First time UK and Europe - car/motorhome/train ?
 

Well the SQ J award tickets are booked, we fly into LHR on May 13, want to spend maybe a week in London, then tour the UK - north to Scotland and south to Wiltshire to do some family history stuff.

We then want to take a ferry across the channel, and explore France, Belgium, Holland, northern Italy and back to Zurich for our departing flight to SIN on June 20.

We did a motorhome holiday in NZ and loved it.

So far discovered that car rental will give us one way rentals, but motor homes do not cost much more per day. However in the UK and also France one way rentals are not cost effective, so UK pick up in Toddington near Luton, and in a Parisian suburb.

So what do the experts say, car for ease of parking etc and no back tracking, or motorhome with back track and some connecting train travel.

Open to suggestions

Thanks in advance

I'd say: don't underestimate how crowded and tedious busier motorways can be!

Personally, I'd get the train from London up to Scotland, and do a motorhome tour there. Then fly (to Heathrow/Bristol/Southampton) or get the train back down, and use a car (or motorhome, depending on number of days) to tour Wiltshire. Depending on what you're doing there, you might enjoy a narrowboat on the Kennet & Avon.

I wouldn't drive across the channel - the steering wheel and everything will be on the wrong side and the repatriation costs of the car/motorhome would be astronomical. If you want to get the ferry rather than the train, I'd recommend taking one of the longer ferry routes like Harwich - Hoek van Holland or Portsmouth - St Malo - doing Dover-Calais as a foot passenger is pretty tedious (with the notable exception of the view of the white cliffs on departure).

Once in continental Europe, make sure you don't underestimate how busy roads can be again, particularly if you're around school holiday time. If you can plan a route that is primarily on back roads, with more frequent stops, rather than a long run from, say, Amsterdam to Milan, I think you'll save yourself a lot of frustration.

If you're planning on driving through Switzerland, do read up on the motorway vignette.

If you're planning on doing a one-way trip, then you'll likely need to leave it in the same country. Perhaps you could consider leaving the motorhome somewhere in France somewhere near this Swiss border, and getting the train to Zurich airport?

I agree with -almost- everything you wrote. Just a reminder, though: Continental Europe is larger than the UK both population- and surface-wise. In this respect, I'd like to recommend an excellent book from many, many years ago: George Mikes' "How to be an alien". One of the funniest books that I ever read and certainly a must for both people new to the UK and britons! Here's, as an appetiser, the chapter on driving cars. ;)

That's a terrific book! My mother brought it with her when she immigrated to the US, and I read it over and over. Some of its allusions will be lost on modern readers, though, like "no starter ... no starter." :) [EDIT] Oops, evidently that phrase is from another Mikes book, How to Be an American, which appears to be out of print.

I don't even think you can take a rental to the mainland, so you may want to check up on that.

Take the train and rent a car as needed?