Scotland to Spain and return costs.

Thanks interesting figures, we are caravanners (7,3m caravan) for us doing e.g. Portsmouth - Santander, dog friendly cabin, you can factor in £1500 return for the ferry and maybe knock £200 off the fuel bill, last year we were paying €12 per night , electricity was metered.

Our cheapest route would probably be Portsmouth - Caen, living 20 mins from Portsmouth ferry port it is not cost effective to use the tunnel, not sure we will ever do it again, travel and travel insurance is becoming more and more expensive, for £1500 we can have 6 weeks away in the UK on a site with swimming pool and Spa, and non metered electricity , ok you perhaps dont get wall to wall sunshine but we have had a couple of good months in the Uk this year.

Interesting post TG. Your average daily cost for fuel and sites works out at about £30. I made two trips this year and my costs varied wildly. In Spring I made a 42 night trip to Eastern Europe and my fuel and site costs came to only £22 per day. In Autumn I had a short 24 day trip to Spain and fuel and site costs worked out a £63 per day. Fuel cost were the killer on the Autumn trip because site costs for both trips averaged £23 per night.

peedee

As a matter of interest where is it currently the least expensive for diesel, UK, France, Spain, or Portugal?  Not long now before we are guzzling our way through them.

I can give you prices for France as we live here it was 2 days ago in our area the LOT 1.75 to 1.80 euros a litre but if you use Total garages they are at least 15 to 20 cents a litre more but they have guaranteed the price will not be above 2.00 a litre for the next few months, also some areas a a few cents cheaper.

In September, UK was slightly cheaper than France and Spain with France being the most expensive. I did see it over 2 euros a litre in France but the most I paid was 1.979 euros a litre. At the time UK was £1.539 per litre.

peedee

That's good to know PD as we are thinking on eastern Europe for our spring trip. Not sure which route out we will take though. Hull to Rotterdam for us makes sense so will check out the costings.

Fuel in September was expensive but it got a bit cheaper as the the months went on.

Portugal was the cheapest fuel, then Spain. Depending of course where you filled up, we did see some places at the 2€ mark but declined to use them. France was a bit cheaper on the way home than on the way down. 

Have a good trip.

We have used the Santander ferry in the past but we kinda like the drive and being a MH the Aires are so useful for 1 night stops.

Last year we worked out the costs between the Santander ferry, St Malo, Caen and the Tunnel. Taking fuel into consideration and the extra nights travelling the St Malo ferry came out the best for us.

Everyone has different needs/wants so its personal choice. This year we went down by tunnel as its was mid September, so travelling through France was good. We came back up the Med coast and hung onto the good weather right into mid France. We did the one and only night crossing a week from St Malo, which worked out very good for us. 

Last year we went tunnel both ways and it was a long drag back up to Calais,  the weather was awful from the day we left the Algarve. We came back up the western route, more direct but not as enjoyable as this years route up the Med coast. 

We finally managed to do the Pico mountains and the north west coast of Spain in fantastic weather. Really loved that part of the holiday, Galicia is just stunning especially the coast.

Portugal started off good but after a week the autumn storms hit and the weather was horrible, horizontal rain and very high winds. We gave in and headed to Spain where we got hit by a terrible storm outside of Saville. It only lasted a couple of hours but it ripped through the area tearing down trees and signs. The next day we headed for the Med coast and found the sun again, it never left us for the rest of the holiday.

EDIT: we never stay on sites long enough to get the cheaper prices, so we end up using Acsi which is not as cheap as it once was.

LLM.  I look at fuel prices just before I leave on my trip as the prices can vary at fairly short notice and fill up in the least expensive country en route.  I have just had a look at one of the Europe fuel price sites and here are the results (in euros) - UK 1.85, France 1.81, Spain 1.55 Portugal 1.70.  So in theory you should leave UK fairly empty but I have the now discontinued Esso fuel card thro' the Club so would fill up in UK! (I have the new Card for when the Esso Card expires) and try to enter Spain needing a fill up and then leave Spain with a full tank.  However, as we know in Supermarkets prices can be less than shown here  (in Germany they change during the day!!!).  All a little complex;  and then factor in the fuel saving v autoroute charge and last year the price of diesel at Total garages on the autoroutes in France was similar to that off the autoroute!!!!  Almost sorry I started typing this but it shows the things to think about.  Think I will open my last bottle of lovely Italian white purchased near Trasimeno last year (cheers Alan and Jean and Happy Christmas!)

As a matter of interest the days of mega cheap fuel in Luxembourg seem to have gone.  At  1.54 it is probably not worth diverting but if is on route well still worth filling up there.

That's a good rate for Spain it was almost 2€ when we went at the end of September, It did come down to around 1.70€  by November but Portugal was less than that. Just shows how you have to keep checking.

Food prices in Spain have increased a fair bit since last year.