We’re a family that rushes around too much in day-to-day life, flitting from football training to children’s parties to drama clubs. So, being forced to take it slow on trains, ferries and during campervan journeys gives us precious time to catch our breath and just be together. We read books, listen to audiobooks, play family games and spot things out of the window and from deck.
Each summer, we’ve become more skilled at no-fly travel, learning that you need to complement the desire to see as much as possible with a good number of longer stops to relax. And, while children travel for free with Interrail if they’re 11 or under (up to two children with one paying adult), the accommodation budget is the one to watch. It can be a challenge to find low-cost places to stay as a family of four in peak season – but that has made us more creative.
We swapped an expensive hotel option in the Slovenian town of Bled, for example, with a spacious chalet in Spodnje Gorje, a 10-minute bus journey away. Here, we discovered the natural beauty spot, the Vintgar Gorge. It was walkable from our chalet door. We took snaking wooden walkways to the Šum Waterfall – the water was so clear that the kids spotted fish below.
Cathy and her family found that Vintgar Gorge was walking distance from their accommodation (Photo: Cathy Toogood)
Travelling flight-free has also given us all a much better sense of where places are in the world as we’ve plotted routes on maps and admired destinations out of train windows. Arriving by rail or ferry also tends to parachute you straight into your destination whereas airports are often outside the place you’re visiting. Stepping out on to the Grand Canal in Venice from Venezia Santa Lucia railway station is hard to beat.
Every year, we choose a new destination, then we plot the route from our home city of Manchester. My husband and I chose Kos this year (it’s where we met in 2001, and we hadn’t been back since). We worked out the most sensible journey by rail, and then ferry. With a rough itinerary in mind, all of the family then pitches for the destinations they’d like to visit.
May went for the Greek island of Tilos (an hour-and-a-half by ferry from Kos), which she read was the world’s first zero-waste island – it has become self-sufficient for energy and closed its landfill site. It is also, she discovered, where bones of the last elephants in Europe were found. Plus, goats are said to outnumber locals (May kept a tally in her notebook as we explored by bus – and, indeed, she did spot more goats than people).
Zac requested Lyon in France for nostalgia reasons – we’d been there on a previous rail trip and he had fond memories of our budget hotel, with a puppet theatre in the reception, and an ice cream shop nearby that sculpts scoops into flowers.
Cathy and her family took a trip to Venice – travelling by rail can take you right to the heart of a destination (Photo: Cathy Toogood)
This makes planning sound idyllic – it’s not. It’s the hardest part of our trips, as we piece together journey times that don’t leave too early or arrive too late. We must keep kids’ bedtimes and mealtimes in mind. We also have to find travel options that get us far enough, but don’t involve sitting still for too long. Plus, we need to opt for destinations where we can easily get around – either by bike, if we’re camping, or on foot if we’re travelling by train or ferry.
Other holidaymakers might decide to use experts, such as the flight-free travel company Byway – 15 per cent of its customers are families. Byway can take a family’s ideas and stitch them together, booking the transport and accommodation.
“The planning is why Byway came to be,” says Paul Conroy, head of partnerships at the company. He speaks to me after just returning from his own flight-free family adventure through Europe.
“Fly-and-flop holidays using flights are generally quite straightforward to book. Flight-free is a bit more difficult,” he adds.
Going flight-free is an adventure (Photo: Cathy Toogood)
More difficult, yes. But, for us, more rewarding. Our two- to three-week trips feel much longer as we dip in and out of different countries and cultures, combining faster-paced city stays with lazier days on the beach or by a lake, snorkelling and swimming. And we end every trip wanting more.
So much more that we’re already planning next year’s adventure. May has already put in a request for Goldau in Switzerland, a place that she oohed and aahed at out of the train window on our way to Milan.
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 07:39:00
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