taking my van to costa blanca murcia

Hi all, been on here about furnature, i think i am going to fill my van here in the uk and then buy the rest around about, my thoughts are the best route ie ferry etc we are in the north west of england, it is a transit van so i could probable get a lot in it, i am just wondering about the cost, i just wondered has anyone done it and may have a breakdown cost. thanks in advance for reply.

                                                                                                                                                                     kind regards john

We have an apartment near La Zenia, Orihuela Costa. 

We decided to take some stuff there and enjoy travelling through France as part of the hol.  On reflection we'd have done better to fly and then buy there what we took with us.  I guess if you're moving house it's different but it's an horrendously long journey. 

We drove to Portsmouth, took the overnight ferry to Caen and drove through France to cross into Spain near Perpinan, staying B&B one night en route and then again on the border.  We then drove along the AP7 to La Zenia in one day (which is about as far as from Caen to Perpignan!!!).  Never again!  We are older travellers though (I'm 59 and husband 77 at the time)

It seemed like a good idea - enjoy France as well - but adding it all up the costs were way over.

Probably the best way if you want to use the ferry is using the Brittany Ferries UK to Spain routes.

If you have plenty of time and can camp out you'd be best using the cheapest crossing to the continemet and then taking your time driving down but even then it's going to be pretty costly in fuel.

Hope you manage to sort your best way.

Kind regards, Jane

Jane, this sounds like a lot of hard work and very expensive too. My husband keeps suggesting we drive to Spain for a change but having read this I think we'll stick to flying !

Go for it!! Take the central France route to avoid most of the tolls. From Murcia we make an early start and then do a stop over around Clermont Ferrand (12 hours) and then an early start the next day puts us in Calais (10 hours) that night for a crossing to Dover where we do another hotel stop, so two stops should see you through. Yes it is tiring if you have never done it before but we are used to driving the distance and the roads are fabulous. Fuel in France is expensive to fill at a supermarket in Calais and then do your best, we only need one French fill-up after Calais before hitting Spain (unless the traffic isn't kind).  There are also now many new non-toll sections to avoid the AP-7 in Spain which helps.  We get from Murcia to Birmingham in about 800 Euros including fuel, tolls, ferry and a cheap hotel - That is not too bad a deal if what you want to bring with you is important to you. Van is a 2.8 turbo diesel Iveco Daily XLWB and usually full.

You need to plan well to avoid costs, we recently did a round trip from Murcia up to Leeds in the car in two weeks taking in total about 6000km and visiting loads of off route places including Norfolk and then following the Atlantic coast down through France (La Rochelle etc) and then cutting across so we still did the la Jonquera border to stay with friends in Girona and the total cost including a different hotel almost every night was not much over 1000 Euros.

It's all in the planning.  Good luck :-)

We did the drive last Summer from West Yorkshire to Heredades (Costa Blanca). We left home around 7p.m. to miss the evening rush hour & was booked on Eurotunnel arond 3A.M. We arrived early  so managed to get the train around 12.30 (ish) We had a bit of a sleep in the car just outside Calais then set off again at dawn. Had a hotel booked in Bordeaux then off again at the crack of dawn & arrived in Heredades around 6P.M. coming via Pamplona & Valencia. We both shared the driving & really enjoyed it. It cost around £250 in tota (each way)l which is about the same as flights during peak school hols however we save on the cost of hiring a car for 6 weeks (around £800) Driving home we explored a bit & took 5 days with lots of time to enjoy Northern Spain although wasn't very impressed  with the stops we had in France!

Planning to do the drive again next year if we can both get the 6 weeks off work

I think it's one of the things you will either love or hate.

Good luck