![Europe's famous road trips: which ones a car + caravan may drive [OC]](https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/31899413-0270-40a5-8e8f-96a58e8a6e56.webp){kind=link}
20 famous European road trips, each coloured by whether a car towing a caravan may drive it: 10 the whole road, 7 with a bypass, 3 not at all (Stelvio, the Amalfi coast road, the Lake District’s Hardknott/Wrynose loop).
A few things that surprised me while reading the rules:
- Amalfi coast road (SS163): campers and caravans are banned 06:30–24:00, while motorbikes are exempt from the odd/even number-plate days cars get in summer.
- Grossglockner: a motorcycle’s day ticket is €36.50 against €46.50 for a car — and a car with a caravan pays the car rate.
- Geiranger–Hellesylt ferry: about €76 for a car with its driver, €187 for a car + caravan (10–14 m), €61 for a motorbike.
Rules read on 5 Nov from the road authorities and operators (where only a secondary source says it, the page says so). Each road is priced for car, car + caravan, motorhome and motorcycle: https://copilot.travel/maps/famous-road-trips Corrections welcome.
A car towing a caravan should not go on alpine passes. Or at least if it does it should take care in letting people pass. Too many times I am stuck behind such individuals from britain or netherlands which have never seen a mountain and the road is too narrow to pass.
You decided to climb this mountain for pleasure with this thing, I did not and this is the only road for me to reach my family, move outta my way.
There’s no road user more entitled than a British driver of a Land Rover Discovery towing a caravan. I live very close to one of these routes and they are a fucking nightmare.
Usually running on slick summer tyres and with no clue how to approach turns or inclines (but it’s okay! - the engine is powerful enough for them not to care and they pressed the little “inclines” button which magically fixes everything), they’re convinced they’re invincible, absolutely will not wait their turn or give way, will insist they everyone else get off their road, all the time outraged that we’d dare to exist in their presence. That five hundred year old wall they just knocked over? It came out of nowhere! And, besides it shouldn’t have been there anyway - the countryside should have taken them into account.
You have a good point, and I have been on the other side of it too. The map only shows what’s legally allowed “yes” doesnt mean it is a good idea, and on the narrow passes its often better to leave the caravan in the valley and do the pass as a day trip.
If you do tow over one, the decent thing is to pull into the next lay by whenever a queue builds behind you. Locals on their way to work or family didnt choose to be part of someone’s holiday that understandable. I will add that to the caravan notes for the mountain routes!
In some places, this is legally required.
True, like Germany has it in the traffic code: StVO §5(6) says the driver of a slower vehicle must slow down at a suitable place, and wait if necessary, when that’s the only way several vehicles right behind can overtake.
In the UK it’s in the Highway Code (rule 169: “Do not hold up a long queue of traffic… pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass”), though there it’s guidance rather than law. Thanks I will put the German rule on the German Alpine Road’s caravan row.
German here: That really is not enforced.
Fair point, its in the StVO (§ 5(6)), but I believe you that quite nobody gets fined for it. I put it on the map because caravan drivers asked whether pulling over on mountain roads is just good manners or actually expected; legally its the second, in practice its the first.
Do you know any stretch where its actually checked?