Road trips
A trip where the journey is the holiday. Planning the route, the stops and the driving days, drawn from our family road trips in California, Costa Rica and Oman.
★★★★★ Rated 4.5 out of 5
The same country can give you a road trip, a city break or a lazy week by the sea, and each one feels like a different holiday. This is Stage 2 of the Platinum Travel Planning Roadmap, where you decide what kind of trip you’re taking.
The holiday style you choose matters more than most people think. Same destination, same dates, same people, and the trip can still go brilliantly or fall a bit flat depending on the shape you build around it. A week in Croatia at a hotel by the sea is a completely different holiday to a week driving down the Dalmatian coast, even though the country hasn’t changed.
This page is Stage 2 of our Platinum Travel Planning Roadmap, which we call Define the what. It’s for anyone who has already worked out who they’re travelling with and now needs to decide what kind of trip to take. Below I walk through the main types of holidays we plan, how to choose between them and where each one tends to work best.
One thing to say up front. We plan independently, so you won’t find all-inclusive resorts or coach tours here. We’d rather choose where to eat each evening and get a little lost on purpose. If a package suits you better, that’s absolutely fine, and other blogs cover that kind of trip far better than we could.
Quick answer: The five main types of holidays we plan are road trips, city breaks, coastal holidays, camping and eco holidays. Choose between them by pace, by how much you want to move around and by who’s coming, then add the experiences you want on top.
Stage 2 is where you decide the shape of your holiday, before you commit to a destination, dates or a budget. The Roadmap follows a deliberate order. Who you’re travelling with comes first, because the group shapes everything else. The kind of holiday comes second, because it shapes how you’ll experience wherever you end up going.
Most travel planning skips this step and jumps straight from inspiration to destinations. In my experience, getting the style right is the single most useful thing you can do to avoid a trip that looks great on paper but doesn’t quite work in practice.
You’re in good company whichever style you pick. ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2025-26 report found that beach holidays and city breaks were the two most popular types of holiday for UK travellers, followed by countryside breaks, road trips and adventure holidays.
There are two halves to Stage 2, and it helps to keep them apart.
Most Stage 2 mistakes happen where the two meet, when people cram every experience into a trip whose shape doesn’t suit them. Get the style clear first, then layer the experiences in. Our holiday experiences guide covers the second half.
These are the five holiday styles we plan and write about, each with its own guide. The sixth card is for the other half of Stage 2, the experiences you build into whichever style you choose.
A trip where the journey is the holiday. Planning the route, the stops and the driving days, drawn from our family road trips in California, Costa Rica and Oman.
A short trip built around one city. What a city break is, who it suits, when to go and how to plan days that feel restful rather than rushed.
A base by the sea for a long weekend or a fortnight. Choosing the right kind of coastal trip for your group, from Cornish coves to winter sun.
From a tent in a field to a shepherd’s hut with a wood burner. Choosing your camping style, your site and your season, with what years of family camping taught us.
Holidays that look after the places you visit. How to spot greenwashing, the eco stays we’ve loved in Costa Rica and Oman, and where eco-tourism goes wrong.
Also in Stage 2
The other half of Stage 2. Wildlife, watersports, walking, food and drink, bucket list trips and more, to build into whichever style you choose.
Here’s how the five styles compare on the things that decide whether a trip will work for you. The cost level is relative, because every style can be done cheaply or expensively.
| Holiday style | Best for | Typical length | Pace | Cost level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coastal holidays | Families, couples, friends | One to two weeks | Slow | Low to high |
| City breaks | Everyone, especially couples and solo travellers | Two to five nights | Fast | Low to high |
| Road trips | Couples, families with teens, friends | One to three weeks | Varies day to day | Medium to high |
| Camping | Families, couples, friends, solo travellers | Three nights to two weeks | Slow | Low to medium |
| Eco holidays | Anyone who wants to tread more lightly | One to three weeks | Slow | Medium to high |
Three questions will get you most of the way to an answer.
Some of the best holidays we’ve had have been hybrids, like a road trip with a few days at the coast at the end. Combining two styles works best when you have at least ten days, when nobody will struggle with the change of pace, and when the destination supports both within easy reach. Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, the western United States and New Zealand all lend themselves to two-style trips.
Stage 2 sits between the who and the when, and it shapes every decision that follows.
Three mistakes come up again and again at this stage. All of them are avoidable.
The main types of holidays are road trips, city breaks, coastal or beach holidays, camping (including glamping) and eco holidays. Others, such as cruises, ski trips and all-inclusive resort stays, sit outside how we travel. Within any of them you can add experiences like wildlife watching, walking, watersports or food and drink.
Start with who's coming and what they need, then think about pace and movement. If you want rest, a coastal holiday or a quiet campsite usually fits. If you want variety, a road trip or a city break will suit you better. If you only have a long weekend, a city break is the easiest style to do well in a short time.
Camping is usually the cheapest holiday style, especially if you already own the kit and stay in the UK. City breaks to less expensive cities can also be good value, particularly outside school holidays and with hand luggage only.
Yes, and it often works well. A road trip that ends with a few days by the sea, or a city break followed by time in the countryside, are both common pairings. Give yourself at least ten days and choose places where the two parts are within easy reach of each other.
The trips we remember most fondly weren't always the most ambitious ones. They were the ones where the shape of the holiday suited the people on it, whether that meant a busy few days in a city or a week of doing very little by the sea.
So once you know who's coming, pick the style that fits them, open the guide above and start sketching the trip. When you're ready, move on to Stage 3 of the Roadmap to work out when to go and for how long.
Happy planning, whatever shape your trip takes.