Holiday in Late Summer 2021 - Fly or Drive?

[omniflow]

I'm narrowing down my options for a holiday this year to either Crete or Puglia in Italy. For Crete I would fly with Easyjet, for Puglia I would drive via Eurotunnel.

Due to not having worked for almost a year I am looking to do an independent bundle which exposes me to differing cancelation policies. All of the accommodation I've found in the area of Crete I want to visit has a 50% cancellation penalty, but it's all relatively cheap. All of the accommodation I've found in Puglia has no cancellation penalty.

Personally I like a holiday that combines a week long stay with a road trip, and I have a nice GT car which is eminently suitable for the trip, although the fuel costs will make something of a mockery of the budget. I have driven to Puglia before, and we drove to Tuscany in 2020.

Will a road trip in September 2021 be viable? It could either be:

France & Italy, with at least a fuel stop in France
France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany - with no stops until Germany. Then Switzerland or Austria, then Italy.
France, Switzerland, Italy. Fuel stops in France, 1st overnight Italy

The overall plan would be a very long first day to break the back of the journey and get somewhere more interesting, and then between 2 - 4 slower days stopping off at interesting places.

Many years ago we went through a spate of massive flight delays - 8 - 10 hours - when going on / returning from holiday and we switched to driving for a few years. More recently flying has been really efficient, but I'm concerned that this year it could be back to chaos again.

I will make my own mind up in the next few days, but I'd be interested in any views anyone has on here.

[GreatGranny]

Not sure I would be travelling anywhere unless they had a no cost cancellation policy.

UK adults may well be 100% vaccinated by the end of July (1st vaccine) but no way of telling about other European countries.

[RC1807]

GreatGranny said:

Not sure I would be travelling anywhere unless they had a no cost cancellation policy.

UK adults may well be 100% vaccinated by the end of July (1st vaccine) but no way of telling about other European countries.

The UK were, from what I've seen, poor at testing, but have proven excellent at vaccinating.
The rest of the EU, in my opinion, have been good at testing (I've been tested 5x now!), but pretty st at rolling out the vaccinations.

I'd echo the view that it's best to have a fully refundable trip for 2021.


(For example, I live in Luxembourg. Mass testing can reach 15k people / day, every day. Vaccinations, however, have only reached about 20k people in total, of a 650k population. % wise, that's st! )

[chris7676]

RC1807 said:

The UK were, from what I've seen, poor at testing, but have proven excellent at vaccinating.

I would say the UK is doing great at any covid numbers in a purely quantitate way (tested, infected, dead, vaccinated, possibly number of days some businesses closed too).

Even the vaccination, otherwise an actual success, is at the potential cost of full year immunity as the doses were spaced beyond what was part of the trials (Pfizer) and the efficacy is not really known for Astra with 12 week spacing.

[chris7676]

Back to topic - I would personally prefer to fly but book when the schedule is more mature as things are likely to change, failing that you could drive.

[pjv997]

I am hoping to do a European driving holiday late Aug or early Sep. But as we are only two, we can be flexible on dates, Eurotunnel crossings, which countries we visit and where we stay - so we can book right up to the last minute. That might not be so simple if you have a larger family to consider.

But I also have a long weekend flight booked to Italy at the end of September. Booked in the BA sale at the end of Jan. So cheap it would have been rude not to book. And I figured if we can’t fly then because of restrictions, BA will be around to honour a voucher for a future booking - something I wouldn’t say about all airlines.

[Wiltshire Lad]

Both Hotels.com & Booking.com have a broad reach geographically and a 100% cancellation policy up until a few days from departure. Had a road trip in France planned last year and no problem with getting refunds. Both have properties in Puglia on the books. I would start there.