro trip and we do quite a lot

Switzerland stunning but eye wateringly expensive. The extra cost doesn't necessarily bring with it extra quality, Switzerland was our most expensive and least impressive hotel by far.

 

[Bear]

I did something similar but drove from home in my car last September. The hotels weren’t that expensive apart from Switzerland where everything was expensive.

We did home > Epernay > Lucerne > Varenna (lake Como) > Venice > Munich > Strasbourg > Bruges > home

 

[Pyscho_Si]

Turin was a real surprise, wasn't expecting anything and came away as a real highlight.

Did you manage a trip to the top of the old Fiat Lingotto Factory? It was very much the highlight of my trip to Turin.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Yes we did. Really cool.