Unsure whether to take a motorhome on the ferry or the Eurotunnel? Most of the time there is a clear winner for me
If you’re taking a motorhome to France, the faster Eurotunnel or the more relaxed ferry both have their own pros and cons to consider.
Rushing: it has its good points. After all, the shortest way between two points is said to be a straight line, and, when you come to compare a tunnel and a ferry route, it tends to be the tunnel that’s the straighter of the two, wouldn’t you say?
This is something you could find yourself pondering if you’re planning on touring Europe in a campervan or a motorhome; whether to take the Eurotunnel or the ferry.
With a tunnel, you just turn up, show your ticket, pass through the barrier, whizz into the big hole in the ground those clever engineers have built, and in no time at all you are in glorious sunshine on the other side, happily on your way to pitching up at one of the best campervan sites in France or beyond.
No awkward ferry gangways to negotiate (a particular concern if you have a vehicle with a long rear overhang), no being forced to leave your vehicle for hours and wait while the ferry negotiates awkward harbours or strange tides – in fact, no disruption due to bad weather. Makes perfect sense!
Well, not entirely. There are plenty of plus points to breaking your outward or return journey with a ferry crossing, rather than a rush through a noisy and smelly tunnel. These quickly become clear if you consider the sea crossing that is closest to home for most of us – the English Channel.
Take a motorhome or a campervan across the Channel via Eurotunnel, and yes, you will get there in less than an hour, and yes, you can marvel at the technology as you drive onto the train, at least the first time you go. But that really is it as far as your journey goes. And when you get to the other end you are in the Pas de Calais – hands down the drabbest part of France (except possibly for Le Touquet) – and you are faced with a good three or four hours driving before you even begin to get near those Vendée beaches, Loire castles and Dordogne fortified villages you might have been hoping to see.
Take a ferry further down Le Manche – to Dieppe, Caen, Cherbourg, or either of the Breton ports, and you are more or less there when you arrive. Yes, the actual crossing may cost more, but factor in the extra fuel you will use driving north to Calais, and the extra aggravation you may face having to navigate the autoroutes in the Paris region – and you may find things work out fairly equal.
In any case, judge your crossing right, get the right weather, and you may find you have added on a pleasant little mini-cruise to the start or the end of your holiday that you hadn’t even considered.
This was certainly my experience last time I came back from St Malo to Portsmouth. I’d booked a day cabin, which I initially thought was perhaps a bit of an extravagance. But actually given the fraught journey up from La Rochelle the night before, and the early morning start, I was thankful to go back to bed for a couple of hours.
When I woke up, I thought for a moment we were almost arriving, but in fact we were only just passing the northernmost tip of the Cotentin peninsula, with Cherbourg just in the distance. Yes, the ferry had taken that long to navigate the treacherous waters out of St Malo (not for nothing did the port gain a reputation in early modern times for being a corsair’s lair), but from then on we had a glorious crossing in brilliant sunshine all the way home.
As we approached the English coastline, there were even bits of my home country that looked spectacular. Swanage, for example – never been there, but now I mean to go! In fact, it was only through remembering the message that was drilled into me on beach holidays as a kid – that all distances look nearer when you see them over water – that I stopped myself wanting to jump in and swim over there and then. (We were still an hour off the coast.)
Even on another less balmy afternoon sailing back to Newhaven a few years earlier, we may have been confined to barracks, but I had great fun whiling away some of the four hours listening to a party on the next table devise a game which essentially involved them having to remember all the best parts of the holiday they had just been on. (When are you going to get that, sitting in your own vehicle while being hurtled underground?)
OK, so not every ferry experience is so enjoyable. But they can be. So this summer, when you are booking, if you want to get there in a flash, by all means head for the tunnel. But for a more leisurely, civilised ponder, the ferry is still hard to beat.
Before heading to France or beyond this year, make sure you know about the various road networks and their regulations you could encounter while enjoying a European tour, including the tolls, vignettes and LEZs.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, why not get the latest news, reviews and features delivered direct to your door or inbox every month. Take advantage of our brilliant Practical Motorhome magazine SUBSCRIBERS’ OFFER and SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER for regular weekly updates on all things motorhome related.
