driving from Charles DeGualle airport

You might as well get a third opinion. Try www.viamichelin.com. They are French you know.

ditch the car and take the train; there is a TGV that goes south with connections to whee you want to go

If you still want to use the car from CDG. Then best route to my personal experience is to bypass Paris at the east-side by following the A3 and A86 till you hit the A6 at the south-side of Paris.

Your worry is understandable as roads are busy and you will see a lot of names on the signposts, what can be distractive. So coming from CDG follow freeway A1-A3 (Paris) and soon just the signs with on top a smaller red sign with A3. The A3 makes north-east of Paris a left turn, flying over the A1, where you start bypassing the city at the east-side.

You have to follow the A3 over some 9km till it hits the ringroad A86! That also means keep following direction Bordeaux-Nantes-Lyon with on top A86. Don’t make the mistake staying on the A3, because it goes straight to downtown Paris! After a while on the A86 you see sometimes N186A instead of A86, no worry it’s actually the same road. So keep following this windy road clockwise around Paris over 25km, till you see A6 (A10) on top of the signs. That’s nearby airport Orly, you have to keep the lane following Bordeaux-Nantes-Lyon that makes later a left turn underneath the A86 and joins the A6 to Lyon. After just a few km the road splits in a direction to Bordeaux-Nantes A10 and Lyon A6 (E15). Keep following direction Lyon for going to Chamonix. Mainly the highways just close to Paris are free, mainroads are tollroads, like the A6 to Lyon.

If you make the mistake to go downtown Paris you can make use of the Périphérique to drive to the A6.

Bon route!

And of course, with the driving web sites, you'd request a route departing Charles de Gaulle Airport, not Paris itself.

The way I'd do it is to give Paris a wide skip by leaving the airport on the A104 and stick with it until the short stretch of A105 that connects to the A5. Stick with the A5 until you hit the A31 southbound toward Dijon.

On the east side of a Dijon you'll stumble onto the A39. Ride it until the A40 and swing west the rest of the way on it.

You're looking at a mean eight hours counting a couple of very short breaks. The scenery isn't that exciting. See if there isn't a fairly early train that would chug you into Lyon in a couple of hours with no changes. After that, you'd only have a couple or three hours of driving. If you switch to this idea, take the route that's about fifteen minutes longer and cuts past Chambery for better scenery and also misses the Geneva outskirts.

It is beyond irresponsible to get off a transatlantic all night flight and then drive a great distance. it is fine to put your own life at risk and I suppose your own family but what about the innocent drivers you will meet on the road? (if your flight is a hop from Frankfort or London -- then nevermind) Take the train and pick up a car after you have had a night's sleep at your destination.

I would definitely not attempt this drive after a TATL.

I did this somewhat in reverse last September and I had already been in France for 2 weeks. We were driving from Chartres to Pierrefonds....north of Paris.....actually I was driving and navigating as my DH has trouble finding his way out of the driveway....ha! Anyway I do possess an uncanny sense of direction but also downloaded the appropriate maps for my husband to follow.

Let's just say that all those road numbers don't necessarily correspond to the road signs once you are driving. It was pouring rain and I really wanted to avoid the Periphique ....it was not to be....good thing I cut my driving teeth in New Jersey because although mid-day it was like rush hour on the Turnpike heading to NYC.......mind you ....you do have to keep up with the flow of traffic especially the merging traffic on your right.....road signs with numbers were wizzing by....fortunately there were signs noting various towns I recalled from my map reading........Told my husband to look for CDG signs then I spotted a sign for Lille....knew Lille was going in direction I wanted to go.........husband screamed thought you wanted to go to CDG....I do I replied.....but No sign yet and Lille is is north of Paris......off we went and then the road split and lo and behold there was the CDG sign.....all was good because now I was on the A1.......and heading to Pierrefonds north of Paris.......4 hours later sitting in the lounge of Hotel Beaudon a woman arrived for checkin looking like a drowned cat..shaking like a leaf...she told the hotelier she was caught on the Periphique for 2 hours and white-knuckled it to Pierrefonds.

In short.....I'd take the train......

Another voice added to chorus of those suggesting that you take the train. One of the few things that I have done in France that was a nightmare was being a passenger in a car being driven by a person who was driving after a transatlantic flight. In hindsight, it was not the way to start the trip. The driver conceded that after about 2.5 hours that he could not make it to Macon without stopping and we actually had to pull over in a rest area and sleep. While everyone is different and you may be the person who is completely unaffected by jetlag, I'd suggest that you reconsider taking on an almost 7 hour drive. By the way with our trip, our flight was delayed over 2 hours and our wait for a rental car was lengthy and we were smack dab in rush hour traffic even though we were scheduled to arrive at around 6:30 AM.

Janet – Chris – JHK - I totally agree with the advice not to drive such a long distance after a long distance flight, thanks for the warning, sorry for not mentioning that! Safety and responsability must always have priority, take enough rest before moving further!

Driving to Chamomix after arriving on a transatlantic flight would be brutal. Take the train and pick up the car the next day when you've gotten some rest.

The drive from Paris to Chamonix is lovely, rolling hills, small villages with church steeples peeking up. Not exciting terrain but, having driven both, it is much more interesting than Colorado to Iowa. The French highways are in excellent shape and the restareas (aires) generally have fresh espresso or capachino and good pastries and some have full restaurants.

It is easy to drive away from Paris and Wil gave great driving instructions.

The exit signs in Europe generally show a city far far away rather than the next town, confusing at first but think "direction Lille" vs. "Lille is at this exit". Not unlike seeing a sign for Omaha or Chicago when leaving Denver, it is a good leason in geography, a paper map can help with understanding these signs. GPS is also good but via.michellin is better, look up the route before you go and you can put in closer towns to fine tune the gps suggestions.

Also stay in the right lane except when passing and have euro coins and bils for the tolls.

Eveyone is different with thier response to jet lag, you may be fine - especially if you sleep on the plane. It may not hit you until the next day and by then you will be in Chamonix! If you are exhausted just stop at a lovely aire or walk in a small village, or if you are really spacy give up, get a hotel and continue the next day. Driving in Europe is great fun and much more flexible than the train.

Enjoy the trip!