Longest Drive

[FerrousOxide]

Les Crosets in Switzerland to Penzance, via south Wales: 1,020 miles. Left at 6am and got home at 2:30 the next morning. Just me driving, 1994 MX-5, with a couple of mountain bikes on the boot rack and the roof down the whole way. Oddly, I didn't find it particularly tiring, whereas doing the same thing in my wife's modern VW would have had me dosing by half distance.

About to set off...

[backwoodsman]

My longest trip, without stops, was, Nottingham to Oban.

[Shwar25]

Leeds to Milan, ferry crossing and fuel stops were the only stopping points.

Looking back, there is no real fun in just the driving, I'd do it again, but stop more often and take more in.

[davepoth]

Denver to San Francisco, 1508 miles. Only crashed once!

[markmullen]

In terms of tiringness,

York to Cardiff
Cardiff to Bath
Bath to Bristol
Bristol to Portsmouth
Portsmouth to Battle
Battle to Dagenham
Dagenham to York

About 800 miles, with meetings at each stop.


The most fun?

Europoort to Brussels Airport in a 928 GTS, dropped the 928 off with a customer, then got the train to Born in the Netherlands where I collected a maritime blue 964 RS, took that to the channel tunnel and then back to York.

[mcgandalf]

Johnstonebridge to Camden without a piss break.

[PedroB]

The longest: Kent to Barcelona only stopping for ferry, piss and food breaks. Wasn't too bad really, did it in a C220 CDI which was pretty comfy. I find driving in the UK way more tiring than in Europe.

The worst: East London to Copenhagen. Done a few years back to take beer to a beer festival stopped for the usual food and piss breaks with an hour's snooze somewhere near Hamburg. Done in a rusty, knackered Transit van with no radio or cd player. I flew home and got my boss to drive the van back.

[stumpage]

Lake Como to Welwyn stopping for fuel, sandwich and tunnel in C220. Must admit the last hour M25, 1am, chucking it down with rain was hard going.

[TREMAiNE]

My dad does a weekly drive to and from his office in Italy, its just over 1000 miles each way, he'll drive there only stopping for fuel, be there for one day, then come home again.

[irocfan]

TREMAiNE said:

My dad does a weekly drive to and from his office in Italy, its just over 1000 miles each way, he'll drive there only stopping for fuel, be there for one day, then come home again.

WOW, that is nuts!

[shoestring7]

From Le Mans to Cannes on a Ducati 900SS, stopping only for fuel and Mars Bar + Cokes.

Its 1000km but didn't look that far on a map when I decided it would be a good idea to visit a girl I knew "as I'm in France anyway".

SS7

Edited by shoestring7 on Friday 22 November 12:09

[vit4]

Romford to St Brevin-les-Pins. Got mega lost at the end, none of us spoke French and were trying to meet my mate's gf in a place no one seemed to have heard of, ended up 13 hours driving. Picked her up after an hour, went to our F1, got an hour's kip, went out for a few drinks. Slept, left in the morning and went via Adinkerke to grab some cheap cigarettes on the way back, still took less time (12 hours door-to-door)! The result of 1150 miles in 48 hours, with three 6'+ 18/19 year olds in 30 degree heat in a pov-spec mk2 Astra with the heater on for a good portion to stop it overheating was a smell to behold

[JimmyConwayNW]

Some very interesting ones.

I've never done any European trips yet. All my long drives seem to involve picking up stranded family members or picking up ridiculous car purchases off ebay

[CraigyMc]

Southampton to Herrenberg (Stuttgart) in one go is about 660 miles - although there's an enforced stop at the chunnel.
It's only slightly longer than the longest journey I did in the UK: Portsmouth to Cairnbulg (a village north of Aberdeen), which was about 625 miles.

I don't like stopping.

[Chris Stott]

Failed to get from Weybride to Perugia in one go as tiredness set in at Bolognia, but did manage Florence to Weybridge in one hit on the return... just short of 1,000 miles in c.14 hours (ferry).

Also Weybride to Nice and the return St Paul de Vence to Weybride (Eurotunnel).

European motorways are awesome.

[CraigyMc]

davepoth said:

Denver to San Francisco, 1508 miles. Only crashed once!

[CraigyMc]

Purity14 said:

Ive also done Auswitz (Oswiecim, Poland) to Calais in one sitting on the bike as well, again about 900 miles, managed to get onto the ferry, but started getting tired, so I stopped in the first hotel I saw when I arrived back in England

Going balls out on the Autobarn(when unrestricted), literally as fast as you can, for as long as you can - really does screw your mpg - I was stopping so frequently that I doubt I saved any time at all!

Also, the ARAL stations not taking Visa cards is bullst.

I find long distance thrashing down delimited sections quite tiring: anything over about 130mph in my car feels a little unstable, and requires a lot more concentration than normal to cope with the car rather than the conditions.

My BMW will do about 52mpg at a steady 100mph though, so I usually cruise somewhere around 100-110mph when conditions permit (on the Autobahn!).

C

[xuy]

Many years ago I did the "Beerjolais" challenge for the charity Scope.

We won the price for the most stupid route from Scotch Corner to Paris.

We had no money and had to rely on donations and benefactors on the route:-

Scotch Corner

Newcastle

Edinburgh

Perth

Falkirk

Glasgow

Ayr

Northwich

Newcastle under lyme

Walsall

Birmingham

Milton Keynes

London

Dover

Paris

We arrived with our £10.00 emergency fund intact, raised many thousands of pounds and were very tired

1150 miles in 20 hours

[OJ80]

Madrid to Munich via Lauterbrunnen in two and a half days on my own. In a coach so limited to 100km/h. Google tells me that's just under 2000km. I do do remember hitting 970 km on the first day, which out of a theoretical maximum of 1000km I was pretty pleased with (max ten hours driving time).

With another driver the longest I think was Pamplona to Rotterdam to London in about a day and a half, with nine hours in an etap north of Paris to break it up.

[davepoth]

CraigyMc said:

davepoth said:

Denver to San Francisco, 1508 miles. Only crashed once!

I looked at it on a map, and thought "How hard could it be? You only need to average 85mph or so. Koawlski was a right wuss." As it turns out, it was very hard.