This is my vacation budget. Avoid the highways to save on the holiday route

Gasoline is expensive right now and even more so on the highway. So why not leave the expressways and take the national and departmental ones? Saving fuel costs by driving more slowly and avoiding tolls also means accepting to waste a little time. “On a trip like this, there was a two-hour gap. Two more hours”explains Cyril Franchineau, who encouraged his daughter to get off the highways.

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To help him take only the national and departmental ones, he himself made the layout on a map. Departure a few days ago from Chambéry, in Savoie, and arrival on the other side of France, in the Landes. “I made her the connection with the motorway, where she saved 70 euros on a journey, than on the toll. By making a straight line, passing through Saint-Etienne, Le Puy-en-Velay, Rodez, then Toulouse .”

Cyril, too, avoids highways as much as possible. Question of economy first. It saves the price of tolls and motorway gas stations are often also more expensive. And then it drives slower, so it consumes less. “On the journey we made this summer, that means easy savings between 100 and 150 euros. This represents a good hotel night in a stopover”.

Beyond the financial aspect, there is also the idea of ​​traveling differently by taking your time. But Cyril recognizes it, it’s still easier now that his children are grown up. “I’m going as a couple. We no longer have young children. And now, we have the principle that the trip is part of the holidays.”

When his children were younger, he sought to arrive as soon as possible at destination “so that everyone is quiet, and that it is less long for the children”, explains the father of the family. “We took the easy way and also the safety, since the highway is both. And now, we take more time, we make stopovers, we stop.”

As in July, when Cyril and his companion drove quietly, from Savoy, on the roads of Vendée, Berry, the Poitevin marshes and the Lot. “We stopped in villages that we hadn’t planned on at all. Like Martel, in the Lot. We spent 3-4 hours there. The Pont du Gard too.”

“When you take the highway, you just see the sign. And there, we took the small roads, we went through the villages around too and we came across the bridge. Thanks to that, we can discover our country. “

Cyril, motorist

at franceinfo

In addition to his daughter, Cyril hopes to have convinced some of his friends to take alternative routes. He shares photos of his journeys and villages crossed on social networks.